Archive for Blog
· Categories Blog, Personal
I haven’t blogged since May 19 (which coincided with the birth of Tucker)…oops!
Obviously things have been moving at a faster pace than we were accustomed to with the addition of Tucker Jonathan to the fold. He is a cool little kid already. Cooper and Branson are good big brothers too.
We hired a new Middle School Pastor which you’ll hear about tomorrow. We are revisioning the church and pitching it to the congregation in just a few weeks. I went on our Senior Trip to Florida, preached a youth camp and spoke at a camp meeting, and we had our MS and HS summer camps.
Book sales are going pretty well. We are working now to make another big push toward the end of this month heading back into the fall and the start of school. I’m back though.
Thanks for hanging around.
July 21, 2009
· Categories Blog, Technology
I have seen quite a few posts with the same title as this one in recent months.
I used to blog very regularly. Since Christmas…not so much! There are many reasons. One of them being my increased use of twitter. I have 200+ followers on twitter with more interaction. I’ve never had a lot of commenters on the blog here, but on twitter I get a lot of @ replies. I love that interaction.
It also allows me to unpack short random thoughts as opposed to writing an entire post. Speaking of writing, I have also been writing a book during the last several months so most of my long writing times have gone to finish that project. Once the book is finished I think I will blog more, but no promises.
I love the ability with Twitterific on my iPhone to twitter while walking to my next meeting or waiting in the car. While I do have WordPress on my iPhone it’s a little more difficult.
Just some random thoughts. If you are a blogger and a twitterer…what has your experience been?
March 25, 2009
· Categories Blog
I have been getting a lot of spam commenting, and it’s annoying. So, I have installed some plugins to try to catch spam bots. I hope that it doesn’t prevent you from commenting in the future. I just wanted to let you know.
Thanks
March 24, 2009
· Categories Blog, Church, Leadership
My brother wrote one of the best posts I ever read for ministers over on ForwardLeadership…
It may take you a few minutes to read it, but I promise it’s worth it. Here it is in it’s entirety
I have officially been a pastor for a little over 6 months now. in those 6 months I have experienced a transformation in my heart that I can honestly say I did not see coming. I have been speaking on a weekly basis for about 6 years in some form or another, and in those years I crafted a speaking style, tone, and stage presence. But in the last 6 months something in my heart has begun to change the way that I feel when I begin to take those steps towards the stage each Sunday. It is a conviction that is shifting me from the importance of being creative, funny, applicable, etc. to being a guide for my people towards truth. There is nothing wrong with any of the traits I listed, as a matter of fact I think (hopefully) that more times than not I am still those things, but the way that you put a sermon together is different when you feel the weight of honesty and truth on your shoulders as opposed to the weight of charisma or creativity.
I have begun to feel the burden to protect, with all of my energy, my people from pulled away by something that sounds like the truth but isn’t. ( I believe that God is in control of that) but I don’t have time to preach on family, sex, money, prayer, reading the bible, and dating over and over again because it will hit with a target audience.
“Controversy is not always agreeable, yet it is often necessary. Error must be opposed, and truth defended. What I have to say, is designed chiefly for the benefit of the younger portion of the congregation. I feel that there devolves upon me not a little responsibility in reference to this class of my hearers. Many of them, I am happy to learn, are eagerly searching for truth, and they have a right to expect that the pulpit will aid their inquiries, and throw light upon their path. ”
Rev. Francis Hodgson, D.D. Philadelphia, July 13, 1854.
I have been reading and rereading through 1 & 2 Timothy over the last few weeks and over and over again you see Paul pleading with Timothy to protect his people from being led astray by silliness and myths. He doesn’t say to do this by bashing the other churches in town, he commands Timoty time and time again to speak the truth. Let your people hear the truth so often that they can spot a fake.
6If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. 7Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.
1 Timothy 4:6-7
We are constantly trying to address with our people the silliness and myths like: prosperity, self help, false prophecies, etc. but it doesn’t just stop with those easy targets it goes way further into things like: works based salvation, man made sanctification, consumer minded church attendance, formula based prayers, etc. Do our people know that these things are silliness and myths? I know my people know they need to have a date night with their spouse but do they know that their salvation was completely undeserving and could never be earned or repaid. Do they know they have nothing to ever boast about in themselves. That they couldn’t even receive him until he chose to reveal himself to them (1 Corinthians 12:3) Do they know that Christianity has nothing to do with being a better person, or the fact that just because they drink half as much than before they got saved it doesn’t mean they know Him more?
If you don’t know me than you might think that I preach like Jimmy Swagart or something. I pastor a young, casual, trendy flip flop church. We use series, graphics, videos, etc. This isn’t about Swagart or Bates or insecurities, bashing and fears, this is about the fact that when I stand before God I will be accountable and he won’t give a crap how cool my graphics for my invite mail out were.
March 6, 2009
· Categories Blog
After committing to blog more, I’ve been AWOL. Not my fault. I had a hack in my blog. Some spam comment creating a problem which Bluehost gracefully fixed, but I was out of the country. So…
1) I will start my posts mentioned in the last post tomorrow morning.
2) You will have to jump one more hurdle to post a comment. Should take you an extra 2 seconds, but will help keep the spam out.
February 3, 2009
· Categories Blog, Student Ministry
I haven’t posted here in a while, and for that I’m sorry. Not sorry for you, because you’ve had other things to do and other things to read that left you smarter than if you’d been here. No, I’m sorry, because it irks me when I get out of routine. I got out of the routine of posting here, and it took me a while to get back.
With that being said, I have been disturbed by some things. Here are some of the questions I have been pondering?
Is there a more effective way to do student ministry than a big midweek service and satellite discipleship?
If technology is such a huge part of culture, especially student culture, how can we leverage it for the Gospel more effectively?
How can I integrate students into the larger church body more effectively when it doesn’t look like the services we put on? Serving, leading, even attendance…
How can I duplicate myself in my leaders better? More often?
Is it more important to care for who shows up or reach for who’s not there?
Congratulations, you just read the topics for the next 5 days here at “thoughts of a student pastor”. What questions have you been pondering?
January 21, 2009
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