It’s been a long time since I gave the New York Times any link love here but, this article warrants a link. It speaks of the shift in evangelical priorities away from politics (ie, being joined at the hip to the religious right) and toward more socially conscious positions. For myself, I am probably (as I’ve mentioned) pretty far to the left for our organization put middle right when compared to the country.
I think the churches mentioned in the article mirror a lot of what is going on in our own church. Specifically, we are reaching out to the poor and needy through the food bank and also serving children who are socially and economically disadvantaged through open gym and the community meal prior to each service. I think that ministering to the physical needs of our fellow man is every bit as important as ministering to his spiritual needs. The two can’t be separated.
Any way, enjoy the article. It will make yo think.
I am working late tonight to try to get ahead of my schedule (ie, cases scheduled for court next week) in order to enjoy my weekend. Tomorrow, I am spending the day at the Memorial Tournament in Dublin with my friend Mike Wilson. Afterward, I’m going to Zanesville to a sectional Holy Ghost Rally and heading back to Columbus to spend the night. On Saturday, I have a Junior Quiz in Dublin. I will spend the night at my house and do my cell group on Sunday morning before heading to Van Wert to preach Sunday night. Side note- I am going to be in Cleveland Monday and Tuesday for work rather than church stuff so that’s another night away from home.
I had a meeting in Toledo today and, as is our custom, took my wife and (little) kids along. We spent a few hours at the Toledo Zoo (still not sold on it) and were hoping since it was mid-week we’d escape a lot of the madness. Apparently, every school district between Detroit and Dayton decided a field trip to the Toledo Zoo was what was needed. It was literally overrun with (somewhat) little kids and their teachers and chaperons. Here’s the lesson from today’s trip. Common courtesy is no longer common.
I feel like I’m dating myself writing this but I was amazed at the total lack of manners of the vast majority of the children there. I can’t count the number of times I was run over trying to get in a ramp accessible doorway as I had a wagon with two kids in it. Not once did I hear an excuse me, please or thank you. There were kids climbing over rails and into restricted areas of exhibits and the chaperons seemed completely oblivious to it.
Allow me to again wax old for a minute. If I had 1) behaved like this or 2) treated an adult in this fashion my mother would have worn out my backside. It simply would not have been permitted. Additionally, if my kids were acting like this I would have felt compelled to apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge (as my superintendent likes to say). Was today’s observation an isolated incident caused by a large influx of urban youngsters or, does it point to a growing problem of a breakdown of societal values and accepted norms. Or, do these kids just need the seat of their pants warmed. Whatever the case, common courtesy is definitely uncommon (or at least it was today).
A few months ago, I wrote a post about cleaning up some of the extraneous things that were bogging down my life and sucking my time away. In the words of Dr. Phil, how’s that workin’ for you? Answer: not too well. As I look at the timing of that post, it was just before I headed off to New York and my work life blew up. The subsequent changes were all good but the time commitment has been enormous. Over the weekend, I took some time off (and actually did not work) to reflect on some things that have been bouncing around in my brain. Allow me to share with you but first, a story. Human Resources professionals tell us that to find your ideal career, you simply picture what you would do if money was not an object. Specifically, if you didn’t have to worry about making sure there was enough income to pay the mortgage, car payment, college payments (coming way too soon for me) and all of that other stuff, what exactly would you do? I actually had this conversation with one of my fellow ministers last Wednesday at church (he has a very successful business of his own) and we came to the same conclusion. What you are really asking is what is the most important thing to you. The answer was our ministries. Even though we’ve both had a degree of success in business this is largely seen as a means to an end (ie, making sure the lights stay on). If I didn’t need the money, I would not do what I do (at least full time). I would, after a significant vacation, spend my life in pursuit of the ministry.
When you write it down it seems crystal clear but until you get to that point, there seems to be a lot of fog and confusion. So, I took some time to prioritize my schedule. Specifically, I did some trimming. I was reading over 100 blogs a day. These were trimmed significantly (especially if they weren’t directly related to my day to day business). Also, took a number of news web sites out of my feeder. I made an effort to make sure I didn’t spend time reading everything else and not make it to the Bible. It has become a priority. I stepped up my work with Sunday School and with my local church and breathed some life into plans that had been placed on a very dusty shelf. In short, I took out some trash.
The true test will be to see if these changes have any staying power. I am thinking (and hoping) they will. Like all plans, they are best executed on a daily basis. I still have significant irons in the fire after all, we do need to eat. But along with my day job my most important priority is to keep first things first.
Frequent readers of this blog will know that we are fairly burger obsessed here. Last week, we discussed the $175 Burger now being peddled on Wall Street. We now have the video.
Go on, fire one of these bad boys up on your grill this Memorial Day.
We are having a bunch of folks over to our house tonight after the evening service for food and fun. Mainly, it’s because no one has to get up in the morning because of the holiday. Have a great Memorial Day.
I have blogged before about my distaste for meetings. In my past experience (read:large corporate world), meetings were used to communicate information. God invented e-mail so we didn’t have to have those meetings anymore. For the most part, meetings have been something that took away from productive work time.
We had a partners’ meeting today at our firm. Meetings like these I have use for. First, our managing partner made blueberry pancakes. The value of this can’t be understated. Secondly, we had a really good discussion about where we were at in our various practice areas, what things we could standardize, and what other things we could use each other’s expertise for. I consider myself blessed to work with smart, creative people who challenge my thinking and provide a work environment that I love. Since I am the only guy amongst the partners (we’re all nurses), I add some much needed male perspective to our discussions. As a whole, it’s a great group to be a part of.
So I will amend my thoughts on meetings being completely without value. If they are used to brainstorm, discuss, challenge and otherwise “sharpen iron”, they can certainly add to the organization. However, if you just want to pass along info, that’s still why God (or Al Gore) invented e-mail.
I’ve been on a bit of a leadership reading kick the last month or so. One of my favorite authors on this subject is Dr. John Maxwell. I think he does a great job of speaking to ministers who are also leaders in the business community. This fairly accurately describes where I am at. Anyway, at the advice of my amigo Rocky, I decided to invest in the Maxwell Leadership Bible. I have been studying out of it for about a week now and it has been a joy. First, it is written in the New King James Version which is my favorite translation. Lose the thees and thous and keep the KJV thought. Side note- my second favorite non-KJV is The Message by Eugene Peterson. It’s extraordinarily helpful in getting me through some of the tougher to understand sections of the Bible.
Anyway, the Maxwell Leadership Bible has become my go-to version for a couple of reasons. As noted, it is NKJV and second, it includes lots of nuggets and commentary by Maxwell on leadership as demonstrated by the various characters (Moses, Samuel and especially, Jesus) and ties them with tips to help leaders today. It is really fascinating reading. So if you’re looking for a good study Bible allow me to recommend the Maxwell Leadership Bible.
I just got home from a fantastic mid-week services. Brother L.J. preached from Luke 5 on the great catch of fish. It got me thinking about a sermon Brother Haney preached several years ago at the Children’s Ministry Convention in Saint Louis. He said when they began their bus routes in Stockton and started really working to bring folks in, he realized that a widely cast net catches all fish- not just ones who are already cleaned up. With the increased growth of the Stockton church, there was also an increase in problems and situations that they had never faced before.
Our church in Mount Vernon is experiencing a similar trend. From the time we moved into our new building three years ago, our average weekly attendance is up around 25-30%. With this, there are a fair amount of growing pains. Allow me to explain. In the first 30 years I was in church, I can’t ever remember a prayer request for children who had been taken away, drug addiction, or folks who were in prison looking at very extended sentences. And yet, we had requests on all three tonight. This is in no way a bad thing but I think it shows two trends. First, these types of problems seem to be more prevalent than they used to be (it could just be that we’re more open now but I don’t think so) and second, the church is doing a significantly better job of reaching out to the world and not being cloistered behind our four walls. Additionally, we have children and young people who come to church now who weren’t raised in church, never regularly attended church and candidly have no idea how to behave in church. Should we turn them away? God forbid! What would we send them home to? At least at church we can control the environment and ensure that they are being presented with the Gospel (don’t really know if it’s being received but it’s being put out there). We do have to patrol the halls more and send the wanderers back to class but it is a small price to pay to reach this next generation.
So our widely cast net has brought in all kinds of fish. Is church WAY different than it was when I was a kid? Absolutely. Would I change it for the world? Absolutely not.
