You disappointment ABC/ESPN!

A rare two post Saturday… simply to vent and share how appalled I am with ABC/ESPN. All week they’ve been teasing me by promoting the game of the week as Oregon/Cal. Number 11 verses number 6. It’s on nationwide. I awake Saturday and they further tease me with College Game Day from Eugene, Oregon. Then at the last minute they pull it from the schedule here in the NE (for Clemson/GT and then Michigan State/Wisconsin). ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I’m disgusted! My day completely ruined. I think I just bumped into the East Coast bias… I’m out (I have to go sulk in my room).

Quote worth thinking about

“Even in a noisy world, the right voice compels you to listen” – Staci Frenes

Community Part 3

Success in building a healthy sense of community starts with focusing not on yourself, but others. It’s begins by seeing the big picture – to quote John Maxwell, “the entire population of the world – with one minor exception – is composed of others.” It’s the journey that all of us embarked on when we became Christ followers – a journey from selfishness to selflessness. The funny thing about the journey is that in serving others and looking out for them our needs get taken care of. Weird, but true.

Albert Einstein said it this way, “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.” George Bernard Shaw goes a little further (and a little harsher), “This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself [and God] as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” I remember getting upset when I read that for the first time. I kept reading and re-reading it trying to understand why it rubbed me the wrong way… “ah ha my selfish nature at work again…”

Community is built by selfless servants. Community forces us out of our “own little world.” So let’s start dreaming of and building a community that is focused on others, carving out a culture of acceptance, where we can be vulnerable and transparent even about our weaknesses, recognizing that if it wasn’t for God’s grace we’d be in a much different place.

For more reading on community check out the following:
Creating Community
Community 101
Everyone Normal ‘Til You Get to Know Them
Winning with People
How Starbucks Saved My Life
Organic Community

Community Part 2

More thoughts on something that’s become a core value over the past couple of years… I’ve come to believe that life change happens best within the context of intentional relationships. It’s one thing to listen to a sermon on a Sunday morning, to respond either publicly at an altar or privately; it’s an entirely different thing to live it out – that takes relationship. In fact as I look at my kids I realize that so much of their growth comes through the relational interactions they experience – if I only had Aidan he wouldn’t have to learn how to share with his sisters. The computer would be entirely his. God has created an environment in the context of our family were change and growth can take place.

A couple of years ago as I was picking up my daily dose of java at Starbucks and noticed a flier with the headline “Create Community. Make a difference in someone’s day” My interest was peaked. Reading further, “When you work at Starbucks you can make a difference in someone’s day by creating an environment where neighbors and friends can get together and reconnect while enjoying a great coffee experience.”

It got me thinking about how we could create an environment in our lives that would begin to allow us to connect with people. How could we use our time, our home, our resources to build intentional relationships that would reflect what I read about Acts 2 (and not just with us but with each other)? One thing I’ve learned it’s a lot of small interactions – but most of the time it’s intentional…

Community Part 1

I wish there was another word we could use. Community has become such a buzz word in church circles over the past number of years… and yet it really is the best word to describe exactly what God had in mind for us all right from day one. The problem with the over use of a word is it begins to lose the power of what it really means. Community is one of those words. We’ve used it and over used it. We’ve talked about it. We’ve written about it. We’ve blogged about it. We’ve preached about it. But the real question is have we started living it? And if you have embarked on that journey you’ve probably realized like myself that it takes longer than you think… but the rewards are so worth it! Over the past three plus years in Portland we’ve had the incredible privilege and experience of being part of a growing community. And now that we’re here in Albany, we’ve not lost what we had in Portland (thanks to technology), we get to once again embark on a journey of building intentional relationships with a great group of people – a dynamic, enviable, cause-centric community of faith fully devoted to Jesus and passionately committed to seeing each other become more like Christ and reach our neighbors with the transformational love of Jesus… so I got thinking about some of the key thoughts that have shaped my journey…

Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves. They weren’t forced nor strongly encouraged, they made a conscious decision to devote themselves to something. To what? To the apostles doctrine (the principles and practices of Christian living) and fellowship (Greek word literally means partnership). They devoted themselves to doing life together, and it was on the same platform as the teaching and principles stuff. Sometimes I wonder if in the 21st century church we place more value on the teaching stuff and less on the intentional relational stuff?

Psalm 27:4 David desired one thing… to dwell in the house of God? What, roll out a sleeping bag and set up camp in the altar area? Digging a little deeper it turns out that the Hebrew word is for house is more often translated family, it was a relational word. The one thing that David desperately desired was to experience life in the context of intentional relationships. He wanted to be part of something bigger than himself, both giving and receiving…

More tomorrow…

Faithfulness

It’s not sexy, glamorous or glitzy; but increasingly I believe it’s the key to success and effectiveness. When we’re younger we tend to look for the most charismatic, gifted, best put together person and yet God seems to chose faithfulness. When we read 2 Timothy 2:13 it’s really not that much of a surprise – it’s who He is and He can’t deny who He is. Paul wrote about it in 2 Timothy 4:7, having fought the good fight, having run the race, he had remained charismatic, passionate, in control of everything that was going on… no, he had remained faithful to what God had put in front of him. Of course he’d been shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten, hungry, had his travel plans rearranged many times… but he had remained faithful. I’ve talked a lot about dreams and visions on this blog – pursue the dream, chase the lion, step out and do what God is calling you to do… and I wouldn’t change a single word I’ve typed because it’s Bible. However the companion to pursuing those dreams is faithfulness.

Faithfulness stays loyal, constant and steadfast in the face of hindrances to the dream (I’m sure glad Jesus remained faithful when things got painful)
Faithfulness works hard at what God has put in front of you.
Faithfulness leans entirely on God (it’s about doing what He has asked us to do, not what think should be done or changing direction because it gets painful).
Faithfulness is the quality that allows us to share in what belongs to Christ (which happens to be everything).
Faithfulness sometimes means suffering.
Faithfulness is being honest with what God asked you to do.

Does life get any better?