40th anniversary of an amazing achievement!

It is amazing what people are capable of. The potentiality that God has built in to man. 40 years ago today, we actually sent two people to land on another heavenly body. It is still probably the greatest technological achievement of man on many levels. The Saturn V rocket was the most powerful (other than bombs) device we’ve ever created… 1 billion horsepower! I mean… think about it, before the internet and memory measured in gigabytes and computer speed measured in gigaherz, we put men on the moon AND returned them safely to the earth.

God has built that same potentiality into you and me. I wonder what I’m doing with it…

Am I getting old?

I mean… the fact is that communication is changing like crazy in our world, and I’m treading water to keep up with it. I blog occasionally, thinking somebody might actually be interested in my thoughts. I am tweeting a little now, too, and as cool as I think it is following some interesting people like Tony Morgan and Todd Rhoades and Charlie Hall, I tend to think it’s silly of me to think that people care what I’m doing or thinking.

But…

If what I’m doing or thinking is leading toward Jesus… is that really getting old? I hope not. I hope it’s getting new…

Cut off

I will be spending two whole days with no email or internet… Will I survive? Will I return with some kind of a facial “tick”? Will I break down in the middle of the night and drive to some all-night Truckstop/Intenet Cafe?

Do I rely on this technology too much? I think maybe… I’m about to find out…

So… I’m tweeting…

…but I can’t figure out why.

It seems everybody in the world is on twitter these days, and I have to say, even though I try and keep my entries here short, what on earth does anybody care about following somebody else’s every move through the day in 140-character blocks. I’ll try and stay with it for a while (I do it from my computer, though, not my phone), and I’ll follow some friends…

…but somebody help me out here, is this just one of those things like CB radios in everybody’s car that we’re just going to laugh at in 20 years? I think maybe…

I don’t even know how to post a “follow me on twitter” link. If you “tweet”, I’m peterhamm.

Be excellent… like my Mac…

Okay, it isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t do everything perfectly, but I was just reminded today of how lucky I am that I’m typing this on a Mac. My Mac works better than any PC I ever used… I have no antivirus running… at all… because I’ve never had a virus on my last two macs… at all… I restart about 4 or 5 times a year… a year, not a week…

I don’t say this to sell Macs, but rather to say, how is it in your life that you work hard enough, pursue excellence enough, that you are the “reliable one” as opposed to the “high-maintenance one”. If you’re lucky, it’s in your work, and this makes you happy. If you’re even luckier, it’s in your hobby, and it makes you even happier.

Be excellent today!

Exponential 09 – Bob Roberts

Bob was interesting, although, to be honest, his important message for us to know more about other world religions is less important in a place like Du Bois, PA than perhaps a metro area like DC or NYC.

In any case, you can learn more about Bob here.

My important take-away is that the geographical boundaries that used to define religions’ spheres of influence no longer do. It is a little unsettling to think that certain non-Christian religions are growing in the West and Christianity, which has long been seen as a “western” religion (but it really isn’t… only our American-ized version of it currently is), is growing in places like Africa and Indonesia and all over the global South.

Share Jesus, not American Christianity! Jesus came to change the world through the church… and that’s us!

Exponential 09: VERY quick thoughts from Neil Cole’s talk.

Fascinating stuff! Sorry, this is only semi-edited, but I thought I’d get it out there for you to think about.

Don’t plant churches, plant the kingdom seeds. The church is the by-product. The idea starts with a seed, the word of God. Your sermon isn’t the word, the Word is… and you will never preach a sermon that will change the world. Don’t just “preach”, invest in the lives of others, and then you will finally realize multiplication.

Planting churches that reshuffle Christians is not kingdom growth. And your efforts should be concentrated to make disciples, don’t make new churches.

Interesting that the first words spoken to man “be fruitful…” are similar to the last words Jesus says to his disciples.

This one is huge for those of us who work in churches that focus on outreach to people who are far from God. Only one out of four soils in the parable of the seeds bear fruit. So if 10 people come to Christ and only 2 bear fruit, don’t babysit the 10 inordinately, work with the 2 and they will multiply. “Jesus didn’t give his heart to the multitude.” The few who do bear fuit will grow like crazy and that’s how the kingdom grows…

There’s way more, but that’s a good place to start.

I’m not a Christian… (?)

Okay, I really am (I got you goin’ there, didn’t I), but I’m avoiding the word “Christian” pretty often these days. It’s a GREAT word, but the culture has changed its meaning (not it’s definition) and I need to engage my culture with the presence of God (Christ) in my life.

In Scripture, the word “Christian” (which appears in the original only two times) was originally applied by “non-believers” to the church to indicate (derisively) that we thought we were “little Jesuses” the way we served the poor and loved each other and stuff like that. Now, in many instances, we self-apply the label based on a creed or list of beliefs, and not necessarily also based on our behavior. Creeds and doctrine are vitally important, but they are not the way we show the world that we are followers of Jesus. We show the world that we follow Jesus based on our great love for one another.

I’m thankful to be in a church that is known for our deeds in the community, and people are attracted by that and end up engaging Jesus in all His fullness because of the way we love them!

(This is an edited version of a response I posted on another blog…)

Peace is declared… again…

I live in a country that has, for the 44th time, transferred the reins of power to a new individual… peacefully. For those USAmericans reading this, I hope I know how blessed and fortunate you are, as this is not the way it normally works in the world.

Let us al pray that our new leader makes wise decisions, and that his advisors give him wise counsel.

Positive!

I woke up this morning in a country where the citizens had decided to change the regime in power… totally peacefully. There are no soldiers in the streets of my town, there are no riots, no gangs, nothing of that sort…

47 years and some ago, a man was born in a country where people his “color” couldn’t even vote in some places. Today he is the leader-elect of the most powerful nation in the world. He was elected by the people without regard, it seems, for the color of his skin. Martin Luther King dreamed of a time when a man would be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Yesterday’s election signaled, to me, that perhaps that time is suddenly upon us.

Now, some of you disagree with some or much of Obama’s politics. In all fairness, I also disagree with many of them. But for today, I ask can we put those differences aside, and can we celebrate how far we have come, and pray for wisdom for our president-elect as he begins the very important task of selecting advisors and preparing for his time to lead us?

Feel free to comment, but I’m actually not interested in hosting a political debate (so I’ll remove or edit comments as need be). There are some other great places on the web to do that. Today I just want to celebrate the fact that the United States, as a nation, apparently no longer cares what color your skin is… For that I rejoice!