A Week in the Life

It’s been yet another busy week. We’ve started Servant Walk, our Sunday morning video curriculum, again after a couple weeks off of filming for Christmas and New Year. If you’re really interested in looking at some of the early attempts at video teaching by yours truly, hop over to YouTube and check out what we’ve done.

Next week, I’ll get back to teaching my two large group bible studies. We’ll finish up with the women’s study of Romans, and the men will be beginning studying Acts of the Apostles. Since our director of missions just took a new position as the director of mission for the Alabama West-Florida conference, I’ve been getting more of the assistance calls in the missions area, sometimes as many as three or four a day. We’ll have our first mission council meeting of the new year on Tuesday.

I’m also beginning preparations for my D.Min. project which begins the first week of Lent (a virtual classroom for the Servant Walk curriculum), getting ready to develop the parents class for confirmation in my spare time, and leading a Service of Death and Resurrection (Funeral) on Monday.

Since I don’t have anything else going on, I’ve also switched to a Mac! I was given a 1.67 GHz PowerBook G4 awhile back, and I finally upgraded the RAM to 2GB and a friend installed Leopard on it. It’s pretty darn fast now, and I’m loving it. I look forward to using Keynote instead of Powerpoint and see how that goes.

So, that’s what’s going on in my world! Anything going on in yours?

Merry Christmas!!

Yesterday, I helped in three different Christmas Eve worship services: 3:30, 6:00, and 8:00. It was wonderful to see so many people coming to worship on Christmas Eve! It doesn’t matter how many Christmas Eve services I attend or lead, I always get excited and go with a sense of anticipation. We shared Holy Communion with over 2,000 people in these services. Some were rejoicing and some were hurting, but both connected with Christ in a special way.

This morning we woke up to find that Santa apparently got our new address and left the kids a bunch of cool presents. The hits of the day are the Batman Cave, the Easy Bake Oven, and a Furreal Cat, who we’ve named Lily. Ever the romantic, I bought Nanci a new powercord for our Powerbook G4 Apple and an OU necklace. I got a shirt a couple of weeks ago and this morning I got a coffee mug handpainted by Emma.

We’ll be getting ready, packing up, and going to Talihina here in a little bit to be with my Mom and my brother’s family this evening. We’ll go to Nanci’s parents tomorrow and continue the celebration until coming back Saturday night!

It’s been a busy season, and I think Christmas came faster than ever before. It’s been a crazy year, but I’m sure next year will be even crazier!

Merry Christmas to all of you and great blessings in the New Year!!

Christmas Worship: Upside Down

Faith and Forgiveness

Just a few days ago, I read about the jet crashing into a home in San Diego. It turns out that the crash killed four members of a Korean-American family: a grandmother, mother, and two young daughters.

I just found this article about Yoon Dong-yun, the husband, who was working nearby and rushed home to see the devestation. Yoon, a United Methodist Christian, has already offered forgiveness to the pilot, and is concerned for his well-being, “Please pray that the pilot will not anguish over the accident. I don’t blame him for it. He is the one who did his best in order to prevent the crash…”

May we all demonstrate that kind of faith and forgiveness in our own lives.

Wesley Report on “Branding”

Shane Raynor has an interesting article on United Methodist “branding.” Go check it out, and “Go Granger!”

Advent Conspiracy

Does Complexity Facilitate Vision?

Andy Stanley had an interesting quote at the Catalyst Conference (h/t Mark Beeson),

The more complex your church government, the more that complexity will war against your vision.

That’s a pretty simple statement, and we could qualify and debate it all day long. However, I just want to pose a question. Does the complexity of the United Methodist Church facilitate its vision or compete with it? What about in local churches? What do you think?

Techno For Granted

During a discussion of my upcoming Doctor of Ministry project, someone reminded me of a helpful distinction. They described the difference between digital natives and digital immigrants. My six year old daughter will never remember a time before iPhones. She has known about the internet her entire life. She is a digital native. Even though I consider myself technologically savvy, I remember a time before DVD players and VCRs. I even existed without cable or satellite as a child. We had three channels and you had to go outside to turn the antenna to get a different station.

Even though I’ve learned DSL (digital as a second language – haha), for the most part I’m still fairly fluent in our digital culture. However, sometimes I assume people know things that I take for granted because I’ve been speaking this language for several years.

One of the questions I sometimes am asked is, “How can you keep up with the content on blogs?” It would be exhausting to click through “favorites” from blog to blog to blog. I follow 100 blogs via an RSS feeder that I check about once a day. If you’re a digital immigrant, you would greatly benefit from learning how to do this! Jay Voorhees (at his his technopastor address) pointed to a good summary of RSS in simple language some time back, so I’ll just point you to that.

Click here if you follow blogs but have no idea what RSS is. What you’ll find is basically a quick way to get a ton of information. For me that means I can check 100 blogs in no time at all. I use Google Reader to manage all of this.

I’d list my top 100, but its constantly changing. I’ve sort of made a point to take one off every time I add a new one, so it stays manageable. So, I hope this helps you digital immigrants out there and gives you yet another shortcut for navigating a whole new world!

How to be a Finisher

One of the real challenges I’ve faced is moving from being the sole staff member, pastor, preacher, leader in two congregations to being a member of a larger team. As a result, I’ve been on the lookout for great information about how to better function on a team.

Kem Meyer is the author of one of my favorite blogs, and in a recent post she pointed me to this article by her husband Mark Meyer (whose blog I just subscribed to) that really provides some great information on “how to be a finisher.”

Look for an opportunity to take an initiative that has been stalling out or hanging incomplete at work. Take it, and in your mind make yourself 100% responsible. Do what it takes to get it done and done well. Want to be normal? Be cynical and roll your eyes at how the project is just another company objective that will never get done…
In meetings and conversations, be the best note taker- pay attention and get the details of what needs to be done whether it’s your responsibility or not. Help remind people of the tasks to do, priorities at hand, and assist people by reminding then what needs to get done. Normal is people on your team missing details leaving projects incomplete, clients unhappy, and money uncollected. Fill in the cracks for your team so your team finishes strong.
Be willing to make a decision. Everyday there are scores of emails and conversations filled with questions, hurdles, and excuses. Bring clarity and be solution oriented… take those things that are spinning and bring them to a finish line. What’s normal? Add to the confusion, be vague, ask questions that seem really smart but just keep things undone, offer more reasons why something can’t be done and how you don’t have enough information. Hide in the multitudes of 80%.

Great stuff, eh? I love his thoughts on how to “be normal,” and the way he points to exceptional ministry by avoiding those traps. I look forward to reading more of Mark’s thoughts in the future.

Category: General