Hit the Road, Jack?

Everyone faces changes in life, including moving to a new church. So, how do you know when it is time to say goodbye? I can imagine a few indicators that may or may not work for you:

1. You feel that your skills are not needed anymore. Maybe there are adequate replacements, or maybe you are just not being asked to help out in ways that you were before. In either case, perhaps there are other places where you can apply yourself productively.
2. You feel your help is not as needed as in the past. Times change, and so does the utility of any given person within any given organization. Maybe the organization has evolved in ways that no longer suit what you successfully did before.
3. Maybe your skills are no longer up to standards. Have you let yourself drift away, perhaps focusing on other things, and now what used to be easy is not so easy?
4. What if you just know that God is calling you elsewhere? You can argue all you want, and all that does is cause real stress. And in the end He will win anyway.
   

There are different options for approaching each of the above. For #1 and #2, you can either stay in the organization and do something else, of find somewhere else to do your thing. For #3, you have some soul searching to do. Why did you let your skills deteriorate? Is something else more important now? Assuming you have developed other ways to have an impact, does your organization need this new you?

#4 is the tough one. What are you going to do?

Last, I guess you can just suck it up and hang around anyways. Assuming you're not fighting God on this one. We all go through phases of life, friends come and go, as do interests and abilities. To face these inevitable life changes is hard enough, to throw your life into an uproar every time can make things very difficult.

So after typing this, I'm back where I started. THanks for visiting.

Shalom.

168, Church, and The Chapel

Well, again I've been away for a while. Things have been going well on Sundays at the 168 celebration times. Steve and I have been playing a tag-team with music since we are having such a hard time getting together for practice times. So far though it has been working. We have somewhat different styles, nothing better or worse here, just different. So, the practice thing will be really required before we can play together to any great degree of cohesiveness.

The rest of life is busy and sometimes confusing. I still have a foot in two churches, which is fine by me, but some folks still have a problem with it. I mean, if I or my family have to do certain activities elsewhere because they are simply not offered at a church, it wouldn't seem to be an issue, right? Apparently, wrong. Hence, I straddle organizations.

On a more positive note, the 168 music team went to the Christian Musician's Summit May 14 & 15 at The Chapel at Crosspoint. What an amazing experience, with amazing people, in an amazing facility. If you are involved in a modern worship team at any level (team leader, instrumentalist, vocalist, audio engineer, song writer) you will benefit from this conference. Lots of small breakout sessions where you get to pick the brains of experts in each respective field. Did I mention it was amazing? I sat in a room for about 90 minutes with 25 other folks asking Paul Baloche questions about song writing. Where are you going from there? And there are plenty of opportunities for plain old worship (with 1000 of your closest friends, lead by Paul Baloche & band every morning for an hour) or others worship leaders in the afternoon. And Friday closed with about two hours of Lincoln Brewster.

I'm still trying to process all the information.

That's all for now. Back to work.

Shalom.

Live 168 week 2

So, Live168 met at the new facility for the second time last Sunday. Patty and I had some time to rehearse during the week. Steve opened the service with "Glorified" and "Breathe" and I played along. After that Patty and I lead "Great is Your Love" and "Prepare the Way." These were very well received. It was more amazing than I ever imagined.

Tracy's message was continuing through Malachi, this week on 2:17-3:5. "That's not fair!" seemed to be the words of the day. Tracy lead us through an impromptu skit based on the parable of the workers in the field, when they all got paid the same amount even though some worked less than a full day. (That's not fair!) In the middle of the message Patty and I lead "Refiner's Fire." Also very well received.

After the message Steve lead "Built for Glory Made to Last" which is a very cool song, and right on message for the day.

I am so looking forward to growing into this position, and giving all I have for the group, and His glory! It is so humbling and frightening and fascinating and challenging and all kinds of other thoughts and emotions I cannot begin to type.

Bridges or Barriers

I was camping for the last several days with some old friends from my previous employer. I go to the Adirondacks every August with this gang and we hike mountains together. This was our 24^th year, and in this time we have grown to know each other quite well, in spite of the fact that to a large part we only see each other once a year.

So one conversation I wanted to talk about was with a friend who is a Buddhist. He married a Japanese woman, but I don't know if his conversion was before or after meeting her. I guess for today it doesn't matter.

I was prompted by a radio story about the meeting Rick Warren had with Barack Obama and John McCain. This well-publicized meeting took place at Saddleback Church on August 16^th. I heard Rick Warren and his wife Kay talking about their faith, and their approach to social change. The part I liked was regarding the spread of AIDS. They talked about three approaches to limit the spread of this terrible disease: save sex for marriage, remain faithful once married, and the use of condoms. They were not going to budge on their personal morality that requires them to preach that premarital sex and adultery are wrong. But, they also recognize that many many people are suffering from AIDS, and the distribution of condoms would seriously effect the spread. Reducing suffering is, to them, much more important that sitting in their Ivory Tower and preaching morality. I was very impressed and happy that these very influential evangelical Christians were placing the teachings of Jesus above their personal political agendas.

So, back to the conversation with my Buddhist friend. After discussing the Warrens story and its implications, we were able to conclude that the overall goals of these very distinct religions overlap significantly. Just like Rick and Kay Warren, why can't Christians work with Buddhists or Muslims, or anyone really, who wants the same goals? Why do we have to always beat them over the head with the Bible, and refuse cooperation until they accept Jesus as Lord and Savior?

OK, before you get too upset, I understand that ultimately we need to do our best to share the Gospel. But does this have to preclude working with unsaved individuals, especially those of different faiths? And can we please separate our political agendas from the work to help those in need? I just can't see Jesus saying to a little child with AIDS "I can't help you since your mother engaged in sex outside of marriage."

Thanks for listening. Probably there will more on this later.

Shalom.