Day 364 Disequilibrium

Day 364.
So my Executive Minister had a listen to my controversial Christmas preach (the one where I talked about how Jesus failed) and he told me that I did well at creating disequilibrium.

Disequilibrium [noun] - the loss of equilibrium attributable to an unstable situation in which some forces outweigh others.

Was he telling me that my thesis was 'unstable'?
Or, was he telling me that the forces of insightful new truth outweighed the forces of suggestive heresy...... or vice versus?

But I've found that disequilibrium is an ideal state for re-creation.

I wonder if this was the reality in Genesis 1 - the formless and empty of verse 2
The tōhû wābōhû, a state of disequilibrium (wasteness, emptiness and darkness) was primal conditions for God to move and bring design and shape to. This is precisely the territory that God's creative power manifests itself in.
Sunday's.

Ever entered a Sunday service and everything from the past week is sticking to you. All the junk you picked up as you tried, but could have tried harder, to not conform to the world. Ever entered a Sunday service just desperate to reorient your life back to God and his ways.

I often enter a Sunday feeling formless and empty. drained and bruised by a week of real life living.

Primal conditions for God to move and re-create.

Maybe a state of disequilibrium is the best way to enter, but not leave Sunday.

Day 360 My soul needs me to write.

Day 360 and I'm only 5 days away from finishing my 2010 blog.

Doubt I'll attempt a daily blog in 2011. I'll keep it going .....but watch for something more and something new coming in social networking.

Writing.
It's interesting that in the digital age the most popular website is a site that sells books - Amazon.
Social networking might be pushing us to short grammatically flawed sentences for our texting or Twitter pages - but real books with real English and real sentences aren't about to go out of fashion.

Recently I came across an good article on writing in the ODE Magazine. It highlighted three rules for writing as a spiritual practice:

1. Don't write what you know.
2. You can't write what you don't know.
3. You must write.

Over this past year I've come to appreciate these three frustrating yet inspiring rules, and come to appreciate that like meditation and prayer no one can do it for you.
This is what makes writing such a spiritual practise.

So, my blog writing this past year was actually more for my soul than anybody else's. Difficult to tell whether the frustrating times did more for my soul than the inspiring times.

I'll keep writing in 2011.
My soul needs it.

Day 358 The Day After Christmas

Day 358 and I managed to carve out a 78th Christmas preach!!!

It's the day after Christmas (Boxing Day in many parts of the world) - did Christmas fulfill your expectations?

Its the day after the first Christmas and Jesus is fleeing for his life, a refugee heading to Egypt. Herod the Great was after him.

A hugely crazy king.

Killed everybody in his way.
Married 10/11 wives.
Killed the only one he really loved as he got suspicious of her.
Killed her two sons.
Killed his barber who stood up for his two sons.
Killed his predecessors.
Taxed the people into massive poverty.
On the day he died he wanted people to mourn, so he rounded up some of the most eminent men of Israel and gave orders that on the day he died they should be executed to ensure there was
weeping in Israel on the day he died.

A crazed, despot.
Now - the day after the first Christmas Jesus is wanted dead by Herod the Great.

You would have thought the Godhead would have planned the incarnation at the time of a better king!

But they didn't.

In fact Scripture elsewhere tells us that "when the time was fully come" - the exact, right, precise time ...even if it was slap bang in the middle of one of the craziest, violent kings of history.

What's the point?

If Jesus could enter the world of evil and tyranny under Herod ....maybe he can enter our world of evil and tyranny with the genocide happening and multiple wars raging.
If Jesus could enter the world of Herod's day when most people were held in poverty and oppression .... maybe he can enter our world where so many remain in poverty, where millions earn less than a $1 a day, where millions of children can't gain education.
If Jesus could enter the world of pain and disappointment in Herod's day .... then maybe he can enter our world filled with its disappointment and pain.

Jesus entered the world at the time of the meanest Herod ...... giving hope to all of us as we face our Herod's .....because in every day and every age there are Herod's.

So ....who's causing you to flee?
Who's your Herod?

Jesus entered this world right at the time of Herod!!!

Day 353 - what if He hadn't come?

Day 353.
So, what if Jesus hadn't come.
It's maybe my Christmas theme for 2011 .....got a year to craft 4 preaches out of that title.

We would still have had the Son of God. Eternally was and is.
But we would not have had the Son of Man.

Here's 3 to mull over that I'm thinking about:
No Son of Man - no new humanity.
No Son of Man - no High Priest who empathizes with us.
No Son of Man - no substitutionary atonement.

We'd be up the creek without a paddle.

But, these three are the obvious .....334 days to figure out some more and make a Christmas series our of it.

Suggestions welcome.

Day 352 Did I really say Jesus failed??

Day 352 and despite my best attempts I'm not getting these blogs in on a daily basis.
Sorry folks. I've failed at doing a daily blog for 365 days.
I've failed ....but ..... I'm not a failure.

If you were at Redeemer's Church on Sunday you would be familiar with this phrase.
It will come online [www.redeemerschurch.com and hit Sunday messages].

It was me one of the newest Christmas thoughts I'd had for a few years. We can learn how to be fully human from the fully human Son of Man.
The Son of Man (the title Jesus most went by) teaches us how to fail gracefully.

Yep...... read that again.....I did use the word "fail" with regards to Jesus.

And, at present I'm still employed and not fired due to heresy.

Listen to the message .....maybe even listen to it twice and then blog comments welcome.

Day 345 A Chalcedon Christmas

Day 345 and theology takes centre stage of this advent season.
Chalcedonian theology in particular.
Jesus Christ is one person, two natures, fully God and fully man.
BOOM!

Christmas is just loaded with rich, profound theology.

One person, two natures, fully God and fully man.

Not half a man; not two persons; not a modified form of God or man.
Fully God, fully man, two natures but one person.

No wonder Walter Wink wrote "If Jesus had not been born we would not have been able to invent him."

This is more incredible than fantastic fiction.

Listen in to today's preach on this topic: http://www.redeemerschurch.com/dlgMediaPlayer.aspx?id=880

This is the Jesus of the Christian faith.
This is the Jesus you are invited to experience.
Hear the word about him and then by faith receive Him. All of Him. fully Go - a secure and powerful salvation; fully human - the truest, fullest way to live.

Christmas truly is magical.

Day 338 - It's OK to be weak.

Day 338 ...... and as everyone left Redeemer's Church this morning lunch was on us!
Thanks Juanito's for serving over 600 people great food.
Too bad folks if this was a Sunday you chose shopping or skiing over church!!

So one of our pastors this morning, Ann Hudson, guided our thinking to Isaiah 9 and the well known words "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders."

As Ann commented, this context of these words are decades of bloody tyrants, of warriors boots and garments rolled in blood .....and then boom - inappropriately and disconcertingly comes the words "For to us a child is born!"

You would expect that following the striking images of bloody warfare the prophet would have given us the image of a Messiah as a righteous warrior, or a judge, or like an Achilles or Ben Hur. But instead he describes the hope of Israel as first a child!

This pushes us.
As confident, educated, sophisticated people accepting weakness and need is perhaps more difficult for us moderns that more most people in the history of the world. Being weak in our culture is shameful.

But in how God reveals Christ, he reveals something necessary to embrace God's revelation. Listen to the words I read a few weeks ago:

"We are, in short, created with limited ways and abilities to know the world, so that we may enjoy needing God and each other."

Needing God - necessitates weakness.

God gave them a baby, a child ....in their greatest moment of need.

Wow!

Day 337 - Thank God for Bethlehem.

Day 337 and I'm just back from cold Minneapolis .....strangely, cold and snow put you more in the Christmas mood. Spend all day today Christmas decorating (yuck I loathe Christmas lights and contrarian wives!). Tomorrow Redeemer's Church Christmas stage design will dazzle and draw us into an Incarnational worship experience.

Day 2 of advent thoughts:

In our world, as in world's past, a persons geography so often defines their destiny.
Live in Africa and you will be poor.
Live in the US and you will be educated.
Live in North Korea and you will be isolated.
Live in France and you will loathe English cooking, etc, etc.

The Christmas story reminds us that the Scripture's will have none of this geographical fatalism that dismisses individuals, families, towns or entire ethnic groups.

People then, like today try to insist on this geographical fatalism.
In Jesus' day they said "what good thing can come out of Bethlehem?"

Christmas and Jesus kick geographical fatalism in the butt!

Now, God's goodness and God's good people can be found anyplace where people accept His grace.

Thank God for Bethlehem - it changes the reality of people living in the Huruma slum, Kenya; the poor village of Jocotillo Guatemala; the earthquake ruin of Haiti; the red light zone of Tijuana and the heat, flatness, bad air, 15.7% unemployment Central Valley, CA.

Day 324 and a little taste of how I hope to finish the year!

Day 324 and yes ........I have miserably failed at doing this daily as I hoped I would do back in January ...like 324 days ago!

So, here's what I'm thinking. Starting December 5 I preach a Christmas series called It's Not Your Birthday DUH! Great title eh!!!

For the days of advent I will try and blog a daily blog that explores aspects of the incarnation.

Here's a taste:

"When Jesus was born, Mary, Joseph, and a handful of others knew that this child was the hope for Israel and the world. Against common sense and ruthless opposition they trusted God's leading and protection with that hope in mind. Just as Jesus grew in knowledge and wisdom, he must have grown in hope. From the cradle he learned to hope that crying would bring his mother to feed him and that his neediness would cause Joseph to protect and provide for him. For hope is that deep assurance that more is yet to come, in physical growth and sustenance, in knowledge and wisdom, and in love."
Taken from Flesh & Blood Jesus: Learning To Be Fully Human From The Son of Man @ Dan Russ.

See you in a few days.

Day 284 and I found some new inspiration.

Day 284 and sorry for the less than regular blogging going on just now ......something to do with a writers block thing going on.

Seeking inspiration I hunted down some new writers. Ended up with a book called Good News for Anxious Christians @ Phillip Cary.

This book delivered. in fact it delivered so well I had to have one of my orthodox, reformed theological anchors read the book. Naturally I'm drawn to thinking that is outside of the box, on the edge, left of center and tending towards heresy! When you grow up in the faith and for decades have read and heard the teachings of the Scriptures - it needs a new sound to inspire you.
Obviously here the secret is to be inspired without becoming a heretic. Hence my anchors, as well as a solid theological education and constant reading in the field of orthodoxy.

Phillip Cary successfully delivers a new sound and new inspiration. Watch for this book appearing on our church resource shelves in the coming weeks.

Here's an excerpt from his chapter on "Why You Don't Have to 'Let God Take Control'":

Where did we get the idea that the Lord doesn't allow us to make ordinary human mistakes?We are not supposed to sin, of course, but there are many kinds of mistakes that are not sin, such as the mistakes we make when we're just learning how to use our talents well. Being fallible creatures, we have to make some mistakes in order to learn. But it will be difficult for us to learn from our mistakes if we don't admit to ourselves that we're the ones making them. This is one of the most important ways that the new evangelical theology has the effect of preventing people from becoming responsible adults.

And then here's the line, the inspiring line:

It's often put this way: God can't work in your life unless you let him. This is an astonishing piece of fantasy. Where in the Bible or anywhere else in God's creation did people get the idea that God was so helpless? If God can't do anything unless we let him, then God is not really God, and indeed he is less real than any person we know.

WOW!!
Cary writes on 10 topics that so often plague modern Christians causing anxiousness and fear. Teaching from seemingly good pulpits by well intended pastors - but sadly error that hurts and harms Christian health.

Wise Christians are becoming smarter at discerning that the truth is often stranger than it's been made to sound over the past many years.

At Redeemer's Church we're working hard at preaching the Gospel not just to people who've never heard it before, but also to Christians.

Day 275 and what I really think about visiting Africa.

Day 275 .....and I borrow my leadership blog from Week 40.

It's time to be honest.
Not that I'm dishonest at other times. But, sometimes I choose not to share my more personal or vulnerable thoughts. This blog is me going to a more personal level than other times - and hence, more honest.

Here's my honesty - I don't really like going to Kenya, Africa.
I love the guys we partner with; I love our driver/agent Ben; I love all that's happening in the Furaha Community Huruma Centre, part of the Furaha Community Foundation; I love the first thing in the morning and the smells, aroma and sunrise of Kenya. But, i don;t really like going to Africa.

It's a hard journey - two major long flights.
It's a hard place to stay - my guy hurts for the entire time I'm there.
It's a hard place to lead - as team leader you are constantly aware that you are in a desperate city, a city that saw a terrorist attack against Americans; a city filled with desperate people seeing white people as targets; it's a place where the word police does not always equal justice but more often equal corruption.
It's a hard place to relax - travel through 10 time zones, hit the ground running, force yourself to sleep at the wrong times, swallow malaria meds, avoid the bad bacteria you are surrounded by; travel in a matatu with dust pouring into your lungs ...as well as hitting potholes, enduring near misses, sit in pollution clogged air, constantly watch over your shoulder.
Entering Kenya, Africa is hard and I don't really like doing it.

But during the past three years I've lead a team into a large slum in Nairobi twice a year.

This visit one of our team asked me why I keep going on the trips?

My answer - I have to, for my sake!

Not that I want to appear selfish, but, I have to find a way to keep myself exposed to some of the worst poverty on the face of the globe.
I have to find a way to keep myself aware of the reality of 60% of the world's population.
I have to find a way to be among the poorest of the poor and be where Jesus would be.

My spiritual leadership is dependent upon understanding true reality, and that reality has to involve the reality of what's happening in our globe and with the majority of humanity.

If I don't go, and go regularly (we so easily forget or switch off) I will move towards a self focused existence and a skewed view of reality.

But it does more.
It pushes me to maintain spiritual leadership as a faith exercise.

Let's be honest. Sometimes in the leading of a local church autopilot can kick in.
I've been doing this for over 10 years. Putting together a preach, leading staff, leading a congregation can too easily be done out of experience and not out of faith.
But when you enter Huruma slum and you see the chaos, hopelessness, desperateness of daily life, the though about seeing transformation come through the presence of Christ - the only way such could happen is through a moving of God. that is a act of faith, not an act of experience or professional pastoring.
Going to Kenya, Africa and the hardness of going ......renews the call of faith, the cry for more faith, the reliance upon faith and faith alone.

Going - is a spiritual necessity for effective spiritual leading.

Anyone want to join me?
Anyone want a shot of renewed, invigorated, desperate faith?

Day 260 Elder Brotherism.

Day 260.
So I'm writing my fourth preach on the Prodigal God.
Strange thing happened. An angry lady left an angry message on my phone demanding that we take down our banner that promotes our series "The Prodigal God". She was mad that we would call God a prodigal. She indicated her Christian faith was insulted by our heresy.

Last week we defined Prodigal as "recklessly extravagant".
We explained that everything in the Prodigal Son story Jesus told points to the reckless extravagance of the Father. He runs to his son who wanted him dead; he kisses him and gives him the robe of honor, he throws a party to celebrate the return of the son who broke his heart, stole his money and spent it all.

......and God runs to us in the incarnation; God takes on human flesh; God hangs on a cross; God allows us to slap him, nail him, spear him, kill him.

Recklessly extravagant.

What a prodigal God.

What grace.

But the irony of the phone call was ...... I was penning thoughts about the Elder Brother.

Here's a line I preach tomorrow:

"When you become a Christian, either you will start becoming more like the Father or you will start becoming more like the elder brother. "

Listen in tomorrow to find out more.

This elder brotherism is so subtle and yet so destructive.

Day 257 - big smaller things.

Day 257 and I continue to read the autobiography of Tony Blair.
Fascinating read.
Fascinating leader.
Among the things that have impressed me is the determination to make his time as Prime Minister focused on things of importance and not trivia.
It was while at university that a Ugandan friend, Olara Otunnu, impressed upon him that the world was not debating the trivial debates of the Labor Party. Instead, the world's population was focused on issues of life, hope, health versus death due to the ravages of poverty, conflict and disease.

Of course we are all experts at assuring ourselves that our trivia is not trivia but of world changing significance. We are experts are shrinking the world down to our context.
But in our sane, honest moments we know we are pretty small with regards to the whole.
But those sane, honest moments should not reduce us to viewing ourselves with disdain or disregard. Rather, they should propel us to involve our lives in the bigger, substantial questions of today.

I'm having this thought percolate around in my head for the past few weeks.
What would my life look like if I really took serious the bigger issues?
How could I involve myself in them?
How do I avoid spending a day, a week, a month, a life specialising in trivia that truly makes no or little difference in the global scope, the eternal scope of life.

Jesus obviously did this. Yet whilst literally saving the world, he still had an amazing propensity to do little things.
He had this uncanny capacity to touch the eyes of a blind guy, visit the home of a sick little girl, take his disciples fishing, go for a mountain walk .......and make all this connect to the biggest purpose possible.

Being about the bigger things is not sitting in rooms debating philosophical issues, or making grand speeches about them. Being about the bigger things is as much about making the little things bigger than they appear and making the bigger things more tangible than people think.

Jesus was brilliantly local, while global, while eternal.

Makes you rethink how you're doing most things.

Day 253 all about sons.

Day 253 and I'm sorry I missed the last 6 days. Not a lot of Internet access at 8561ft. I scraped ice off my car on Thursday .....not even double figures in September. Imagine how cold it will be in January .....they say 40 below!

I was in Colorado taking our oldest son to Timberline Bible School nestled in a beautiful valley not far from one of the best ski resorts in Colorado. He's there for a year.

As for me leaving him alone in a new place surrounded by new people miles and miles from home - he coped with it much better than his dad! [You see I do have a heart!!]

As I drove away fighting back the tears, my first thought was - imagine if I was a single parent dropping off my only child. I couldn't imagine that emotion. I know he's doing a great thing, he knows it too. Its going to be life changing, life shaping - but we're going to miss him like crazy. Just as your son reaches the stage where conversation with him is good and meaningful; your his parent but also his friend; and he keeps his room clean and is bothered about personal hygiene - just then he leaves you (with you picking up the tab for it!).
My first thought was imagine how a single parent would cope with this.

That night, alone in my condo waiting my return flight, I began writing a funeral preach for the 22 year old son who tragically was killed in a road accident on Labor Day morning. I imagined his mother and sisters emotions. How do you cope with that? My tears moved from leaving my son in a good place for a good reason for a short time to tears for that family, and few tears of regret over my lack of perspective.

Quite a week.
A week with significant thinking about sons leaving.
Working on two preaches about the leaving of the prodigal son.
Understanding even more the leaving of God's only Son.
Wondering about how God feels when I, his son, leave.

A good, difficult, deepening week.

Day 248 - an insulting Jesus!

Day 248 (otherwise known as Labor Day; otherwise known as last day of summer vacation mood; otherwise known as the day I set the barbecue on fire; otherwise known as our oldest sons last day in Reedley before flying to CO!)

So I'm chewing over yesterdays preach, the first in our new Prodigal God series. The insulting Jesus. Let's start by calling everybody listening to me "stupid sheep".
Jesus at his blunt best.

Normally I applaud Jesus' subtleness. He always was the 'come in the back door' communicator, the stealth bomber.
(I learned much from that tactic, especially spending much of my time communicating to people who've heard it all before. But come in the back door and you catch them unaware, off-guard and it forces a response - either emotion to reject or emotion to change. If I was teacher of homiletics I'd shout loudly about the need to preach this way 80% of the time.)

But this time - Jesus went front door, blunt, offensive, maybe slightly crude.

Why?

His bluntness, insult in calling people stupid sheep .....was within a series of three parables (Luke 15) that shout GRACE.

Interesting.

His bluntest insult matched His greatest presentation on GRACE.

Maybe the answer lies in the nature of grace.
Is grace not blunt?
Does grace not look every blunder, mistake, failure and yuck we're ever done and say - grace!
There is incredible boldness in grace.
Incredible audacity.

There's also incredible stupidity in grace.
Grace can be badly abused.
Grace can be trampled all over.

The bigger insult is not Jesus calling us stupid sheep; the bigger insult is what we do with grace.

It's got me really nervous, excitedly nervous about next Sunday's preach.

There is something deeply curious and perhaps confusing/conflicting about this Prodigal God.
Going to be quite a week working on Part II.

Day 244 - peccator or justus.

Day 244 and I'm loving my reading for Sunday's preach.
In particular Martin Luther's line simul justus et peccator.

Now this is a brilliant line.
In some ways it explains exactly me.
It means - "simultaneously justified and sinful."

Luther knew that although he had been saved from sin's penalty he was in daily need of salvation from sin's power.

This means that scholars, pastors, esteemed Christian leaders need the gospel just as much as hardened pagans.

And this brings us to Sundays preach.

I thought I was going to give a gospel presentation, so that anyone attending who had been with us over the summer would be very clear on what it is at the core of Redeemer's Church and themselves enter a new relationship with Christ.
But what I'm learning and enjoying ....and getting exciting about preaching ....is that the gospel is not just for non-Christians but for Christians!

As Tim Keller says the gospel is not just the ABCs of Christianity but the A through Z.
It is everything.
It needs to be everything because many days I'm more peccator than justus.

Day 243 - back from vacation ...maybe.

Day 243 and I'm back!
Yep 2 months off ...one for vacation as we travelled Scotland and Spain; one for catching up having been gone for four weeks!
Glad to be back - a good discipline.
So, we are on this daily blog of how deliberately I am following Christ.
Just read today that Archbishop Desmond Tutu is going to slow down now he's at the age of 79. Yesterday I finished the final book written by Dr John Stott ...at the age of 88.
Makes me feel a bit of a wimp for taking a two month break.
Of course, you might be saying 'well you only took a break from blogging about your christian living, you didn't actually stop doing it.'
Right?!?!

Existentially I was always doing it. Honestly.
But do you ever wonder how much of it you are actually doing.

We've just finished another August pierce the heart message series. Week after week I pounded myself with what following Christ, being part of His Church should look like.and every Sunday afternoon I lazed on my sofa watching the new English Premier League football game while munching on the remnants of my leftover Scottish chocolates.

Yep .....existentially, but honestly?

65 days away from blogging and I wondered how deliberate was I?
Not that I was deliberately not following Christ. Of course I continued my spiritual disciplines - maybe even sharper away from my desk.
But maybe I'm rethinking a bit what deliberate following is.
If I haven't helped a neighbor, or cared for an orphans, or shared my faith, fought for justice, or been humiliated for Him ....am I deliberately following.

I'm nicely following.
I could be contently following.
Maybe I could say I'm willingly following.
But deliberate?

Deliberate has intensity and action implicit in it; it's also connected to obedience, else what's the deliberate defining!

Now I sat in a Spanish cafe at midnight supping a San Miguel and counselling a friend on his spiritual journey.
I attended 4 different churches, of 4 different traditions on 4 different Sundays and enjoyed each worship experience.
I read 7 books - mostly on theological matters.
I had quality time with my boys talking life and faith.
I prayed.
I journalled.
I felt His presence.

But the core of what Jesus seems to indicate is following Him ......I didn't really do (except my giving to the poor continued courtesy of direct deposit!).

So Day 243.
What today have I done to deliberately follow Christ?
2:17pm .....still hoping it will happen.
This vacation mindset has to change.

Day 177 - summer reading

Day 177 and I'm selecting my reading for the next couple of weeks.
Take a look at my choices:

1. Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race & Class Divisions in a Consumer Church @ Paul Louis Metzger.
2. Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate @ Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang.
3. Leading Outside the Lines @ Jon Katzenbach & Zia Khan.
4. America's Prophet: Moses and the American Story @Bruce Feiler.
5. What the Dog Saw @ Malcolm Gladwell.
6. The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World @ Alan Roxburgh.

Eclectic and yet all speaking into my search for some new answers.

Truth be told I've been asking new questions these days. Questions I've never asked before.
Questions that other 'growth pastors' don't tend to ask.
Questions that point to new answers that both excite and freak me out.

My July reading is part of my hunt to hear God speak into these new questions and point me towards answers.

I think following Jesus very much involves being a learner. The model of rabbi and student doesn't pass when you reach 40 or 50 or 60. I want to remain a learner. But I want to remain a learner of new questions, not failing to grasp the answers to earlier, elementary, previous questions.

So this summer .... I'm learning.

Humbly.
Hungrily.
Intriguingly.
Broadly.
Curiously.

So ....I'm making sure that to me book list I add my The Book time.

Read of a church that recommends for all the 10/10 plan. Everyday everyone ensures they have 10 minutes in the Bible and 10 minutes in prayer.

Learning.
Following.
Being a student.

Some how I feel that this is going to be a good, exciting and defining summer.

Did you read my list of books ........see any common threads.

Watch out for some bold moves.

Hey ....my blog might not be too regular in the next few weeks ...busy reading, busy learning, busy gone!

Day 173 Humbly hold a humble Christ

Day 173
As I begin reading for the final preach on The Star, The Cross & The Crescent I want to handle the topic of how you hold Jesus as unique yet without the arrogance of truth.
Been reading Hunter's book "To Change The World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility Of Christianity In The Late Modern World" (referenced it on my leadership blog as the must read of the summer).

Hunter writes these words:

"The significance of every person before God irrespective of worldly stature or accomplishment and the care for the least are the ethical hallmarks of Christianity, for they mark every human being and every human life in the most practical ways with God's image and therefore worthy of respect and love. Without these, Christianity is a brutalizing ideology........So far as I can tell, elitism for believers is despicable and utterly anathema to the gospel they cherish."

WOW!

The disturbing profoundness and thorough practicalness of this statement stirs me, shakes me.

This series has only more reaffirmed my belief in the church being the hope of the world - but when it gets it wrong ....being the scourge of the world.

Our church staff have been reiterating among ourselves the core characteristic of humility.
If we can humbly hold a humble Christ -what possibilities.

Today's intentional follow .....humble surrender to anothers diagnosis.

Day 172 - rest.

Day 172
Rest.
I’m not talking about the long lie in or the lazy Sunday afternoon rest – do nothing, read the paper, enjoy the couch - I’m talking about something deeper.
Hebrews 4 talks about entering into God’s rest.
I’m needing/wanting to experience that afresh.
God’s rest is Christ.
To rest is to experience Christ.
It’s that kind of rest that my soul really needs.
It’s a rest that reminds you everything you are and have is sourced in Him.

Why we need rest is because we get too busy working. We would seldom if ever say it, but truth be told, we work as a means of our salvation.
It’s not that we aren’t trusting Jesus for our salvation …it’s just that we prefer to make sure of it ourselves.
Subtle.
Into the core of our being comes this need to work – and it robs us of the rest that is Christ. It robs us of what Christ’s salvation is.

Rest.

Yancey put it this way “there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more; there's nothing you can do to make God love you less.”

I cannot get my brain around that.

Maybe if I rest …then I’ll get it.
Maybe if I get it, I'll rest.

Day 170 - I missed blogging, but God didn't miss me!

Day 170 - and oops for missing last week.
Doesn't mean I wasn't intentionally following Jesus ....I just wasn't doing it as well as I should have been.

Busyness and its sister 'tiredness' can most times spur me on to better things and focused living - but occasionally it can really distract me.
Occasionally was last week.
Not my best week.
Thankfully I listened into a teach from my 'go to guy to get kicked in the butt spiritually every time', Bill Hybels.
Maybe its because we lived in Chicago and enjoyed our time at Willowcreek Community Church where Bill is the Senior Pastor.
Maybe its because in Cardiff, Wales many years ago God used Bill to ignite the passion I have for the local church being the hope of the world.
Maybe its because Bill's own vulnerability helped others, myself included, be honest about leadership and daily leading a local church.
Maybe its because his candid but dignified leading and teaching is something I seek to emulate.

Whatever the maybe ......on my way home from a road trip to Martinez,CA a CD of Bill just spoke powerfully to me on the topic of soul replenishment.
He hit the nail on the head.
Ouch.

Bill tied it in to the main thing a Senior Pastor is required to bring - deep spiritual connectivity to Christ.

Double ouch!

Every Senior Pastor knows this ...but sometimes the pile of leadership stuff on my desk takes priority over the main spiritual leadership stuff I'm charged to bring.

So .....while my last week wasn't my best week .....it was a week when God used a key leader to hit me over the head, stab me in the stomach and point me in the direction I need to go these summer months.

Soul replenishment.

I know this will be hard for me to do.
Leaders are so often task oriented and vision focused. When I have new vision to write, new budgets to write, new recruiting to do, new plans to set, new teams to form, new messages to write, new ideas to craft ......these things sit at the fore of my mind.
Replenishment means - these things have to sit beneath both Christ and my enjoyment just of Him.

I know I am going to have to force myself to stop planning, envisioning, strategizing - and listen, be still, - the three r's "rest, relax, rejoice" as someone called it today.

So .......this week is me figuring out how to do what isn't natural to me.

Ideas welcome.

Seems weird even suggesting my intentional follow is going to be resting, relaxing and rejoicing!

Could however, be fun.

Day 163 - Wash Over Me .....excuse the focus on me!

Day 163 and yesterday we saw 52 people baptized.
It was our first Wash Over Me Baptism Ceremony and a great Saturday afternoon.

There was one other baptism not in that 52, a 53rd - my own.

Strange.

When I was 13 years old I was baptized. With a mixture of 'the right thing to do', being obedient and wanting people to know that I was a Christian.
All good, all real to where I was and what I was feeling.

But over the past few years my views on baptism have begun to shift.
It's more centrally become sacramental.
But this year something bigger happened - its moved from being a fidecentric emblem to a Christocentric emblem.
This is for me a significant movement, and a movement that required me to do more than appropriate this into the baptism I had many years ago, to do the whole thing again.

Probably best that I speak into this odd site of the church's Senior Pastor being baptised by the church's staff.......

For years I've held to the idea that baptism is a result of my faith. I've come to believe in who Christ is; I've received by faith His salvation and I then take this further step in demonstrating my faith for others to see.
This is the classic believers' (converts) baptism.

Of course Christianity is divided between two types of baptism - believers' baptism or infant baptism. The more theological terms are credobaptism or paedobaptism.

I grew up credobaptist.

But in the past few years I've been restless with not so much with what is attached to credobaptism, more I've been restless with what's missing from credobaptism.
Initially I felt it minimized the Divine movement as a sacrament. Everything seemed to revolve around my movement. It was me who was moving to show my faith; it was me who was stepping in the waters and displaying my devotion; it was me identifying with Christ.
This seemed to wrestle baptism away from being sacramental. As a sacrament the movement is always from God. This is the case in every sacrament. God descends to meet us in the sacrament.

But in the past few months my restless has intensified.

Is it really all about my faith?
Is it not all about Christ?

And this began me re-reading the paedobaptist position.
[Thank you Sinclair Ferguson and your excellent defense/summary of infant baptism in Baptism: Three Views edited by David F. Wright.]

For me the issue I'm revising is not whether it is believers' or infants that get baptised - for me it is what movement is happening and where does it start.

Is it a "fidecentric" emblem or a "Christocentric" emblem?

Fidoecentric says it is my faith that is being outworked in baptism.
Christocentric does not minimize the role of faith but stressed that what is symbolized in baptism is not faith but the Christ in whom faith rests.

This is a defining difference.
This pushes it to being a sign and a seal rather than a symbol or testimony.
This pushes it away from faith towards grace......towards what God does, not what I'm doing.

This is a major part of the paedobaptist argument.
Maybe I'm exploring a third way, a way that takes the truth of believers' baptism but embraces some of the excellent theology behind the paedobaptist position.

Who says there's only two views.
Maybe its bigger than we've previously known.

Yesterday .....quietly at the end of the ceremony as people headed for food.... staff and one pastor decided to experiment with a third way.

Day 159 it wasn't a boring day.

Day 159 - great day.
Spent 3 hours with two guys from Kansas talking church transformation. Hopefully they learned some new stuff, I know I did.
Then ......spent nearly four hours with Jake from Guatemala. Neat.
We ate, we laughed, we nearly cried (hey we are men, we 'nearly' cried), we dreamed, we strategized and at the end we knew that God had showed up and something new, bigger is being birthed.

Life with the Holy Spirit is so unpredictable.
There are always the constants of everything pointing to Christ, God being glorified, the Kingdom of God being expanded. But within that there is the unpredictable.
Who would have thought I'd every be in Reedley. Who'd have thought I'd still be here!
Jake certainly never imagined he'd be in Guatemala with a wife and two kids!
But both of us, all of us, are trying to do life with God and for God.
That life is unpredictable.

Maybe this is why Scripture is always emphasising faith.
Unpredictability can only be lived in and through faith.
Maybe this is why Scripture says anything not of faith is sin!
Maybe living predictable lives is sinful.
It's certainly boring.

Today wasn't a boring day!

Day 158 - here's the truth.

Day 158 and its been hard to blog the last few days. Sorry folks.

Partly a lack of inspiration ...always happens in June as you begin to run out of steam.
Really looking forward to my summer reading and getting refreshed.

Partly, way to busy for June as well.
Been traveling with some staff to do training for a church in Tacoma, WA (one day was 68F and blue skies, next day was 54F and lashing rain!).
Today, I'm just back from Tujunga, CA and training with another church.

Both these churches are getting ready for their first Alpha launch after the summer ....and we are praying with them for many people to come to faith in Christ.

As I sit here blogging, I'm searching for some inspirational thought.
There's one line that today I shared with a Senior Pastor that just resonated with everyone around the table. It's Jack Welch's (former GE boss) leadership and management mantra: "Truth is the kindest form of management."

Why do we often think softening the truth is kinder?

There is something about the 'truth' that is greater than we imagine.
There is something about living in truth, operating in truth that does something more than we think.
This is not just at the leadership level, its also at our personal level.
Can you imagine if tomorrow you operated always from the truth position.
Truthful with others, truthful to others.

I spoke last week to a friend of mine Keith Getty (modern hymn writer and sad Liverpool fan). We spoke about Dr Tim Keller and his approach to ministry, especially worship in New York city. Surrounded by world class art and artists Keller knows that his worship team and his oration on Sunday mornings cannot compete with the class acts people have enjoyed on Saturday nights in New York ....so he doesn't try and compete with mediocre music or drama or speaking; rather, he gives them Jesus.

To the couple who's marriage is falling apart; to the guy racked with guilt; to the lonely women, the drained mother, the estranged father .....mediocre music in church does nothing for them. The one thing the church can give them is Jesus. Jesus is the answer to failing marriages, guilt, loneliness, weariness, pain, disappointment.
Jesus is the truth.

The truth is - the church should stop trying to compete with what the world does very well, and give the world what it hasn't got .....the truth....Jesus.

Day 152 - teaching our staff.

Day 152 and I spent the day educating our staff.
Being a global church is at the core of Redeemer's Church - but how can we be global if even our staff are ignorant to the biggest global event happening.
Three billion people will watch this global event.
It is not beyond exaggeration that the world will nearly stop for four weeks as this global event takes place .....except the US!

This global event, even global history is the FIFA World Cup being held in South Africa.

But our staff, most of our church, most of our country are absent (except Tom Cruise interestingly ....something to do with a friendship with David Beckham!).

So .....alongside blogging nearly every day about how I intentionally followed Jesus today, I will try to help those who read my blog become global people by updating you on what everyone else in the world has been a part of over the next four weeks.
here's the video of England team leaving London to fly to South Africa - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8717146.stm

My intentional follow of Jesus today was to help our staff be global.

It also involved praying for our friends Jake & Renee in Guatemala as they help people left homeless due to the recent volcano.
It also involved beginning to write the first preach in our new series The Star, The Cross and The Crescent. Trying to speak into the global conflict of our world ....a clash of three religions.
We need to learn what's happening on our globe - misunderstanding is causing more conflict.
We need to learn how to handle truth without falling into the arrogance of truth.
we need to be in relationship with our neighbors in a very small, village globe.

Following Christ is now, as it always was, a life that is to bless every nation.

Day 151, day 43 in the gulf.

Day 151 and its Day 43 of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill.

Its hard for us to comprehend how catastrophic this oil spill is.
Its hard to understand how the people in Louisiana are feeling about their state again being hit hard.
Its hard to understand how it will eventually get sealed off.
It's hard to comprehend the long term environmental impact of this disaster.

It's also difficult to think that we'll learn from this.
They drill because we are thirsty for oil.

We, me included, have lifestyles that depend on oil.

Someone today told me it takes somewhere between 20-50 years for a culture to change its transportation habits.

There is a direct correlation between our thirst for oil and what's happening in the Gulf.

This is a truth we don't like.
It's not a new truth.

The Jews didn't kill Jesus .....I did, you did, we did.
There's a direct correlation between me and what happened on the cross.

I'm amazed that in all the reports I've read, watched or listened to ....this is never mentioned.

My intentional follow of Jesus today was to confess my guilt in the oil disaster, and to confess my role in the death of Jesus.

Its strange how one thought leads to another!

Day 149 OUCH!

Day 149 and its the first time since Christmas that on Sunday night I can look forward to a slow Monday morning. Memorial Weekend - sweet.

We finished our Consumed: What's Sucking The Life Out Of You series. 6 weeks of looking at the other 'American Idols'. Been a great series. Many people thanked us for it, but in the same breath also thanked us that it was over! Been a stabbing, punching kind of series. The kind of series that took a mirror to our souls and we didn't like what we saw.

How many days have we woken up with Leah wishing it was Rachel?
How many days - even as followers of Christ - have we wished for more and we never turned to Jesus to find the more?

The honest truth - most Christians in the US are disappointed with their lives and Jesus isn't enough.

Ouch!

But true.

Join in the journey of falling in love with Jesus all over again.

Day 146 - those dang vuvuzelas!

Day 146 sees me guiding you to the leadership blog I wrote this today:

Week 22 and as we get ready for the greatest show on earth (come on you yanks, the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa!!) - one British TV reporter went to see what all the fuss was over the vuvuzelas!
Ever heard of them?
They are like plastic trumpets that loads of fans play during the game.
Watch Gabby's report and listen to the noise: http://bit.ly/bn11uU

It's Africa, and with the World Cup being held in Africa for the first time - let it be an African World Cup.
I say that (with truth and desire), but i know if i was attending the world cup (sadly I tried unsuccessfully to arrange a vital missions trip to South Africa in June!!!) after 20 minutes of enjoying the vuvuzelas noise and the African feel ...I'd want them to shut up!!

This is our tension, and its a tension we don't always do well at living within - to the decrement of the Gospel.
It's hard to live out true diversity, we tend more towards uniformity at worst or similarity at best.

For decades the missiological push has been for homogeneous mission. Think of a book like Unchurched Harry & Sally; or the definition of Saddleback Sam. The phrase 'people like us' was a missiological phrase to help churches achieve maximum growth.
We avoided the tension by pulling towards similarity, homogeneity.

But today's church in today's America can no longer bypass the tension.
Homogeneity is not the way of the 21st century, nor the call of the postmodern, emerging society, of even greater significance - nor is it the Gospel.
Leaders must learn to live with the noise of the vuvuzelas. In truth, leaders must learn to enjoy the noise of the vuvuzelas.

Watch this blog as over the next few months we engage further on this topic. For more reading try this very helpful webblog: http://djchuang.com/multi/

Day 145 ...keep reading to the advert link!

Day 145 - that's what happens when staff take a trip away with you ..... you forget to blog.
The last few days have been very good days.
We've talked, talked, laughed, laughed, eaten, eaten and still we returned to sunny old Reedley.
Something is stirring in Reedley that is keeping us all here; something bigger than each of us and all of us; something that has us both excited and petrified.
Intentionally following Jesus is about figuring out where He wants you and making sure you are there.
Intentionally following Jesus is about taking the next step no matter how big that step it.
Intentionally following Jesus is about figuring it out before you blurb out a vision that has no substance nor strategy.
So .....forgive the abstract, suggestive blog .....trust me something is brewing.

Day 145 - so if 6 days got lost on a staff trip to San Francisco ....imagine how many days might get lost when the greatest show on earth begin in 17 days.

Know what it is?

Watch this brilliant advert and guess: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE

Day 139 Finding the guts to preach.

Day 139 and I've been working on my preach.

We've been teaching a series called Consumed: What's Sucking The Life Out Of You? Every week we unpack an idol that we bow down to that wrecks our life - bowing down to the idol of busyness; bowing down to the idols of comparison and pretense; bowing down to idol of family.

This week we unpack perhaps the most dangerous idol to bow down to.
The trouble with this idol is its inside our churches!

Ouch!

No doubt we're heading to another stirring Sunday.

My intentional follow today ......have the guts to write this preach!

Day 137 Too busy to stay awake - duh!

Day 137 and for the first time in two days I'm catching my breath with my Netbook open. What a last two days.
Yesterday was a great trip to Tacoma, WA and good time with my friend John Sims. We are waiting for things to explode (there's been enough imploding over the past few years) in the church he pastors. Great trip - but it is an 18 hour day.
Today .....boom urologist visit. New guy, younger guy - hopefully got some newer, fresher thinking on whatever has been going on in that area for 2 years! Nothing sinister, but really annoying. Then back to back to back to back meetings .....and then .......2 hours of High School Scholarship awards (aaargh!!!!!).
So now, 9.30pm, open the blog and try to write.

Flying gives you time to think, to read, to focus (especially with Horizon Air and their complimentary microbrews! ). Read Gregory Boyd's new book Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now. Very simple book and there was nothing particularly theologically stirring unlike Boyd's others books.
Taking the teaching of two ancients (well older than most of us) and one modern contemplater, Boyd urges us to see that right now, this very second God is present. But ....we so often miss him.
Why???
DUH!!!

Gave the book away today to a guy who so needs to find the Divine Presence at a very difficult time in his life.

Boyd's simplicity was somewhat refreshing. God is right now with us. But are we AWAKE to His presence.

So maybe for the past two days I've run at 100mph and not had time to blog ....but even at my fast pace God can keep up and He remains totally present.

My intentional follow is to stay AWAKE to His presence ...nothing less, but maybe nothing more.

Day 135 - a little more on entropy.

Day 135 and I'm coming back to last nights blog and "Scott's" comments.

Last night we commented that Redeemer's Church sitting around 800 people has to watch out because often churches of this size plateau and then decline.
Not always, but often - sadly too often.
Church guru's and consultants and have written on this stuff significantly over the last decade. from examining hundreds of churches of this size (perhaps not having reached this size in the short time Redeemer's have), and repeatedly something happens that stops the growth.

Why?

I'm not big into always looking to general management literature to examine the church. Although Augustine reportedly said "all truth is God's truth", and if there's something in that, listen to the 'truth' written by two management guru's :

"The entropic process is a universal law of nature in which all forms of organization move toward disorganization or death." [written by R.L. Kahn & D. Katz]

A leaders role is to lead a church/an organization away from this lurking entropy.

Now probably this topic is better explored under the other weekly leadership blog I write [www.clanofissachar.blogspot.com] but for me, as a leader, this is about my daily intentional following of Christ.

I grew up with a theology that preached 'small things', especially small things in these the last of the last days. It was a branch of pretty firm dispensationalism. I found that this 'small things' philosophy sometimes excused poor leadership and/or discipleship. Old fashioned and ineffective methodology was covered over by a theology that said 'we're not called to be fruitful but faithful and in the end days most will turn from God and only a remnant, a few will hold on.'
Subtly underneath this theology lay an excuse for no church growth, in fact, underneath it lay an excuse for entropy and decline.
The local church I grew up in reached a peak of 200 back when I was a teenager, and today that local church sits around about 40 people, and the group of churches they belonged to which at their peak had 25,000 participants today has around 10,000 participants.

Was their theology correct, and yet/or, was it cover for poor leadership.

God does call us to be faithful, but God also calls us to be fruitful.

So where am I going?

A leaders job is to define reality. As I read, reflect, watch other local churches and follow the journey of Western Christianity from the 19th, 20th into 21st century - decline is the constant.
Rather than turn to a theology that could be seen to justify such, I turn to philosophy if not anthropology to explain what's happening.

Entropy is universal.
We naturally move towards decline.
Death behooves us.

But God specialises in taking death and through death bringing life.
While entropy may be natural, resurrection is biblical.
while entropy sits within the laws of a fallen world, dying to self to bring forth new life sits within the law of the Spirit.

therefore, if a church, a christian, a Christian leader walks the way of the Spirit - that church, that Christian that leadership can lead something away from entropy towards life - renewed life, but still life.

My intentional following as a local church pastor is to be aware of the natural law of entropy and lead away from it through resurrection and renewal.
This implies if not signifies change ...change of vision, change of method.

Does this help?

Day 134 - 998 pages later.

Day 134 and sorry its been a few days been plowing my way through Organization Change: A Comprehensive Reader.....and believe me its comprehensive - all 998 pages.

Real interesting story:
The artillery division of the British Army in the First World War determined that an artillery unit was to consist of loaders, an aimer, discarders and three persons to hold the horses because of noise.
At the start of the Second World War the guns were now all mechanized - but you guessed it - the three horse holders were still part of the artillery unit!

Change.

Been thinking a lot about change and change leadership as Redeemer's Church and I have been together for 7 years.
Seen great changes in the past 7 years.
But ......more's coming.
It's the 7 year cycle.
Good things happening, much growth, new ideas, new things, new people.
But now's the time we need to take bigger steps of bigger change.

Normally churches plateau at the 800 number.
Things are good, people around, a buzz.
But entropy lurks and subtly you wake up 3 years later and its too late.

So ...998 pages of reading, much prayer and rethinking all adds up to a fun Saturday and an intentional follow of Jesus Christ for an assistant kingdom builder based in Reedley, CA!

Day 130 No comparison.

Day 130
As I work on this Sunday's preach a quote from Henri Nouwen has stirred me: "Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others. It has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be."

Good isn't it.

It is so counter cultural to the way things operate in our American society. We live in a comparison culture. At every level from the school yard to the corporate jungle, we are pushed to measure ourselves from the standard of others.

I had a professor in seminary who graded on the dreaded curve. He would only give one A, and student's grades were calculated in comparison to every other students. Forget how well you did to the actual test, it was about how you did compared to your fellow students!

In steps spirituality and unlike sports, Greek exams, or corporate success it has nothing whatsoever to do with the person sitting next to you, it has everything and only to do with you.

Thanks Henri for removing the stink of comparison for the sweetness of unadulterated simple devotion.

Intentional follow Day 130 ......a quiet time of prayer and Scripture reading with no need to perform for the applause of others!

Day 128 finally got my pc back!

Day 128 and wasn't that I was still sick, it was that our other pc got sick and so my wife stole my little Netbook and therefore my means of blogging.

Today was Mother's Day. Well done boys on getting your mum a great gift.

It also was a day we preached about not bowing down to the idol of family.

I have been reading Tim Keller's book Counterfeit Gods and his handling of the story of Abraham was masterful. my reading and discussing of this book with some guys in my leadership group caused me to turn to this story to examine the danger of bowing down to the idol of family.

Idol's normally come from a good thing that we elevate to a supreme thing.
It's not something bad that kills us it is something good.

Idolatry for us is also subtle.
slowly and subtly something moves from a good healthy position to a supreme bad position.
Perhaps family is one of the biggest threats to our spiritual allegiance in the 21st century.

This was Abraham's situation.
His deepest desire for an heir, a good desire for a son, ended up in that son replacing God.
And - it was God who gave him that son.

How often does God risk being demoted by the very things he decides to give or grant us?
Why would God grant us something that in turn could led us to idolatry and away from Him?

I guess its the accusation Satan has constantly used against God. 'People will only follow/serve God if they don't have a choice! Give them a choice and they'll choose not to follow God!'

The amazing thing is, God is up for that challenge, and repeatedly God provides the alternative for us to follow.
Amazing grace; amazing love.

Maybe this is the bones of next week preach beginning. God needs idols!!

Going to be an interesting week of study.

Day 123 - my guts churning.

Day 123 and the flu still has me down and out.
Hey - lost 6lbs in the past 4 days, so back to my optimal running weight.

Been trying to read away the hours.
Saturday had me reading 2 very helpful books, today's 2 books equally helpful.

Book #1
The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution @ Gregory Boyd.
Gregory Boyd stands in a camp of the Evangelical church that I best associate with - skeptical if not cynical. Not in a sinful/sarcastic way, but in a valuing critiquing way. Boyd doesn't cynically deconstruct leaving everything demolished, he attempts to build something new, better, truer.
This book takes his earlier controversy - The Myth of a Christian Nation - and veers it to radical questions of personal living.
Good read ....and despite people assuming his position is left rather than right - his position is centrally Christ and being authentic to His Kingdom.

Book #2
Becoming a Contagious Church @ Mark Mittelberg.
This revised edition with still too strongly a modernistic/formulaic/propositional approach to evangelism than I'm comfortable with still stabs and stirs in many ways. Mark starts by pulling no punches - contagious Christianity is only contagious as you are.
Am I living an evangelistic lifestyle?
When I shop, eat or run am I contagious?

Today I am ....this flu is highly contagious!!!
Sit around me and boom ....you'll have an instant weight loss gift!

But what about my faith, my belief, my Christianity ....sit around me and would you catch that also?

Mark's book might be too linear for me ....but his punch has me troubled.
Take them both together - Gregory's revolutionary lifestyle and Mark's call to being contagious - take them beyond books and reading to action and priorities ......yep ....being stuck in reading, has got my gut churning more.

And ...because I'm home more not only is my gut churning, my head hurts ....Carolyn has recorded back to back episodes of "7th Heaven" (aargh) .....whats worse sore gut or hurting head!!

Day 120 and my flu has me pasting!

Day 120.
Posted this over on my leadership blog.
Maybe you'll enjoy it; maybe you'll be intrigued:

Week 18 and leadership never slows or stops.
Ever found that.
Even on off days - the leadership gift that you have been entrusted with doesn't switch off.
Is this a curse, or just a burden.
Sometimes in some settings you just want to be led, not a leader.
Even today.
Flu day number 2, no chores, no yard, no work ....but the leadership antenna remains on.
For me - today became a reading day, a vital part of leading.

Two books:
James White's A Brief History of Christian Worship. Helpful and insightful. Pushing me further down the path of being baptized again as I read early church and first six century's understanding of baptism.
Second book was Bill George's 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis.

George has delivered another good book.
It's in the Warren Bennis Signature Series - should be good.

My major learning from George comes from him citing Kevin Sharer (CEO of Amgen). Sharer leads from his favorite biology analogy: "What species survives? The biggest? The strongest? The fastest? No, it's the most adaptive."

There's insight.

After the week I've had where a new vision has impaled itself in my imagination, perhaps even my soul, a vision that has radical and revolutionary components in it; boundary breaking angles to it ....this quote brought amazing affirmation.

Adaptive leadership.
George's take on adaptive leadership is that the penalty for non-adaptive leading is severe.
We live in a changing, moving culture - adapt or perish.

This all sits within George's 1st lesson for leading in crisis - "Face Reality" (borrowing Max DePree's mantra).

It was this core leadership task that had spurred me on to rethink, re-envision, re-engineer the next many years. Look around, see what's around, feel what's around and then adapt vision and direction to that reality.

As I read today even more affirmation came ....as well as a grasping of the size of the mountain ahead of us.

It's been a good day.
It's been an adapting day.
It's been a leading day.

Day 119 - sickness.

Day 119 - and I've got flu.
Some call it stomach flu, of course its not really stomach flu its really gastroenteritis.
So it hit.
4am in the morning and growing.
Thought it was the broccoli I ate last night. I think its right to blame the broccoli ...it deserves it.

Hey hopefully 48 hours.

Huge weekend.
Was meant to run my first half-marathon since my forced lay off ....but tendonitis hit me two weeks ago.
Was meant to eat out tonight with two good friends ....sorry friends.
Was meant to fix sprinklers tomorrow - yep, something good is coming out of this!
But the size of this weekend was bigger than any of these things.
Penultimate weekend of the Premier League.
36 games played in the league and there is a 1 point difference!
Chelsea lead Manchester Utd.
Chelsea play at Liverpool; Man U play Sunderland at home.
Need Chelsea to slip up and Man U to win.
Huge weekend.

Is my gastroenteritis symptomatic of what this weekend is going to be like?
But hey, hopefully 48 hours will see the world sorted!
At least my world.

I know there's a bigger world. But sometimes we live in shrunken worlds - our own.
I know that gastroenteritis isn't that major.
I know Premier League results isn't world peace.
But sometimes we allow our world to shrink to the things that only bother us.

Doing this series Consumed:What's Sucking the Life Out of You?
Really a series about the idols we bow down to.
Was just thinking today that one of those idols is bowing down to our own little worlds.

Weird.

Here I am thinking about preaching on the very things I'm doing as of Friday evening!

Is my sickness really my gastroenteritis or is my sickness deeper.

But its 9:10pm and I need to sleep.

Ponderings, musings, thoughts......blame my sickness.
I guess the question is what sickness?

Day 118 Living by mending.

Day 118.
I read today these words "Man was born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue."
It's from Mark DeYmaz's blog and he attributes it to Eugene O'Neil.
Interesting line.

I guess theologically its espousing the theology of original sin.
Interesting theology - maybe more Greek in origin than Hebrew - but that's a debate for another day.
The grace of God is glue - so true. Excellent truth.
But its the line "he lives by mending."
That's an intriguing line.

Everyday is a mending day. Something of my brokenness can get fixed. Day in day out.
So maybe my intentional follow today was undergoing some mending.
But do we always know the mending?

Maybe it happened during lunch as I talked with a friend and learned more about another culture.
Maybe it happened as I sat and listened to a pastor speak about why we should love the church?
Maybe it happened as I had physio and with ice wrapped around my ankles I reflected and meditated.
Maybe it happened as I read Scripture.
Maybe it happened as I wrote.
Maybe it happened tonight as I sit with my family.
Maybe it happened ........

Spiritual soul mending isn't logical or rational.
The mending is a work of grace - and grace is bigger, broader, un-relentless, unorthodox. You maybe don't know where or when it seeps into a broken part of your soul. But it does. Wonderful.

The thing I can be sure of is that the mending wasn't maybe.
Maybe I don't always know when it happens.
but there's no maybe that it does.
God's grace.

A surrendered life is a mending life - even on the days you don't act very surrendered.

Day 117 Em.........

Day 117 and I'm just home from teaching the first part in a two part Alpha Course teaching on the Holy Spirit.
Remember last nights blog on a normal day and why would you want a normal day when you can have an inspired, God present day. Well, tonight's teaching more or less told us that the inspired, God present day can be the normal when you are indwelt with the Holy Spirit.

Em .......does that mean that my previous blog reveals than I'm not always indwelt with the Holy Spirit?

You could say yes.
You could say 'I leak!'

But after tonight's talk wow ...I wish I didn't leak as much.
Here is the life of God - His presence, His salvation waiting to saturate, soak us ...wow.

Jesus said people who drink of him would never thirst again, but would have God's life bursting up within them.

So after another night of teaching on salvation, water, baptism .....I'm back wondering about being baptised again in June?!

Em.........

Day 116 - a wake up call.

Day 116
Tired.
Monday was an 18 hour day.
Tuesday yuck.
Found myself awake at 3am on Monday.
At 3.45am still awake and felt a stirring in my soul. Began writing at 4am what I was feeling. 5.30am thought about a couple of hours of sleep, but ended up out running and the day just kept going.
Monday evening had the chance to share with church leadership what I had written.
Slept deep on Monday night.

So what was Tuesday about?
Tired or something else?

Mick McCarthy the manager of Premier League Wolves football team celebrated on Saturday his team staying up in the Premier league for another season - amazing achievement. But today at a news conference he talked about how the rest of the week he's been depressed.

Could relate to that.

Monday was huge.
Inspiration, a sense of God, His nearness, vision, things clicked.
Tuesday ........normal returned.
But who wants normal when you can have inspired, hearing God, holy stirrings.
Normal is dull. Normal is tiring. Normal is depressing.

But most days we live in normal.

Here's the point:
Easy to be intentional in following when you have a 3am Divine wake up call, much harder to be intentional on a normal day.
That's the point.

Day 114 - what really happened?

Day 114 and today's preach spoke loudly that the Christian faith believes in a Redeemer. His redemption can change your circumstances or change you in the midst of your circumstances.
Maybe I was challenging Bart's comments from last week (although I agree with loads of Bart's thinking) - but core to the Christian faith is solid hope and a solid Redeemer who does change destiny's.

My intentional follow was to represent Christ well. Yes, our choices can thwart his redemptive changes, but Christ is a Redeemer.

Preachers sit and ponder what people will do with your message after they hear it:
Will they walk out, go for lunch and forget it?
Will they leave feeling good but untransformed?
Will they leave and talk about what they heard over lunch and on into the next week (certainly Bart achieved that)?
Will they take action?

To represent Christ well is not to simply teach truth, but teach inspired truth. To have heard the Holy Spirit correctly during the week, crafted your insights correctly and been a vessel that God uses to flow through to bring change not just information.

We applaud many preachers, but truly only eternity will reveal good preaching.

So my intentional follow - maybe I won't know if it truly did until eternity.

Day 113 - reality.

Day 113 - yard work again...aaargh.

But tonight I'm sitting watching the movie The Informant.

Interesting.

What's interesting is the central character Mark Whittaker who can be in the most important discussion involving major issues but his mind has wandered to the biggest load of trivia you could think of ....like how do Polar Bears know their noses are black which they hide when they hunt for penguins!

The best parts of the movie are the comments he's thinking inside his mind that distract him from reality. Fascinating.

Or, is the trivia reality.

Where does reality sit?

Who determines what's reality?

It's real to Mark Whittaker.

Here's my intentional follow ........ try to match my reality to God's, He is ultimate reality.
Today I've tried to live in the truest reality there is - I've tried to focus my thoughts through prayer on what God is doing.
Today, more than many days, I've tried to line my reality up to His.

Yard work was easier, being Mark Whittaker is easier.D

Day 111 - should I get baptized again?

Day 111.
Drove with two staff up to Pine Flat Dam .....it's that time of the year again to film a video about baptism.
It's a bit like Christmas and Easter - every year you've got to find a new fresh way to talk about something that you've preached or taught every year.

Fortunately the incarnation, the resurrection and baptism are loaded with layer upon layer of truth and theology.

Is baptism simply declaration or is it a sign and a seal?
Is baptism just telling others you are a follower of Christ or is something sacramental happening in the mystery of how God comes to us?
Is it demonstrating salvation or is it forming the union with Christ that expresses salvation

It is all of these.
Baptism is a layered truth .....the deeper you peel the more there is.

Today was unpeeling another layer to help people .....but it was also an act of worship for me.
as i taught on film another layer of baptism, my heart at more and more for the wonder and the amazing grace of our amazing God.

You'll need to wait and see the film in May - but even although it is over 30 years since I was baptized ...I'm thinking about doing it again!

Day 110 - sorry for the lapses.

Day 110 and its looking more and more like a 'every second day' blog. Hey, unless you blog every single day quit complaining!

The sad thing that it has got me reflecting on is "could his mean that I'm only intentionally following Jesus every other day?"

The truth ........maybe!!

Every day i wake up I mean to blog. So could it be that every day I wake up I plan to follow Jesus - but .... stuff happens, things come in, other things take over.

Its the truth.
(So I guess that's my intentional follow of Jesus today ...major on truth!)

Now this doesn't mean that every day I don't hold to a Christian world view.
It doesn't mean that I go out and commit some cardinal sin.
It doesn't mean that I deny Jesus.
But it does mean that some days slip by and really, my life is no different than the people around me who don't claim to follow Jesus. Nothing is distinct.

Makes you wonder if the more weird/extreme forms of following Jesus that some Christians portray might be better .....even on off days either by how you dress, attending yet another church service, speaking some King James language and/or clearly being "not of this world" at least you remain distinct.

My problem - because I believe following Christ is not done with the extremes of clothes, language and being oddly different, but from being "in the world" while not being of it my distinctions require intentionality. This authentic following cannot happen at the surface level. It is deeper. Christ's transformation happens within the soul and when we live it out it is with substance and meaning, not trivia or surface.

So on a day when I get cluttered up with junk, when I spin too busy, when I feel sucked dry or just crappy ........I don't look any different than people who don't follow Jesus.....and while I may hold still to my faith in Christ ......my lack of intentionality means I do a lousy job at representing Him.

So maybe my lapses in blogging reveal unintentional lapses in authentic following.

Excuse me if I remain sometimes lapsing in blogging, but don't excuse me if I fail to follow intentionally every day.

Day 108 - Sigh.

Day 108 and it could seem that my daily blog has turned into a every other day blog. Sorry folks. So wanted to blog last night, but my Stockton hotel room didn't have wifi! Yep another reason not to visit Stockton!
I had just dropped Bart off at the airport for his red-eye flight back to Cincinnati, for the first time since 6pm on Friday I was alone for the 2 hour drive to Stockton. When I dropped my 3rd cousin off and heading to the I-99 I took some deep breathes. I was good to breath freely, because for the last 48 hours I hadn't. Bart just has this knack of getting me agitated.
but very quickly after taking some deep, silent breathes (Bart also can talk solid for 48 hours!) very quickly the silent breathes turned into sighs.

Sighs of exasperation that sometimes my own radicalness gets tempered. Bart appears somewhat free in expressing his radicalness.
Sighs of tiredness at what could be required to get the revolutionary flames burning brighter again in my leadership.
Sighs of fear. slight fear, but still fear that to truly live out some of the theology I hold will see me more misunderstood and yet again misinterpreted and accused of being a heretic.

Maybe it was just the tiredness of a busy constant 48 hours, but my first response to Bart's visit was to sigh.

Gladly it wasn't my lasting response.

By my stop at Turlock and some processing, my response turned to vigour and enthusiasm to take a hard look at so much of what happens in my own life and in the life of Redeemer's Church and how it represents Jesus.
Thanks 'Jovial Cynic' for your encouragement.

So ....that was Day 107....Day 108 I'm at a meeting with a bunch of pastors in Stockton - SIGH!

Day 106 and Bart Campolo stirs me again.

Day 106 and Bart Campolo is staying with us and as usual its a theological stirring.
The topic is incarnational Christianity.
Others would place Bart in the new monasticism movement. Bart would avoid any categorization.
He lives with his family in the ghetto of Walnut Hills, Cincinnati (yep, it doesn't sound too ghetto'ish, but it is!).
The conversation revolved around his inability to truly incarnate himself into that culture and context.
Christ did.
But Bart can't.
He remains a privileged white guy in a black urban sprawl.

That forces some interesting incarnational ministry rethinking.
Even more Christological amazement.

Other stirring rethinking to date on this visit is the idea that some people won't ever get fixed.
It wasn't a throw away comment by Bart, Bart works with some majorly broken people. He spoke this carefully and deliberately.
His experience is that some people will never be fixed.
The church language of transformation, of come to Jesus and everything will be fixed ....is not the reality of people attending the Walnut Hills Fellowship.
OUCH!

But really, if you think about it, we see untransformed lives in all our churches. We see untransformed lives by people claiming to have been Christians for 40 years.
Think of people in your church that are angry, short fused, lazy, jealous, selfish ......and have been for all the years of being Christians.

Transformation?
The bad stuff gone and new stuff showing?

Bart's bold comment resonates with every pastor's reflection of some of the people in their churches.

So what does this mean?

Does it mean transformation never happens? No.
Does it mean it rarely happens? I don't think.

Maybe it means that transformation is a miracle. But as miracles go, common and/or always is not vocabulary you can use.

It's got me thinking. Wondering. Disagreeing, but now perhaps agreeing.
Certainly processing.

Thanks Bart for stirring again.
Intentional following needs critical thinking.

Still got a supper, a Sunday preach, a Sunday lunch and a ride to the airport to be stirred even more by the guy always carrying a spoon to stir it with.

Day 104, a thankful day on the I-5.

Day 104 and I spent half of it on the I-5 heading south to Tujunga, S.Cal. Redeemer's Church is working with a church in Tujunga CA and another church in Tacoma WS to help them turnaround. Every month I get to visit these churches and aside from bringing come coaching I get to hear stories of pastors, staff and leaders getting 'it'.

Today was no exception. When asked the biggest challenge the pastor was facing, without a blink or pause he told me 'Christians!' He then preceded to tell me that after many years of going the extra mile with Christians, of giving them priority even over his own kids etc ...he was drawing a line and for ungrateful, complaining, 'not getting it supposed Christ followers', he was showing them the door.

Wow!

This pastor had been pushed around, complained at, criticised and wrongly accused for years - but no longer. Christ, His vision and His mission, reaching lost people, extending God's kingdom, introducing people to grace - all this, rather than being pushed around and used by self absorbed seeming Christians who want everything and everyone to revolve around them, this - Christ and His mission (the Missio Dei) was finally getting his talent, time and calling.

Today made me even more grateful for Redeemer's Church and the people who own its vision and purpose. People who have ditched inward focused, selfish Christianity for getting behind a leadership that is all about reaching as many people as possible, and Redeemer's Church outworking it full redemptive potential.

Thank you Redeemer's!

My intentional follow of Jesus was to listen, to help and then on the I-5 journey back home to thank God for the community of Redeemer's Church and the thousands of people we're going to reach for Christ in the coming years.

Day 102 and I've been thinking.......

Day 102 finds me in a reflective mood.
Been thinking about the difference between compassion and justice. We have several global partnerships (Kenya, Tijuana, Guatemala and perhaps something new in Haiti emerging), in each partnership we act with compassion but been reflecting on where our justice is. We treat the wound but not the cause of the wound.

Been thinking about what we do every Sunday on our campus. Is it incredibly easy to invite people to church on Sundays? Who am I inviting in? Are we filled with Christians who invite?
The new Reveal publication "Focus" reminds us again that to be missiological is to understand the culture and the culture wants to be wowed on Sundays. For right or for wrong we need to live in our culture, while being counter cultural. There is a difficult line to hold to where you are cultural enough to be attracting, but counter cultural enough to not be selling out.

But my biggest reflection these past few days comes from a thought in the book by David Olson The American Church in Crisis. Here's what he writes "On any given Sunday, the vast majority of Americans are absent from church and if trends continue, by 2050, the percentage of Americans attending church will be half of what it is today."

He then goes on to suggest to avoid this dismal future the American church needs to engage with three critical transitions:

1. The transition from a Christian to a post-Christian society.
2. The transition from a modern to a post-modern society.
3. The transition from a mono-ethnic to a multi-ethnic society.

The first transition was the reason the INS accepted me to work in the US. I come from a post-Christian society (the UK). In my lifetime it has shrunk from 25% church attending to 4% attending. For years the church did not waken up to this reality. Not waking up costs it dearly.
Sadly, I see mirrored in most US churches and denominations a stubborn but ignorant refusal to accept reality. We are moving fast to a post-Christian society with secular overtones. Been heading this way for the past 20 years .....we are only a few years away from full arrival.

The second transition from modern to post-modern freaks the life out of most Christian leaders. For years I've been reading and studying in this arena and while I cannot claim full knowledge I can agree that a seismic shift is happening at the philosphical level and we actually have already moved somewhere. To too many church leaders this shift is a threat to truth and orthodoxy. Not so. But this fear is causing us to react too slowly and too abstractly. In many ways we are in danger of remaining holding onto the flannel graph in the digital age.

As for the third transition - this is huge. Possibly only 8-9% of Evangelical churches are multi-ethnic or multi-cultural. WOW!! We have been amazed that Redeemer's Church is 50% white, 45% brown and 5% other! Amazing. But my reflection is to realise that we are not too sure how this has happened (not great leadership) and, we are guilty of putting on the cruise control and not digging deeper and being passionate about truly outworking what God has been doing. This one needs more fuel added to it and needs my leadership placed fully on it. Watch out Redeemer's!!!!!

Intentional follow of Jesus ...reflective consideration of where we are, where we are going, and what needs to be done.
A`Sabbath' activity.

Day 100 and sitting in the pew.

Day 100.
Wow!
100 days gone of 2010.
100 days of trying to intentionally follow Jesus Christ.
Day 100.
Fitting it was a Sunday.
Not so fitting it was a Sunday I wasn't preaching.
Preaching makes it so much easier to follow Jesus.
I preach the truth; point people to Jesus; lift Him up - boom a successful follow.
But what about when I'm not preaching.
What then?
I guess this puts me in the same spot as the other hundreds of people who don't preach every Sunday.

How do you intentionally follow Jesus as a member of the audience?

Place your tithe in the offering basket as it passes?
Follow along the reading of Scripture?
Quietly line up and take communion?
Sing the worship songs?
Greet the people around you with a smile and a warm hand shake?

As I mulled this over I realised the major mistake I fell in to. Sure I get to preach the amazing truth of Christ and that is followership; but that takes 40 minutes, twice a Sunday - 20 minutes more than an hour.
There are 24 hours a day.
If all the following I do on a Sunday is 80 minutes of a script ....ouch!
If all I do is listen for 40 minutes on a Sunday - that's not the best following either.

Sunday needs to be more than that, at least for me.

So I bought lunch for people.

Forgive me telling you what my right hand did (sorry left hand you're not meant to have found that out).
I just needed to do something.
Something more.
Having listened to a Sunday morning all on the topic of friendship - it was time to be a friend.
buying lunch wasn't trying to buy friends, it was trying to express friendship to a group of guys who are my friends.

Something small.
Something quite simple.
But it felt like more than simply listening to a message i was trying to put some flesh on to what we sat and listened to.

But ...imagine if I did that every Sunday, imagine the other 799 people at Redeemer's Church did every Sunday.
Imagine what that could lead to.

It's been good not to preach, but still to intentionally follow.

Day 99 Gardening.

Day 99 was spent tackling Satan.

Gardening.

This was my intentional follow of Jesus.

Damn you Satan!

Blisters.
Sweat.
Back-ache.

Don't even mention Eve.

Tomorrow can't come quick enough and a more gentle following of Jesus.

Day 98 and thanks to a fly I get it.

Day 98 and as I headed out to the car tonight I sniffed and a fly went up my nose!
Didn't see that coming, neither did the fly.
I de-sniffed and the fly came back out.
Intentional follow of Jesus Day 98 .....practise sniff resurrecting.

Seriously, I was walking innocuously to my car, my thoughts elsewhere, my work for the weekend under my arms, and from nowhere I get a new experience.

When last did my faith in a miraculous supernatural God grant me such an newness?

My fly encounter has given me food for thought.

Not that I'm a sensationalist, or a theologically woolly charismatic. (I am a third-way believer for anyone interested.)
But a new experience, more than yesterday would sometimes be appreciated in this faith walk.

The sad thing is every day Christ invites me into new experiences but I miss them.
Every time I share my faith with someone - the Holy Spirit hovers around me and something eternal and supernatural takes place.
Every time I help the poor .....the presence of God is there in all his supernatural presence.
Every time I pray ......boom how supernatural an experience is that!

So the list could go on.

One innocuous fly moment and my spirit is thumped into taking hold of the supernatural experiences Christ invites me into everyday.

Thanks fly ....or was it God?

Day 97 - I'm British!

Day 97 and excuse the gap in my blog. Things happen. Only the thing that happened was unexpected and threw a pretty big curve ball our way. Just three weeks after Carolyn's mother passed away, Carolyn received news on Easter Sunday that her father passed away as well.
So ....another 12,000 mile round trip and another funeral service.

Easter Sunday saw us talk about death in a very blunt way. Easter Sunday afternoon saw us deal with deal in a very real way.

Powerfully poignant. Death has a way of being like that.

So, the past few days, instead of reflecting on Easter services and the great time we had with so many people attending and our Arts Team pulling off an incredible portrayal of the Passion, has seen us be more introspective than usual.

It's amazing what Lent prepares you for!


Just today I was walking into our new Fresh & Easy store to be accosted by a protester telling me not to shop there as they are British!!! Wait for it ............I smiled, told them I was British and loved having something British in town!
It was funny (to me).
Hello ...free market!
Hello ... global marketplace!
Hello ....everywhere you go in the UK there are American stores!!

However, leave aside the rather weak, if not somewhat ironic, certainly hypocritical union issue at stake ...it was fun to say "hello I'm British!"

So, what would it be like if I walked into stores or shops and announced I was a Christ-follower.
Strange idea.
But, I wonder if by announcing that statement before I ate or shopped ....would I eat and shop differently.

Part of the joy of Fresh & Easy are the British products they sell. Small reminders of our culture.
What sort of impact would my Christian claim make if I wore it proudly as I entered a store?

Would I buy junk?
Would I buy cheap?
Would I buy only the essentials?
Would I buy green?
Would I buy healthy?

So today .....I used cash (thank you Dave Ramsey .....not quite Jesus!! for keeping me on the cash course - no more credit or debits cards); I bought a simple loaf of bread; and I bought the cheapest laundry stuff (yep, gotta do that for a week!).
I ignored the candy aisle, and got only the thing I needed to do dad's cooking tonight boys, and 'here's a help with the laundry'.

I walked out of the store and I'm sure I heard the protester whisper to her colleague "he's British"...or did she see my self-control and my simple shopping bag and say "he's a Christ follower?"

Day 91 - a very Good Friday.

Day 91 and what a day.
Good Friday.
A memorial service where we taught about heaven.
Finishing writing Easter weekend preach about death.
Watched final dress rehearsal of Easter services dramatic presentation - a reworking of the crucifixion of Jesus.
An amazing end to Good Friday.
Seeing Jesus, suspended between heaven and earth and breathe his last - wow!

Easter services (Saturday & Sunday) @ Redeemer's Church ....make sure you come and invite, invite, invite.

What a Good Friday.

Everything forced me today to reflect on Christ's death.
Made intentionally following Jesus deeply moving today.

What a day ....what a tomorrow and Sunday a comin'!

Day 90 - just trying.

Day 90. April 1, 2010.
Holiday isn't finished even although vacation is.

Getting set for Easter weekend. For past 2 months been reading about death. Here's the logic - only to the level you understand death can you ever understand resurrection.
Easter Sunday is all about resurrection, but that journey requires grasping death.

Hard reading.....and you'll need to to wait until our three Easter services are ended to hear what I've been learning (sorry).

All I can say. ........ my over 40 phobia is perhaps more spiritual than you think!

So, another day of studying and writing, and hopefully intentional follow of Jesus.
Was it in my writing - Saturday and Sunday will tell.
Was it foregoing a much wanted private lunch to sitting with a church member and listening - maybe?

Or, was it just getting up and trying to do my best.

Take your pick.