The Recession Made Us Better!

Some interesting stuff I’ve come upon lately. According to a recent Consumer Reports magazine poll, we’re saving more, spending less, and over half of us are paying our whole credit card bill each month. We are spending less than we earn for the first time in decades.

Then yesterday, from a really unlikely source, Parade magazine (read the article here), we find that even as about 4 our of 5 of us have felt the pinch, and nearly half have delayed or cancelled vacations (a good thing if it’s stuff we couldn’t afford anyway), more than half of us are getting closer to our spouses, way more than half are doing stuff ourselves, and I love this… 30% of us are volunteering more!

In the middle of the bad news, some great great stuff! Your thoughts?

It’s HERE!

Some dread it, some don’t.

Parents love it. When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for it. Summer was all well and good, but I wanted to get back to the classroom for some odd reason. In any case, ready or not, today is the first day of a brand new year.

Everybody has the same GPA today. Everybody has the same chance to have a great year. Everybody has the same opportunity to have… not such a great year. Every parent has the chance to regularly and intentionally help their kid(s) to get educated the best they can.

It’s like New Years Day.

Happy First Day of School!

So, I’m on Twitter AND Facebook…

…and I’m trying to figure out why. I’m not sure who is out there who really cares about what I’m thinking… but what the heck, might as well learn how people are starting to communicate in this crazy teched-up world, eh?

Love your family!

Went to a family reunion yesterday. I realized that a whole bunch of my cousins (this was my mother’s side of my family) were no longer with us.

You just never know. So love your family today. Tomorrow is too late.

Two Voice Guitar Primer

Hey everybody,

I finally wrote my little primer on “Two Voice Guitar”. You can see it here if you wanna!

Exponential – Erwin McManus

Erwin talks about the three “spaces” that Paul travels in Acts 17.

The 1st space… this is where we love people who are just like us, like the old synagogues, and our local churches

2nd space… this is where everyone lives and works… unfortunately, in the church we become irrelevant and anemic and incapable of effecting change in the world because we kind of “leave the marketplace”. We should go where people are in a sense, not pull people from there and “ruin them”. People are open to talking about spiritual matters in this place, and are looking for people who have the presence of Jesus in them… that it’s undeniable… If we can’t relate to the real world as pastors and church people, we can’t be the salt and light in the world. Christians often like a watered-down gospel, but the people who don’t believe yet who are out there in the marketplace wants a gospel that makes more sense… the story of heroism not just the “narcissistic” the story of our salvation.

There is a 3rd space where you have to be invited. When we’re invited into others’ space, they might embrace Christ! But those in the first space might reject us. That’s okay. This is the place where we can really make a huge difference and again, we’re only invited here because of our effectiveness in that second space.

More later…

Lessons from a hammer

A friend of mine recently wrote a really cool little post about stacking firewood, and a couple days later, I got a chance to help build my new deck (replacing an old deck we had to tear out).

Lessons learned from really good honest hard work.

1. You sleep better when every muscle and bone in your body is worn out.

2. It is best to hammer a nail straight and true, and hit it as hard as you can.

3. It is easier to pray while carrying huge beams of wood around your house than while typing up silly blog posts like this one.

4. The most beautiful piece of wood is not necessarily the straightest or best.

5. The right tool for the job is a blessing, the wrong tool is a curse.

6. Measure twice, cut once. 

7. You might be an expert in something, but not in everything. Listen to the guy who knows what he’s talking about, and do what he suggests.

8. Keep moving. Don’t stop. But don’t rush.

9. Buy some extra wood.

Any other thoughts?

Be…

I had a great first day back for the year yesterday. I had a long breakfast meeting with two people who lead one of my worship teams. We talked about the music for their weekend, but mostly we just visited, shared, commiserated, and just plain talked. It was great. Then I spent most of my afternoon with another one of the people I lead with, we spent time talking about songs, listening to some, planning, talking about family, tweaking guitar sounds, and just plain yukkin’ it up.

I got very little done, and I got TONS accomplished. Life is good, slow down. Take time to just be with the people who mean something to you.

Final REVEAL thoughts

Well, we’re back. There is way too much from the second day of REVEAL to share it all. So here are some highlights from the day’s really “catalytic” talk from John Ortberg. John is like an everyman’s Dallas Willard, and I think he’d love to be called that.

Are we creating, in ourselves and in those we lead (for those of us who lead), admirers of Jesus? Or disciples. The word Christian is in the Bible twice. The word “disciple” is there over 250 times. Jesus seems to have interacted with three groups: Strangers, admirers, and followers. Which am I? Which are you? Which do you want to be?

Are the core convictions at the heart of me, the things I demonstrate that I really believe by what I actually do, reflective of my private convictions, what I sincerely think I believe, and my public convictions, the things I tell the world I believe? Many of us are living a lie. We say we believe one thing, but act another way.

No, we won’t be perfect, but we can pursue the kind of faith that fosters integrity in our hearts, and share that with others, and, most importantly, lead others into that kind of place.

The Ortberg talk was just too good. If you ever have the chance to hear this guy speak, do NOT miss it.

Blessings all.

More on destinations and the Word

Some really great pastors spoke more yesterday about a couple of these things that churches who do well excel at.

1. Make the destination clear, where disciples hear from God and then make a great impact in their community and their world. These churches make the “spiritual on-ramp” clear. That there are some really key first steps that churches need to lead their people along. (For many of us it’s a membership class.) Here’s a couple of other things. We get people moving in their spiritual life by serving, and in serving, the greater the expectation, the greater the commitment. This is a great principle that we often forget about. If we ask people to rise to a great commitment… guess what… they will! Sometimes we who lead in the church assume that we have to make ministry real easy for those who volunteer. I’ve been on both sides of this, and have learned that when we volunteer in the church, we still want it to be rich and rewarding and challenging.

2. Embed the Bible in everything. A lot of these churches preach out of Scripture, not out of experience. One of the pastors said something that really struck me. The teacher doesn’t “master the text”, instead, the text masters the teacher! The text (of the Bible) teaches the teacher/preacher how to live, transforms his/her life, and makes that person into the person who can teach that learned and lived truth to others. One of the reasons we on the staff at TCC use the same Bible-reading plan that we recommend to our people (the “Life Journal”), is that we show by our own lives that Scripture is the foundation of the Church, it is what we are totally dependent on. It’s not “God”, but it is alive and living and vital and transforming. Also, there is power in being exposed to Scripture over and over. I can’t say this enough. If you’re reading this right now and not reading the Bible every day, you’re, I promise you, missing out. At TCC, we have a Life Journal you can buy pretty cheap, or you can do it online even easier here.