One Car Wednesday (a day late...again)

So, I've biked into work twice this week. Woulda been 3 if not for rain.
And let me just say that Champaign is woefully lacking in bike friendly shoulder space on roads. I usually end up on the sidewalk because riding on the streets is not far removed from russian roulette.

Had an interesting experience on the way home today. Got caught at the traffic light on Kirby and Mattis. And there was this girl, also on a bike, sitting at the light as well. We're both riding on the same sidewalk. She was there first, so I obviously let her cross ahead of me.

Awkwardly, we are both going the same direction. And going about the same speed.

I begin to notice that she's looking back at me frequently. Not in a "he's kind of cute" kind of way, but in more of a "I think this guy might be stalking me" kind of way. As I'm trying to slow down and eliminate the freaky stalker vibe, she suddenly veers out into the road and crosses to the other side.

Which creates a whole new awkwardness. Now we are biking side by side on opposite sides of the street. And still going roughly the same speed.

At that point, all I can say is that instinct kicked in. It was like 2 cars at the stop light both revving their engines. I mean, there is just no way, NO WAY, I'm letting this girl beat me down the road. I kick it into low gear and crank it down the sidewalk for a full block. I'm fighting the temptation to look over and see how I'm doing. But finally I take a little peak. She's nowhere to be seen. She must have turned off on a side street almost immediately.

All I can say is, thank goodness, because one more block at that speed and I might've passed out.

All of which is to say you see a bike on the road and there isn't much shoulder, give em a brake. It might be your pastor!

What if...

What if we dropped the label "Member" and instead went with "Missionaries"?

What do you see as the difference?

Some nasty statistics from the PCUSA

So, our denomination recently released membership and giving statistics for 2008. It ain't pretty. As a denomination, we lost over 69,000 members last year. There are obviously a lot of things that go into that number. 34,000 members died. another 35,000 left when their churches left the denomination altogether. Most staggering to me is the fact that 104,000 who were removed from the rolls and appeared to not join another church. And our churches did add 100,000 new members. But the net result of all that was the biggest one year loss of membership in our denomination since 1983.

You can read the full report by clicking here: PCUSA Statistics

A friend of mine, Kelly Kannwischer (Presbyterian Global Fellowship), points out the bigger problem. The stated clerk of our denomination, in his report about the statistics, is asking all the wrong questions. He says that we need to strengthen our answers to these questions: "Why do I believe in God? Why do I go to church? Why do I go to that particular church?" And the implication is that if we can answer those questions, we'll be able to convince people to join our church.

Here's a response from Kelly regarding that perspective:

"the question for people in the postmodern world is not what is true but what is real. To be effective witnesses of the Gospel, it is not what we can posit or defend theologically (although that remains important). Rather, to be effective witnesses of the Gospel in today's culture requires authenticity, deep relationships, and sacrificial action for the sake of others."

Let's be really clear about something: It is absolutely critical that we know the Jesus we worship. It's desperately important for us to be able to articulate the good news about the grace of God given to us in Jesus Christ. We will always need to continue growing in our understanding and application of the scriptures for our lives.

But understanding by itself will never result in a world transformed by Jesus Christ. The question we need to be able to answer is this:

"Who is Jesus and how am I trying to be more like him?"

When we love our neighbor more than ourselves, our evangelism will be authentic and effective.
When we are as committed to healing our community as we are to our longstanding church programs, then our witness will be genuine and true.
When we start asking how we can be the body of Christ IN the world, how to be Christ-like for the sake of our neighbor, then we will at least be asking the right questions.

Any thoughts? Complaints? Questions?

what a week...

So me and the fam spent all of last week down at Camp Carew in SOUTHERN Illinois (which is a world unto itself). It was a great week but a crazy and hard week. Glad we did it. But I'm wiped out. Picked 14 ticks off me. Caught 2 big catfish. Tipped a canoe. Slept in a hogan. Good stuff.

Now it feels like summer can start. It's been a sprint up until and through last week. But now it feels like I can shift my attention ahead to the coming year. (Yikes.) You never know what's gonna come up when I start thinking and dreaming ahead. I'll keep you posted.

My friend Tammy

I need your help. Would you please pray with me for my friend Tammy?
She is a missionary in India where she runs an orphanage. It would take pages to describe some of the amazing things she has done there. Tammy prays with tremendous strength and God answers her prayers in miraculous ways. And she has taught those children in India to pray the same way!

Well, Tammy needs some prayers herself, now. She is in the hospital with pancreatitis. She just had a first surgery to remove a gall stone that had caused inflammation in several organs. She needs to have her pancreas removed. The degree of inflammation means that laproscopic surgery might not be possible. Regular surgery is more risky and more prone to infection.

Bottom line, please pray for my friend Tammy. Pray for success in the attempt at laproscopic surgery. Pray for swift and full recovery. Pray for healing. Pray also for peace for all her little children in the orphanage that are, with us, praying for her!

Thanks.

Gettin' back to my roots

The South Georgia Yard Swing

Can we get one of these at the Launch?
How awesome would it be to preach from the hanging couch?

In case you missed this cool idea...

So a member of our congregation had an idea following the generosity series.
The idea is described on this new blog. This is not connected to the church in any way. It's just one person's idea.

Take a peek. You might be able to help. Or to be helped.

Click here: Generosity In C.U.

Jesus walks into a tattoo parlor...

So, don't ask me why, but I found myself in a tattoo parlor recently. And it was a little bit of an eye opening experience. I just don't get to hear that kind of language very often in the church office. I mean, did you realize that you can use the F-bomb as a noun, an adjective, and adverb, and a verb, all in the SAME SENTENCE???? I'm sitting there listening to these rather graphic conversations about casual sex, and heavy drug use and I'm just praying that nobody asks me what I do for a living.

Then I have this picture pop in my head of Jesus hanging out in that tattoo parlor. And I realize that it's exactly the kind of place Jesus would want to be. Those are Jesus' kind of people.

That's exactly what made the religious folks so mad about Jesus. He actually ate meals with "those kind of people". He went to their homes. That's what the whole God-in-the-flesh thing was all about: God becoming one of us, God moving into the neighborhood, God living right smack dab in the middle of our ugly, broken, warped lives.

So I'm watching this guy get a tattoo - its a huge cross that covers most of his forearm. And the thought occurs to me: what would these guys think if they came and watched ME at MY work? What would they think of my world? What would they think of my life? What would they think of my faith? What would they think of MY Jesus? (And I'm intentionally saying MY Jesus because my life and work and faith and words and choices all play a part in the way I communicate Jesus).

Here's a quote that I've used before that says what I'm trying to say much better than I can say it:

Jesus's teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think.

That's from Tim Keller's "The Prodigal God".

All of this got me re-thinking some things.

I found myself hoping that one of those guys might actually ask me what I do for a living. Maybe they will next time.

Check out Jaron's sermon...

In case you missed it, Jaron spoke the truth on Sunday at the Launch.
Good stuff about our new mission statement!

You can hear it by clicking on the top link on the right side (under Sermon mp3's)

Parents on Facebook

So, I've found it fascinating to watch the Facebook phenomenon spread into older generations of adults. When I first got on Facebook (and before that MySpace), the only adults I saw on there were youth pastors who were using those sites to connect with kids. And most of the time, that just resulted in this slightly scary stalker feeling.

Recently, I had a conversation with a parent who told me that their son doesn't really use Facebook anymore because all of his friend's parents are on it. And if we're doing it, it can't really be cool, right?

This reminds me of a quote I heard once, I seem to recall it being the lead singer of the Ramone's but I could be totally wrong about that. Anyway, this singer was asked to define Rock n Roll and said something to the effect of: "Rock and Roll is whatever music makes the parents mad". (He actually used much more colorful language than that.)

So...that got me thinking that maybe the very best way to reinforce cultural behaviors among our youth is to get mad about it.

Or, vice versa, maybe the very best way to change cultural patterns of behavior that bother us is for us adults to embrace those behaviors and start acting that way too.

For example, all of us adults could start wearing extremely baggy pants that sag way down revealing most of our underwear. (come to think of it, that might be a nice corrective for the tendency of our belt lines creeping upwards as we get older.

So, now I'm going to try to focus on a sermon with images of Chuck Carlson in sagging pants stuck in my head!!!

Hey. It's Monday. I'll have something better tomorrow.