My Friend Cole

A few weeks ago we found out that one of the two year olds in our church was diagnosed with leukemia.

There’s a lot I could and probably say about this but for now I’m just going to tell you about his dad’s blog. It’s a great way to see some pictures, hear the story and even find out what you can do to help.

Spent

Pretty wiped out after this unusually busy weekend. Saturday was spent raking leaves, putting up a lighting fixture and then competing against my formidable 10 year old son/opponent in FIFA ‘08 Soccer on the Wii.

Then spent Sunday doing some various church activities.  Good worship service Sunday — felt average about the message. Spent the afternoon/evening with 16 people at our Partnership Seminar (membership class). I like to hear myself speak but this might have been too much in one day yesterday.

Good weekend all around — just tiring.

Some People Just Have It

I was reading Ben Arment’s blog today and it got me thinking.  It doesn’t take long to see what some people’s natural gifting is.  Some blog’s show a teaching gift, others administrative, others discernment.  Two things always strike me about Ben — leadership and creativity.  Both just jump off his pages.

One of the great things about church planting for me has been watching how God has built our church with different people from different backgrounds with different passions and different gifting.  As a pastor it’s very exciting and fun to watch and lead a church where people aren’t only unique but willing to role up their sleeves and use their God-given uniqueness for His Kingdom and His Glory.

It reminds me of 1 Peter 2:4-5 – “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

The Critics

Thankfully at this point I don’t have any personal reason to comment on this because no one’s reading my blog but I just read something on Tadd Grandstaff’s blog that made me think about this.

What is it about the blogging world that has brought out the “ugly” in so many Christians? Why do we see so many people that feel like they not only have the right to be a critic but also feel like they have the responsibility to be a critic?

Tadd has just had an incredible week, where God has used him and his newborn church to proclaim Jesus on a national stage and out of the woodwork (or mom’s basement) he has all kinds of critics. My guess is the critics don’t know Tadd, have never had a conversation with him, have never visited his church and have no idea what Tadd really believes. But that doesn’t seem to matter because it seems so easy to criticize those/what we don’t know.

Tadd and I don’t know each other although we have met. But as I read his blog I hurt for him. Early on in his church plant he should be celebrating the wins they’ve had by God’s grace instead of spending time dodging the bullets from other Christians. Early on in his church plant he should be focused on the mission instead of fighting hard to not be derailed by the distractions of critics. Early on in his church plant he should have men (and women) behind him, praying for him, asking God to keep him on track, instead of him having to answer to boys who are looking for a platform to build their own kingdoms.

If you’re a Christian — live John 13:34-35 with each other — especially in the very public blog world.

Jumping Back In

I’m not quite sure why I’m doing this but it’s happening.  It’s been about 4 years since my last blog post and for most of that time I’ve had very little desire to ever jump back in to the blogosphere.  Recently something changed in me and I’ve had a growing desire to blog again.

 

I think it stems from the desire I’ve had to put thoughts down on paper.  This is something I used to do a lot but in the past few years with church planting I’ve had little discipline to do so.  As a result my ability to craft sentences in a manner that at one point I was accustomed to has quickly deteriorated.  This has become frustrating.  So I think part of my desire to blog comes from a desire to write coherently once again.

 

Back when I was blogging I also felt this incredible pressure to say something — all the time.  That became too much in the midst of planting because every where I went everyone expected me to say something — all the time.  My goal for the blog will be to post regularly but not with the pressure to throw down multiple posts every day — I think I’m going to shoot for posting 5 out of 7 days a week and see how that feels.

 

Finally let me say that for me this blog is my opportunity to think outloud.  There are no promises about what we’ll be discussed, whether any of it will make sense or if any of my online thoughts are completely accurate.  One of the great things about thinking outloud is that it’s often a jumping off point so to speak.  Some of these thoughts may amount to something significant and others will die quickly.  As a result I’m going to post, not spend too much time editing and allow myself the freedom to think this way and not worry too much about the response.  We’ll see how unrealistic that is in the long term.