StretchyChurch

You know you haven’t spent enough time on your own blog when you go to moderate any comments that need to be approved…  and you find 467 comments awaiting moderation!!  And only 2 of them are real comments from real people!

No promises yet, but I’ll try to get back into blogging.  At least more than I have been the last couple months…

I just added categories in the sidebar (after much consolidating and eliminating of my way-too-many categories). Hopefully this’ll make it easier to find posts based on, well, category…

It’s 1:20 a.m. I just finished watching Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Not as good as I was expecting, but basically an interesting movie.

Two days after Christmas, and I’m wondering where all my blogging went. Must have taken a vacation. I’m on vacation now, too–something I’ve needed for quite a while.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t been posting–just an overload of too many things going on in my life right now. See that picture? That’s kinda how I feel lately. I’ll fill you in on some of the details later.

Had four services on Sunday–one in the morning and three Christmas Eve services at night. Way too many for our church, but it was a little too late to change things when we realized it.

And though it was way too many services, and though I felt completely drained by the end of the night, I also felt energized. That’s the beauty of ministry I think. It’s tiring and draining and seems to suck the life out of you. But it doesn’t. I’ve found that it also pours life into me. When I give what I have, I end up with more.

I’m not talking about money, by the way. I’m not into the health and wealth thing. But God does give when we give. Not always how we expect. But he does. It’s what keeps me going. Thanks, Lord…

I’ve missed all of you. I’ll be back. Hopefully sooner than later.

Yikes! It’s been like a week since my last post! I’m not sure what’s going on, but it seems like I’m in a bit of a dry spell right now. I’ve got some more stuff to say about the hospitality/incarnation thing, but it seems like every time I think about writing, I think to myself, “Eh, I’d rather just watch TV….”

Man, that kinda sucks…

Anyway, hopefully I’ll get back on the bandwagon real soon.

Just something quick. Brian Bailey, who just finished writing The Blogging Church (due out in January), is keeping a list of pastors who blog. If you’re a blogging pastor, you can get on the list by e-mailing Brian (his e-mail address is at the top of the page).

Brian Bailey, who is in the process of writing a book called The Blogging Church, (see my earlier post) has an amazing announcement about U2 and Apple. One note of warning: if you start to read this, be sure to read the whole thing…

Just found a new blog called Never Mind the Bibles: A Theology of Punk. It seems to be a book in progress (that, I guess, may or may not end up published on paper), but it looks pretty interesting. Haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I’ve gotten through enough of it that I thought some of you out there might be interested in it.

Let me know what you guys think.

So, my brother runs a Lord of the Rings website called The One Ring. Since 1999, it’s been primarily a LOTR news website, but he recently started The One Ring Blog as a companion site.

He just posted something today that I though was pretty funny: a poem called “Green Eggs and Lembas.” As you’ve probably already guessed, it’s a LOTR spoof on Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham.”

Check it out here.

Every Thursday afternoon, Russell Smith and I (and several other Cincinnati pastors from various denominations and backgrounds) get together for discussion at Barnes & Noble in Newport. When I arrived last Thursday I asked Russell if he’d read my post regarding the Presbytery meeting. He looked at me and said, “You’re not looking to make any friends in Presbytery, are you?”

First I laughed. Then, later, I got nervous. Then I reflected on what I’d written. Then I came to this conclusion: We need to be free to say what we think.

I also mentioned in my other post that nothing excites me about being Presbyterian. However, I need to say that I do appreciate that we can at least hold different viewpoints. And we can still respect each other–ideally, anyway.

I say all this because it ties in with the “Permission-giving” aspect of the Transformation Team’s report (see Russell’s post for more on this). Russell writes:

It is much easier for me to go off and ad hoc partner with a few churches on things that we really care about than it is for me to try to make a sales pitch to a presbytery committee, wait for their meeting to come around, and then see what they decide. That, I think, is what the transformation team’s proposal is about.

In other words, instead of making people jump through hoops, we ought allow people to go and do ministry without having to ask permission first.

I think there’s another aspect of permission-giving, and that’s the freedom to challenge others to a higher standard.

I’m currently reading Winning, by Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric. In his book, he says that one of the most important aspects of a winning team is candor. Y’know–being candid. Being frank. Being open and honest. Not mean-spirited, but honest. Candor is what brings good ideas to the fore. Vigorous debate and grappling weeds out the bad ideas. You find this concept not only in Winning, but also in Good to Great, by Jim Collins. Candor, wrestling, debate–these are all critical for us to become a great presbytery.

I don’t claim to be right all the time. In fact, maybe my comments in my other post were way off base. But they were written in a spirit of candor. I just want to be open about how I feel and what I think.

Believe it or not, I really do care about this presbytery. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have expressed myself so strongly.

I admit it. Tuesday night was the first Presbytery meeting I’ve attended since March (and I actually can’t remember the details of the March meeting, so I’m not even sure I was at that one either).

For those of you that aren’t Presbyterian, Presbytery meetings are a gathering of pastors and elders from (in our region) the 80 or so Presbyterian churches in the Cincinnati area. And to be honest, these meetings are boring!

I’ve only been a Presbyterian pastor for two and a half years now and I’ve become less and less enamored with my denomination. Presbytery meetings have contributed to this. I often feel like all we do at Presbytery meetings is act Presbyterian (”decently and in order”) and make each other feel good about being Presbyterian (”I got my PCUSA logo pin on! How ’bout you?!”).

See, I know why I’m a Christian–because Jesus loves me. I know why I’m a pastor–because I want others to know this love of Jesus. But I don’t really know why I’m a Presbyterian. I come from a family of Presbyterians and have always attended Presbyterian churches, but that’s only because my dad is also a Presbyterian pastor. So I’m basically a Presbyterian by default.

When I met with the Committee on Preparation for Ministry here in Cincinnati as part of the call-process to Union Presbyterian Church, I was asked what excites me about the PCUSA. And I couldn’t answer that question. What excites me is ministry! What excites me is my relationship with Jesus Christ! What excites me is seeing others discover Christ’s love for them! But there’s really nothing about the PCUSA that excites me.

Which is why the Transformation Team’s report at Tuesday’s meeting was so encouraging to me! The Transformation Team has been working for the past several years on a proposal for doing church in a new way and what they presented last night was terrific. They proposed a church that is mission-shaped, permission-giving, and outcome-oriented. In other words, a church that is focused on outward ministry, that gives freedom to churches and members to do ministry in new and creative ways with the gifts that God has given them, and that sets goals for growth.

I was also immensely encouraged by Erwin Goedicke’s sermon. He talked about (among other points) God being bigger than the PCUSA. And he challenged us to participate in the whole church in Cincinnati–even if the official PCUSA logo isn’t anywhere to be found. Amen, Erwin!!

If this is the direction that the PCUSA goes, then I have renewed hope in our denomination!

Russell Smith and I briefly talked about blogging on this topic together for a while. Check out his post over at The Eagle and Child. I’m curious to see what others of you think about this. And I’m curious to see where this all leads.