Category: General

Hitting the Ground Running

I’m settling into my new position, but I’m also still learning something new everday.  Right I’ve taken over several of the major teaching duties that I’ll do each week.  For instance every Tuesday morning I am teaching through Romans.  It’s interesting because I took on this mid-stream, so I am starting with the men’s group in chapter 14, and the women’s group in chapter 10.  I’m spending quite a bit of time each week immersed in Romans getting prepared to teach these classes.

Another large chunk of my time is spent preparing to teach Sunday School classes.  However, I have yet to step foot in a classroom.  How, you might ask?   Each week I prepare a teaching vdeo and then meet with a group who gathers to study and discuss the scripture that corresponds with the Sunday morning sermon (right now we’re in Luke).  They then help me go deeper into the passage and prepare a series of questions to go along with the lesson.

One thing I’ve learned in all of this is how difficult it is to do high quality video teaching.  It looks so easy to see Rob Bell doing Nooma or when I’ve watched other folks doing video teaching, but in reality it’s ridiculously hard to look natural and deliver high quality content at the same time.  It also takes quite a bit of time to do this.  I’m definitely blessed to have tons of help from people who know far more about video and editing than I ever will, so that makes a difference.  However, I really think that this is a great means of being in several places at once to teach on a Sunday morning.  In fact, last week I printed off over 200 lessons for people using this curriculum.

There’s a lot going on with missions at our church too, but I’ll save that post for another time!

Know Your Strengths

I just picked Emma up from Warm World, and once again, we have exciting news.  She’s going to be in her first play!  The conversation went a little like this:

“We’re gonna have a play and I’m gonna to be in it.” “Cool,” I said,  “what are you going to be?” “I get to be the horse!!”  “That’s great, is that what you wanted to be?”  “Of course,” she said, “at first I wanted to be the black cat, but I didn’t know there was a horse.  So, after I knew there was a horse, I asked to be the horse, and my teacher said I could be the horse.”  “You’ll make a good horse…”  “Yep, ’cause I neigh good.”

It’s a great thing to know your strengths and work with them!

Minister of Discipleship

My official title is “Minister of Discipleship,” and when I share this with friends, family, and colleagues I am often asked, “So what do you do?”  I try to explain by saying I’m sort of like a teaching pastor crossed with a missions pastor.

As a staff, we are reading Len Sweet’s Aquachurch 2.0: Piloting Your Church in Today’s Fluid Culture. This morning, as I was reading, I came across an insight that helps me define my position.  Len reminded me, “…the very word disciple means “learner.”  In Greek, mathetes (which we translate as disciple) comes from mathano, which literally means “student” or “learner.”

In a sense then, I’m the Minister of “Learners.”  That means that I’m not only responsibile for sharing information or knowledge in the teaching aspect of my position, but for helping people integrate that into concrete acts of mission and love of neighbor.  In other words, I think the multiple aspects of my position will help me remember that true knowledge is not just a “head thing,” but a “whole life thing.”

Settling In

Things are still going well after our move, even though it’s hard to get my mind wrapped around the fact that we’re not going to be traveling back to finish anything up in Quinton or Canadian.

Emma is still loving her new Kindergarten at Warm World, and Caleb is excited to have had me at home for a few days.  This morning he went with me to the bank and to get haircuts.  One thing I never missed about the city is paying fourteen bucks for a haircut!!  I think I’m going to buy clippers or a flowbee (to my surprise they still exist!) and do Caleb’s hair myself!

Nanci has been working hard to finish getting the house together, and we’re really pretty much moved in at this point.  We still need to do a few minor things, but it’s definitely coming together.  Before you think I’ve just been sitting in my chair drinking Diet Coke, I’ve been doing whatever has been asked of me!  I’m thinking about heading in and trying to get my office arranged a bit this afternoon, but I may just do it first thing in the morning.  We’ll see what happens.  Tonight is the big Hot Dog Happening at Warm World, so we’ll be going to that too.

OK, the girls are home with groceries and an office chair.  Caleb and I have been at home cleaning the garage and breaking down boxes.  I’ve got to run.

Whirlwind Week

This has been a crazy time in the Judkins house.  A week ago Thursday, we packed up the big Penske truck with the help of some great friends.  A week ago today we drove about 150 miles to our new home here in Edmond/Oklahoma City.  Last Sunday was Charge Conference at my two churches.  That’s right, Charge Conference a week before my move!!  I’m not complaining because I have a new saying.  If we pastors spent as much time working on Charge Conference as we spend griping about it, we’d be finished in no time!

Monday I spent packing up my office.  Tuesday, my brother and I moved my kids swingset.  Wednesday, I went to our Wednesday after-school program and then had a farewell dinner at one of my churches.  It was really special, and they made us this incredible scrapbook of my time there.  Many of the kids we minister to each week wrote personal notes to me.  That was really cool.  We came up here that night since all I had left to do for work this week was writing my final sermon for Sunday.  It’s coming along, but may be the hardest message I’ve written in all of my time as a pastor.  I want a good balance of closure, appreciation, encouragement, and preparation for a great future.  I’ve had some really good advice from friends, so that has been helpful.  However, it’s still been a real challenge.

We’re slowly getting unpacked, but my wife is incredible at turning a house quickly into a home.  Emma had her first day at Warm World, the kindergarten at my new Church.  We asked her if she had a good day and she said, “Uh yeah…the best day EVER.”  That’s a great sign, I think!

This afternoon after we ate, we walked around the new neighborhood and met a bunch of our neighbors.  There are tons of kids, some cool dogs, and some really nice people here, which makes it feel like it will be a great place to live.  Our neighbors across the street have a cat that left us a dead mouse on the steps too.  Talk about feeling welcome!

Now I’m watching the Tampa Bay Rays play the Red Sox and admiring Joe Madden’s cool black glasses.  I’m not a big fan of expansion teams in baseball, and I’m not really a fan of the American league either, so I don’t care who wins this series.  I guess I’m rooting for the Phillies to win it all.  Since Oklahoma doesn’t have a MLB team, I sort of root for players and Jimmy Rollins is one of my favorite players still playing.

OK, I think that’s it for now.  Take care and God bless!

BWIII on Viola’s Reimagining Church

If you haven’t, you need to go over and check out Ben Witherington’s comments on Frank Viola’s Reimagining Church. He really spends a lot of time interacting with Viola’s work, and I think you’ll find some interesting insights here.

On the first post, Ben indicates that Frank will respond to these comments, Ben will respond to the response, and then Frank will have a last word.  I look forward to this conversation!

Smaller Committees and Life-Changing Discipleship

For some strange reason, I have been paying closer attention to some of the United Methodist megachurches. I just ran across this article on Emergent Village by Michael Slaughter. It’s an excerpt from the new edition of his book UnLearning Church.

Two things in this article stood out in my mind. First, some folks might assume big church = many meetings. Apparently this isn’t true at Ginghamsburg,

Older-mindset churches usually require a lot of committees and meetings. Ginghamsburg finds that its people have neither the time nor the patience for multiple committee activities, so we are down to one committee of nine people called the Leadership Board. No more staff-parish, missions, or finance committees. Major businesses operate with one board, but too often tiny churches become immobilized by layers of committees. They spend hours debating about what color carpeting to put in the church narthex, or about the precise wording of the congregation’s statement of beliefs.

Imagine a leadership board of nine people. There are congregations in United Methodism who average fifty people in worship and have 25 people serving on boards and committees. Imagine Ginghamsburg, who averages 4,000 in weekly attendance, with a Leadership Board of nine people. Interesting.

Another thing that stood out is his comment about “listen and learn” meetings,

Fifteen years ago, we would have emphasized getting people to show up for church programs and listen-and-learn meetings. We would have sponsored a seminar and gauged its success by how many attended. Now we measure success by asking “How are people finding life change and purpose through the experience?” People are not looking for church meetings so much as for life meaning.

This is something that really interests me, and it may be something I try to explore more in my D.Min. project and dissertation. Are there alternative ways for people to find life meaning through the local church that we aren’t taking advantage of? I think Web 2.0 and its emphasis on participation, rather than simply receiving information, might be one of those ways. Have any of your churches developed participatory Advent or Lenten studies using some of the newer technology (Twitter, Blogging, etc.)?

I know some of my purist friends will think I’ve lost my mind, and they’re probably right. I simply think we’re going to have to get more creative in our approach to making disciples. It’s too important to ignore. As United Methodists, I believe we have a tradition and commitment to offering in-depth discipleship. I’m not saying we need to “jazz things up” to get people interested. I’m just saying we need to work our tails off to think of creative ways to encourage discipleship via the means people are comfortable with and excited about using.

As always, there will be the argument that this will leave a certain segment of our people behind. That’s the great thing about a world where we can embrace “both/and” thinking. We don’t have to quit doing traditional bible studies, devotionals, and the like. There will be a segment of people who will continue to be powerfully transformed in those environments. We simply need to be mindful of the people that those setups won’t reach or transform. It’s not choosing one or the other. It’s about doing both with excellence.

Letting Others Do My Posting…

Since I’ve been a little too busy to post very consistently, I thought I’d point you to some really interesting posts on other folks sites.

My friend Kevin Watson has a really intriguing post on Younger Clergy (make sure you check out the comments too).

Andrew Conard has a really helpful template for our UM Service of Death and Resurrection.  Thanks Andrew!

I’ve just added Luke Wetzel’s blog to my blogroll, after being pointed there by Andrew Conard.  Plus, I wish I had written this post on Adam Hamilton as itinerant General Superintendent.

Jay Voorhees also has great techno-post on using Jott as a ministry tool over at Technopastor.

Does the Pope Text-Message?

No kidding, Benedict XVI is text-messaging the young Catholics gathered in Australia for World Youth Day (h/t Delana!).  Here’s the message (link here),

Young friends, God & his people expect much from u, because u have within u the Father’s supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus – BXVI

Any of you getting text-messages from your congregations?  Any of you sending text for updates at your Church?  Hey, if the Pope can do it then we can too, right!?