Kids' Story

Kadie and I checked the kids out of school early today and took them to the Toy Story double feature. When Toy Story came out in 1995, Scooter had not quite been born and Skeeter was still a couple of years away. (Squealer was almost a decade away!) So watching the films today was the first time any of the kids had seen them on the big screen. I remembered enjoying the films, but not connecting to them in the same way I did this afternoon.

Both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are each stories about the tremendous brevity of childhood. The key plot elements of both films involve the affections of children being transferred from childlike things to more grownup things. Apparently this will even be moreso the case in Toy Story 3 as Andy goes off to college.

As I watched our three kids watch the movie, complete with their matching 3-D glasses, I was reminded again of the tremendous blessing that each of them are. And how quickly the days pass.

Anyone still out there??

With all apologies to Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback, here’s 10 things I think I think.

I think I’ve been a bit lax in blogging as of late. Time has a way of getting occupied. I plan to remedy this oversight.

I think that I’m continuing the intentional interim work at Pecan Grove Baptist. Work has gone slowly, but we had a breakthrough service a few Wednesday nights ago. Well worth its own blog entry. But the three hours on the road every Sunday is starting to wear a bit thin.

I think I haven’t been watching enough movies. The last movie I saw was Rocky which I introduced the girls to. Many comments about life in the mid-1970’s.

I think the family has struggled health-wise a bit. Scooter came down with the swine flu this week, so our house has been in lock down mode. Kadie thinks that she and I have already had it. (We both had some respiratory issues this week).

I think that the university is dealing with record enrollment (no doubt do to the economic downturn), but fortunately, we’ve faced severe budget cuts so we’ve had far less faculty to teach all the new students.

I’ve been doing some fiction reading lately, catching up on the Patrick O’Brien novels. There’s 21 of them and I’m down one with 20 left to go.

I think I like my iPhone. Right now I’m taking advantage of a new audiobook rental program of my local library. I think after a few weeks it disappears from your iPod…or something. I’m listening to The Accidental Billionaires about the founding of Facebook.

I think Tony Romo’s best days may be behind him. Fortunately the Rangers provided a distraction by playing meaningful games into September for the first time in a decade.

I think I’ve been using Facebook and email to communicate with church members moreso than ever before.

I think I am in desperate need of a ski vacation in a couple of months.

Blessed are the Peace Makers

This would be one of the more offensive Bumper Stickers I've ever seen It was on a truck I passed right down the street from our house.

Church Minutes

Statistics, as they say, are a lot like bikinis. What they show is important, and what they hide is even more important.

The same could be said for church minutes.

I’ve spent a great deal of time in the last few weeks working through the minutes from the past nine years of business meetings at Pecan Grove. They show the barest outline of the conflicts and confrontations which have shaped the community of faith during this decade.

Reading church minutes is up there with reading food labels and graduate papers as pastimes that induce narcolepsy. But going through the minutes with the Transition Team has added a lot of background and color and texture to the minutes. (As well as filling in the gaps!).

The record of the minutes don’t lie. They allow us to pinpoint different times when various conflicts began. Reading through the minutes, we’ve seen the missteps emerge in black and white. What also tend to emerge are patterns for dealing with conflict and disagreements. At times these patterns play out and repeat over decades.

So reading minutes are a dull, dreary process…but a process that can be quite revealing.

...Summer Daze...

I’ve been watching a lot of baseball lately, due no doubt to the impressive pitching performance of the Rangers this season. Skeeter has been watching a lot with me and learning a bit about the game. And it can be a confusing game. Recently, after a Ranger scored from third, she asked “Was that a Death Run?” I was stunned for a few seconds before remembering a previous conversation. “No, it’s called a suicide squeeze.”

We took a five day vacation to San Antonio and traveled with two other couples. We had much fun, but I was outvoted on two significant issues. We didn’t have a single Mexican meal there and we didn’t go see the Alamo. It reminded me again why we normally vacation alone.

I signed up for extra classes this summer. The result was that I taught classes all summer and thus reduced my days off to about two weeks over the summer break. Part of the reason I got into teaching was to get summers off. Of course that was before kids’ college funds.

Scooter has had a time consuming job this summer and it’s wearing on her. She baby sat one of Squealer’s friends for eight hours every day all summer long and is worn out from chasing them all around. I’m secretly (and not so secretly) amused every time the Girl or Squealer says to her “I’m bored.”

Pecan Grove continues with Transition Team meetings on a weekly basis. It’s going well, I think, but slowly. Many conversations, many different points of view. We continue to pray for breakthroughs in some of these unresolved issues.

FPU is going well at Pecan Grove. Recently one guy (who’s in financial difficulty) roared out of the church parking lot in his 08 fire engine red Mustang. One of the coordinators for the class said in his slow southern drawl. “Dave’ll tell him to sell the car.” Indeed.

A triple wammy next week as Scooter starts High School, Skeeter Middle School, and Squealer begins the first grade. I took Scooter to her high school orientation (at my own alma mater) this week and found the rising nostalgia a bit overwhelming. I can’t believe my daughter is entering her freshman year of high school.

Facebook has taken over more of my life and crowding out a bit of blog time. Perhaps that will change as we start school on the 24th. We’ll see.

Dirty Words and Squealer

Squealer: “Dad, is butt lick a bad word?”

I sat frozen as I considered my six year old’s query. We’re pretty old school (read “legalistic”) with profanity in our household. The word “butt” is verboten (verbutten?) in our home, even moreso if you append it to the term “lick” (or any other verb for that matter).

Me: “Son, where did you hear that word?”

Squealer: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Did you hear it at school?” (“Objection, your honor. The prosecution is leading the witness!”)

Squealer: “I don’t know. I think I heard it at school.”

I think he affirmed school as the origin because it’s the middle of summer and that’s a pretty safe place for the blame to rest. I was puzzling this through when he repeated his question.

“Daaaaad! IS BUTTLICK A BAD WORD?!” he slowly, and forcefully repeated.

Me: “Yes, son, you know it is. We don’t say the word butt, we certainly don’t say it as a combination with another word. Butt is a bad word, so we don’t say words that have butt in them.”

Squeaer: (after thinking for a few seconds) “We can’t say the word butler?” he asked incredulously.

FPU Explosion

We’ve had a bit of an explosion at Pecan Grove, and I couldn’t be happier.

In one of our listening groups from a couple of months ago, A church member mentioned a quote often associated with Dave Ramsey. (As you may recall, our family has benefitted from following his financial program). This church member indicated that Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (FPU) had greatly blessed their family and he had been interested in getting it started at the church. In fact, he had received a bonus recently and would be happy to purchase the Leader’s Kit and donate it to the church.

I asked him if he would like to teach it and he replied that he’d never taught anything in the church before. But after a few weeks of thought and prayer, he consented. In the overall scheme of things, I thought that this would be another Bible study that might reach a dozen people or so. I brought it up with the church council and suggested that the church pay a scholarship of $50 to help defray the $100 charge for those who wished to participate in the study. They quickly agreed and we set a day for Financial Peace University to start.

And then it exploded.

We moved the study to Sunday evening because not many could participate on Wednesday nights. First 10 couples signed up, then 20, then 30. And now we’re ordering more kits to get us up to 40. Each kit represents a family unit; that is, either a couple or a single. So we have about 70 people in the church going through it. In addition, we’ve had a half dozen families from the community choose to participate. Almost three fourths of our Sunday School attendance will be taking the class. We were going to run it concurrent to our evening worship service, but only 2 people who normally attend were NOT going to be taking FPU. So were are running it during the evening service and the two agreed to help with child care.

The credit crisis and general anxiety about the economy are no doubt factors in its popularity. We’ve had a couple of business plants in our community shut down and several church members are jobless. The chance to pay off debt and to establish an emergency fund looks pretty attractive right now. All in all, the church is excited about this opportunity to be engaged in a common task, and to offer something for the community.

Our transition team discussed the FPU class this past Sunday and think that it could be an important opportunity for the church to work together on a focused financial goal without conflict. That would be an important accomplishment and something that the church has struggled with achieving before.

(photo above was taken last night during FPU)

Facebook

As a four week old newbie in the area of Facebook, I’ve enjoyed exploring the new medium. PC World creates an amusing (and accurate) taxonomy for the basic 12 types of FB status updates. (And don’t you like my subtle display of street cred to use the abbreviation FB instead of writing out Facebook?) My only addition to the taxonomy would be one distinct to the Christian subculture: Prayer Requests.

Christians are definitely into Facebooking (more street cred) prayer requests. Are there others out there I'm missing?

Transition Team Agenda

Working with Pecan Grove, we’ve identified disunity as one of the key points we need to address. While there are always several issues pertaining to disunity in the church, we are going to focus initially on one. In several of the listening groups, I heard about a fairly unhealthy process that has developed in various church committees at Pecan Grove. In some instances, before committees would meet, several members would get together and caucus about what the group should decide. Then when the entire committee met, the group would push through its agenda.

When the committee would present this to the church as a recommendation, some members would disavow this proposal and it became an issue of contention. I had several people express concern that certain members of the Transition Team would coordinate their activities to place the process in jeopardy.

Frankly, I possess neither the necessary skill, nor the time, to investigate each of these claims. But I can encourage the Transition Team (and the church) to try a few different things to address the underlying problem of disunity.

First, as a Transition Team we will talk about this concern. My hope is that by putting the issue on the table, it will lead the group to police itself and hold itself accountable. I shared that we can certainly adopt that method of decision making if everyone is comfortable with the process of caucusing as small groups before we meet. Needless to say, the committee rejected that conclusion.

Second, we’re going to focus on Transparency. The group will share freely with one another of course, but also with the church as a whole. We will keep the entire church informed as to our deliberations. We’ve opted to use a variety of settings (deacons meetings, Sunday school classes, business meetings, Sunday morning services) and a variety of individuals on the committee to make frequent reports to the church.

Third, we will attempt to model trust. With each person on the committee reporting to the groups that they represent ,my hope is that this will give members in the church confidence in the process.

Transparency --> Trust --> Unity

Selcting the Transition Team (II)

And he was not alone. I had feedback from other members concerned that some folks who sought to undermine the previous pastor were now on the Transition Team. This meant that some of the “troublemakers” were now in a position to be involved in leading the church through the interim process. In addition, they feared that some in these different Transition Team members would get together before our meetings and then lead the process according to their own whims. The end result is that there would be no changes in the church.

I responded to these concerns in a couple of ways:

First, in the process of organizing the Transition Team and making sure that all groups were represented, I could’ve made some mistakes. Perhaps there were some people on the Team who should not be. With prayers and numerous requests for divine wisdom, I’ve tried to make sure that every member of the Transition Team was appropriate.

Second, I noted that the people about whom they were most concerned had each received overwhelming support from the congregation through their vote totals. They might be manipulative so and so’s, but they still represented a significant portion of the church.

Third, I would ask the concerned member if they felt that they had representation on the committee. In every case, the answer was affirmative. I’ve then reiterated that my number one goal in assembling the committee was to ensure fair representation.

Fourth, I’ve tried to encourage them that if there is anyone seeking to undermine the process, I’d rather have them close by. I want to stay in dialogue with those who have been a source of trouble in the past.

Lastly, whenever a small group is intensely focused on accomplishing a task, and is open to the Lord’s direction, I think that there is a possibility that God will transform them through his work. It is my hope that the experience of participating on the Transition Team will change each of us in this process.

I finished each of the conversations by summarizing my underlying optimism about the process by saying: “If the entrenched powers in the church didn’t see the need for change, then I wouldn’t be standing here today.” That’s exactly why I’m optimistic about the church’s desire for change.

SBC Impact

SBC Impact has foolishly allowed me another post on their site. Go their to read about the four tiers.

Selecting the Transition Team (I)

Little activity here at Coffeespoons lately and I wanted to write a few posts about the constitution of the Transition Team. For the composition of the team, my basic goal is to have representatives from every major group within the congregation. One of my primary jobs during my first two months at Pecan Grove was to find out what the groups in the church were.
I shared with them ahead of time the process for the composition of the Transition Team.

The process would be as follows:

First, I asked the congregation to nominate five people for the Transition Team. I asked them to request permission from the person before they nominated them. I shared with them that this person needed to be someone with whom they would trust the future of the church. The criterion should be “If you were going into the hospital, this person is one whom you would call and ask them for their prayers.”

Second, after these nominations were made, I sat down with the personnel committee and we tabulated the results. We then selected ten members for the Transition Team based on two factors: number of votes received and diversity of representation. We did NOT pick the top ten vote recipients. To do so would’ve left certain groups in the church unrepresented on the committee. The Personnel Committee assisted me in the composition of the committee.


We spent about two weeks on this process.


The following Sunday morning after the vote was taken, I presented the transition team to the church. As I announced their names, I had them come up before the congregation. I then invited the church to come up and pray over these women and men whom they had entrusted with the future of their church.

The service was meaningful and moving. I saw some people pray for members of the team that I knew they disagreed with. It was in this service that I genuinely felt the church was united in their desire to take their first major step through this interim process.


So as I began to move to the back of the church to shake people’s hands as they departed, it came as some surprise to me when an angry church member blocked my path. He could barely contain his rage as he said through whispered clenched teeth:


“How could you put some of THOSE PEOPLE on this committee?!”

Web Site Story

If the musical West Side Story were retold today in a world of social networking, what would it look like?

View here

I share their dislike of evite and I too am all about Pandora. Still not Twittering, however...

Fish Anecdote

Me (during a lecture): “Take for example, the peach shirt I’m wearing...”

Him (interrupting): “Dr. Taran, that’s not peach, its salmon.”

Me: “What?”

Him:”That shirt isn’t the color peach, it’s salmon.”

Me: “…I guess that explains why I’ve had the urge to flop up the stairs all day today.”

End of the Year Party

In the chaos of Squealer’s end of the year kindergarten party, Bruce caught my eye. His oversized build and beefy hands indicated a comfort level more accustomed to working outside rather than in. I joined him on the periphery of activity as one of the few fathers there for the school day party. Kadie walked up and introduced herself. She asked who he was married to and he mumbled a self-conscious reply that he wasn’t married.

We were saved from an uncomfortable silence by the announcement that the kids were going to scrap book some pictures that the teacher had taken throughout the year. The parents huddled around large pieces of construction paper and began putting titles, photographs, and stencils in their proper places on the paper. Since I had the camera (and Kadie has the artistic skills) I stood back and observed. My eyes and attention returned to Bruce.

Bruce was looking over his daughter’s shoulder and working on getting the “Kindergarten 2008-2009” title centered in the middle of the page. He then carefully stretched four strips of tape over each corner and said “Ok, now, umm…let’s get some of the pictures in place” he said hesitantly. As the only father at the table of moms, he looked clearly out of his element.

“That’s not right!”


My gaze shifted to a large, older woman standing next to Bruce. She was apparently a grandmother who was forced into the background as her daughter helped her grand-daughter. She was also the one who had made the beautiful end of the year cake for the class and obviously had an artistic gift. I’m unsure whether she was talking to Bruce’s daughter or to Bruce himself.

“You see, that’s double sticky tape. You don’t put it on the corners of the paper!”
Bruce looked confused. “But you have to tape the title in the middle of the page” he said, uncertainly.


“Here, let me show you” she said as she carefully peeled the tape off the paper. She then folded the tape back on itself and placed the tape behind the title so that the tape didn’t show at all. “There, that’s right, don’t you like that better?” Bruce’s daughter nodded hesitantly.
The large older woman then said (to herself as much as to anyone else) “Now, let’s see what’s next.”

Over the next half hour, Bruce stood off to the side while this woman worked on his daughter’s page. As they created an impressive work of scrap book art, Bruce was pushed closer to the periphery. He seemed tortured the whole time. His body language indicated that he desperately wanted to work with his daughter on the project, but he realized that the work would be much more beautiful if he continued to allow the woman to help.

My heart ached as I watched all this. Most single parents I know and think about are single women raising kids on their own. But few things can be tougher emotionally than for a single father to raise a daughter on his own. The emotional distance is so vast.

After the party I shook Bruce’s hand and told him that I hoped our kids were in the same class again next year. I’d love to get to know him better.

More Listening Groups

Listening groups continue on at Pecan Grove Baptist. As I’ve shared previously, I’m attempting to get a feel for the where the church is by dialoguing with the major groups in the church. I’ve met with several of the Sunday school classes and had four open sessions where anyone could attend. Last night (for three hours!) I met with the staff for the first time and got their take on the current state of the church. I had several questions to ask them, but I quickly discerned that my job was simply to listen. I had the impression that no one had asked them for their thoughts on the direction of the church for awhile and they were full of thoughts and impressions. They had also not had a staff meeting in several months, so they were also sharing with one another the recent frustrations that they had seen in the church.

I’m having a few more meetings to finish out the listening phase of the IIM. I’ve got one meeting with a key member who has left the church. My purpose is not to convince him to come back, but rather to talk to him about the circumstances surrounding the recent conflict the church’s life.

I also think it’s important to have the view of a few outsiders. With that in mind, I’m also going to sit down with the other main Baptist pastor in town and get his thoughts on Pecan Grove. For another outsider’s perspective, I will be meeting with the Director of Missions for the association to discuss the church. Finally, I have contacted the former pastor and he has agreed to spend some time with me to help me gain additional insight into his eight years of ministry at Pecan Grove.

Several positive things have come out of these conversations and the stories I’m hearing are remarkable consistent. One reason I think that the church is essentially in good shape is that every group has agreed on what the primary problems are. The interesting part will come next as we start to turn our attention to solutions.

God Doesn't like Puns

Bart Ehrman is a scholar in the field of Textual Criticism at Duke University. Unlike most academics, he has a compelling life story. He was raised in a conservative home and attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. He then went to Princeton to study under the great Bruce Metzger. Through his studies of textual criticism, he began to seriously reconsider his faith. He has now decided that his views on textual criticism have made it impossible to continue believing in the historicity of the words of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels. He is a gifted writer and possesses a quality rare among academics, the ability to write for a popular audience.

His most recent work is entitled Jesus, Interrupted and argues that the New Testament writings that we have are not representative of what Jesus actually said. For an academic review of his works (seriously challenging Ehrman’s conclusions) see Ben Witherington’s evaluation here and here. For a more popular review (and more witty) see Steve Colbert here:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Experiencing the Spirit

I haven't had a chance to review this book, but here is the most recent work by Henry Blackaby

The first Christians “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6) shaking the gates of hell even in the face of severe persecution. The result: People all around “were filled with wonder and amazement” (Acts 3:10).Why don't Christians today have the same impact?

God’s Holy Spirit is ready to answer that for us in an awesome way, as Henry Blackaby and his son Mel Blackaby make clear in Experiencing the Spirit. You’ll see how the proof of the Spirit’s presence is our awareness of God’s personal assignments for us, plus our supernatural enablement to carry out those assignments. You’ll find essential clarification on the difference between natural talents and spiritual gifts. You’ll explore the dynamics of being filled with the Spirit through intimate relationship with Him, committed obedience, and radical departure from sin.

Instead of considering what you can do for God with your abilities and talents, you’ll be encouraged here to seek what God wants to do through you supernaturally by His Spirit, empowering you beyond your personal competence and capacities. Release the Holy Spirit’s work at the very core of your experience of the Christian life.

Drop me an email if you would like a copy.

Time Out!

Today's post concerns sabbatical leaves and is over at SBC Impact!, a real blog.

Film Montage

I've shared before my affinity for the medium of film. Here's the best film montage I know. It is called 100 Years of Film and I saw this on TCM several years ago. It has recently popped up on YouTube (as all things eventually do). Enjoy!




And after 100 years, few images are as haunting as the initial shot from Edison's Kinetoscope.
(For a cheat sheet, see the list of films here.)

Best Friends

I was helping my brother-in-law Sully install some new venetian blinds this weekend. We were hard at work, measuring, drilling, and hanging, when his six year old daughter Grace walked into the room clutching a piece of paper.

“Daddy, I have a list of my bestest friends.”

“Mmmm-hmmm” Sully responded through lips pursed closed around a pair of screws.

She read carefully: “Here are my best friends: God, Jesus, Mommy, Daddy, Scooter, Skeeter, and Squealer.”

“Run that by me again, Pea?” Sully said, never taking his eyes off the window.

I said: “God, Jesus, Mommy, Daddy, Scooter, Skeeter, Squealer!” Grace replied with some degree of aggravation. Then she stomped out of the room.

As she left, Sully turned to me and said “Isn’t that just like a good Southern Baptist, leaving the Holy Spirit off a list of your best friends.”

Conduct

For just the second time this semester, Squealer is on the verge of getting straight A’s in conduct for a week of class. Every day the kids in his kindergarten get a grade for behavior. Squealer demolishes spelling tests, crushes his math work, and blitzes his geography. But conduct is his kryptonite and an ongoing challenge. He has a list of five rules for class behavior and can recite them when prompted. He struggles the most with the rules “Control yourself” and “Be quiet at appropriate times.” Every time they violate one of the rules, they drop a letter grade.

To try to encourage good behavior, we’ve decided that a week’s worth of A’s gets him a present, a dollar, and a trip to Baskin Robbin’s Ice Cream. But we’ve only had to pay out once this school year, and it remains an elusive goal. So we gave him an extra encouraging hug this morning before he got on his bus and reminded him of what’s on the line. He nodded soberly. He knows what’s at stake today.

So Kadie and I will busy ourselves with our daily routines, but keep one eye on the clock looking forward to when he gets home on the bus.


All creation waits in expectation.

Engaging God's World: a (brief) Review

Cornelius Plantinga is the president of Calvin Theological Seminary and a systematic theologian. His work Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living was suggested to me by Mister Ginger a few weeks ago. I recommend it most highly.

Plantinga divides his work into five sections: Longing and Hope, Creation, the Fall, Redemption, and Vocation in the Kingdom of God. His work details the Gospel narrative and how it interacts with the life of the mind. Plantinga is that rare theologian who can in language that actual people can understand. He carefully offers a well reasoned world view that sees the world as it truly is: made good, yet fallen. This keeps him between the twin falsities of pantheism (Creation is God) and Gnosticism (Creation is Evil). This book is an excellent work for college students (or anyone else) with curious minds about this world that God has created.

The Christian Life and Academics

I’m preparing an address to a Christian group on campus tomorrow evening. The topic given to me was Academics as a form of Worship. I think the direction I will take is that education is a necessary and vital part of Discipleship. I would appreciate any feedback.

Matthew 22:37 -“ Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your MIND.”

Why should a Christian engage in education?

1. Creation bears the testimony of its Maker. Learning about this world carries out our responsibility to be good stewards of it.

2. Studying the writings of atheists like Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud provide a pugnacious and pungent critique of Christianity. And we need to take seriously critiques against our faith. In general, the Christian community does a poor job of looking critically at ourselves.

3. The Bible teaches us that it is not only acceptable, but necessary to ask God the question “WHY?” Habakkuk, Job, Jeremiah, the Psalmist, and even Jesus didn't hesitate to ask God why. Neither should we. (But that doesn't mean we'll get an answer. We might get something better.)



These are the barebones of the lecture. Any thoughts?

Sing, Sing, Sing

My fondness for music goes back to my earliest days. I recall riding along in the car as a child, listening transfixed to Piano Man by Billy Joel. I also remember my father grading papers with the radio tuned to NPR, listening to classical music in all of its thunderous glory. I drank deeply of contemporary Christian music throughout high school. Steve Taylor, Phil Keaggy, Rich Mullins, as well as Amy Grant, Randy Stonehill, and Michael Card played the soundtrack of my life. Hip Hop and Country were two genres I could never embrace, even rappers and cowboys filtered through the Christian subculture which targeted sanitized versions of their music towards me and my friends.

I’m unsure when the change happened, sometime around my early twenties. I think one motivating force was a new movie. When Harry Met Sally was a tremendous film of course, but the music that gave the movie life introduced me to a whole new world that I have never successfully escaped. Big Band and swing music have been a part of my life ever since.

Glen Miller, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Connick, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong have all made a substantial impression on me. The sheer joy and fun that these musicians are able to convey through their music has always downloaded directly into my soul. One of my absolute favorite songs is Sing, Sing, Sing. When done well, it is an instrumental performance that dares you to sit still while you experience it.

In this version by Benny Goodman’s band, watch the sheer exuberance of the drummer, the great Gene Krupa. Such music is, simply, inspired. I suspect that when we get to heaven, there will be as many songs performed from the Cotton Club as there are from the Baptist Hymnal.

Boundaries

For the last several weeks, we’ve been undertaking the laborious process of converting ancient VHS and miniDV tapes to DVDs. We’ve never done this before, so it’s been quite the challenge. The power supply on our ancient videocamera (purchased in 1995) no longer works, so I bought a replacement on Ebay for $15.00. A small price for videos, unseen for over a decade. So we’ve been enjoying a few hours each evening watching these videos and explaining to the kids who all the strangers in these videos are.

What does this have to do with Ministry Monday? One of the video tapes was an extended recording of Scooter’s second birthday. We had it at a local park in Waco and it was full of the normal chaos, screams and frivolity associated with such locations. One amusing side note to this party is that on two occasions, I forgot that the camera was on and the viewer gets vertigo from me carrying the camera at my side as I walked around the park. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the microphone was also on and so you could hear every conversation that I had with various family members.

But at the time, I was pastoring Lone Oak, and we invited several church members to the party. At one point in the party, you could hear me earnestly talking with this church member about some significant issue. I don’t recall exactly what it was regarding, but you can hear him expressing disagreement with the way I had handled something. Then you can hear me responding. It wasn’t so much an argument as it was a discussion over a difficult issue. Watching this video these eleven and a half years later, I am struck by one inescapable question:

WHY AM I DISCUSSING CHURCH ISSUES WITH A MEMBER AT MY OWN DAUGHTER’S SECOND BIRTHDAY PARTY?!?!?

(Sorry for all caps.) Looking at the tape through the lens of a decade’s experience, I am reminded of a desperate need for boundaries between pastor and church. If I could go back and have a conversation with Pastor Taran, I’d strongly suggest that he take a look at the boundaries he had set with his church. The line between church and family was too much a blur. I wish the younger Taran had said to the church what God said to the sea “This far you may come, but no further.” I don’t blame the man for the conversation, but I would like to wack my younger self across his forehead and say “What were you thinking?!”There is a lack of self awareness among many good meaning, Godly, well-spirited people in the church as to this issue of boundaries.

Pastors should set them early and often.

Ode to Bobby's Car

Digging around in the archives. Friday is for familys, except for today when its for friends.

One of my roommates from college (and frequent commentator here at Coffeespoons) is Bobby. In college, he drove around a 1982 Mustard Yellow Toyota Corolla that had seen better days. Held together by an unholy alliance of dirt and bondo, it consisted of dents, cracked windows, and chipped paint. (Completely unlike the one in the picture.)

One day (as I recall, Bobby will correct me otherwise) we went out from our apartment to discover that someone put a brand new dent in the vehicle. (Though frankly, in retropspect, I’m unsure that we could actually tell.) Anyway, at the time I wrote the following poem and read it to Bobby in a strongly exaggerated British accent. And for some reason, I saved it.

“Ode to Bobby’s Car on the Occasion of a Recent Accident” September 1990

O’ the certain servitude which thou hast rendered unto your lord.

And how noble was thy form and such color as was pleasing to the eye.

But now…Hark! A nick hath marred they unblemished brow, and a flaw has disrupted pure utter perfection.

Oh the hooliganism!

Oh the waste of it all!

Ye gods, why sleepest thou when such abominations as these cover the earth?!

Kings: A Review

As we’ve discussed around here before, part of the biblical text that makes it most enduring is how it is reread and refashioned in different contexts. For millennia, culture has taken and retold these stories. Perhaps the most recent example of how Biblical stories are updated is found in the newest dramatic series on NBC, Kings.

Kings retells the story of the David narrative in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. It is set in the nation of Gilboa, a modern nation replete with cell phones, modern aircraft, and skyscrapers. Gilboa is ruled by King Silas, a man who has been a successful soldier in the past, but now is trying to lead his nation toward a time of peace. But that is complicated by the nation of Gath. Gilboa has been locked in a bitter war with Gath for several years. Recently arriving in his court is a young soldier, David Shepherd, who has recently become a national hero.

David single handedly faced down an enemy supertank (the Goliath, natch) and rescued several soldiers. One of the soldier he rescued turned out to be the crowned prince of Gilboa, Silas’ eldest son Jack. In appreciation for his impressive service, Silas reassigns David to his court in the capital city of Shiloh. Once there, David meets such impressive people as Michelle (the alluring daughter of King Silas), the Rev. Samuals, and General Abner. (Corresponding to Saul’s daughter Michal, the prophet Samuel, and ummm General Abner). I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but it’s like catnip for a Old Testament geek like myself. The details are pretty impressive . For example, David refuses to wear the flak jacket before taking on the tank (It wasn’t a good fit) and when the Reverend Samuels tells Silas God has rejected him and chosen another, Silas grasps his shoulder (though he doesn’t actually tear it). Not everything works. God’s divine favor resting on Silas is depicted by several butterflys that land on his head. Strange. Also, Silas insinuates strongly that Jonathon is gay, which adds a distracting edge to his impending friendship with David.

But the strongest reason I look forward to this series (they’ve already completed around 13 episodes or so) is that it deals forcefully with the reality of God in the lives of people. I expected that the characters would mention God very obliquely, if at all. But the main characters of David, Silas, and Samuals each speak explicitly to the central role that God plays in each of their lives.

David and Saul are two of the most fascinating characters in the Old Testament. Few other people in the Bible were as capable of such incredible acts of butchery and destruction as these two. But one of them was hand-picked to be the first king of Israel, and the other was a man after God’s own heart. They are compelling figures in any age and time.

Each of the first two episodes are available online at NBC. Watch the rest of the season on (naturally) Sunday evenings.

A Contrast

"Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed, to consider well that the maine end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternall life, Jn. 17:3 and therefore to lay Christ at the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning."


Mission statement of Harvard College, 1643

The Puritans, Perry Miller and Thomas Johnson, (New York: American Books, 1938) p. 702.



"In a contentious Feb. 26 deposition between Dr. Biederman, a Harvard professor, and lawyers for the states, he was asked what rank he held at Harvard.



“Full professor,” he answered.


“What’s after that?” asked a lawyer, Fletch Trammell.


“God,” Dr. Biederman responded.


“Did you say God?” Mr. Trammell asked.


“Yeah,” Dr. Biederman said."

New York Times, March 20, 2008.




Times change.

From the Archives

I came across some old poems and writings the other day. On Nostalgia Tuesdays , I'll post a few of the least embarrassing ones. (And yes, you'd be amazed at the poor quality of what I'm not posting!). As you'll be pleased to note, I've been remarkably pretentious for around three decades now.

2-27-90
"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday,
The regular crowd shuffles in,,
'There's an old man sittin' next to me
Makin’ love to his tonic and gin"

I turned off Billy Joel in mid-verse as I pulled my truck into the school's back lot, and for a few minutes I just sat there in silence, examining the playground. Here I was, sitting in the back of Nell Burks Elementary school after "graduating" over ten years before. As I climbed out of the suburban, I noticed the bicycle tracks in the winter grass, and smiled faintly recalling how my own bike's tracks used to criss-cross the grass as well. In 1980 my family moved from McKinney, Texas to a different town so that my father could start his new job. This visit was my first time to return to the school-yard of my youth.

As I walked across the playground it became obvious that many things had changed. There was now a chain-linked fence that wound its way around the perimeter of the schoolyard. New equipment replaced the (OSHA mocking) aging jungle-gyms and slides that I remembered so fondly. Despite these changes, though, the playground still felt the same.

In the center of the area, I noticed a familiar spot of dark earth whose grasslessness attested to its popularity as the center of recreational activity during recess. Walking on, I kicked an empty crayon box forgotten and flattened by careless students. The box and I shared the lonely Saturday schoolyard of my youth and I lamented the passage of time and the ending of schooldays.

I went over to the slide that I had played upon as a youngster. It didn't look as tall, or as foreboding as I remembered. Looking quickly around and vereifying my solitude, I reached out for the two hand rails. Climbing the ladder, I noticed two worn spots on each step and tried to imagine the thousands of little feet that had scampered up in excited expectation of the trip down. As I reached the top, I could survey the entire schoolyard.

For a second. . .for a second, the yard was again filled with children and I could see the
playground monitor motioning for me to slide down, so that others could go.

Then I slid down, closing my eyes as the wind rushed around me, thrilling in the exhilaration of the moment until the short ride with the impact of my feet on the dirt at the bottom of the slide. At first I blinked in the brightness of sunlight. I sat still for a moment, savoring the thoughts of
another time and another place. A place too far away for me ever to return to.

As I got in the truck to leave, I thought of Heraclitus who said: “The same man cannot walk through the river twice, for the next time he does, both the man and the river will have changed."

Heraclitus was wrong. I turned on the tape recorder as I slowly drove out of the playground.

"He said 'Son can you play me a memory,
I'm not really sure how it goes,
But it’s sad and its sweet I knew it complete,
When I wore a younger man’s clothes.'"

Pieces of the Puzzle

I’m unsure of what metaphor to use for the Intentional Interim Minister’s job. In training I was told that our job was like a private investigator’s (except no crimes been committed). We would come in, ask a lot of questions, formulate a theory as to why certain events occurred and then execute a plan to solve the church’s problem. I’ve also conceived of the metaphor of CSI (except no one’s dead). What each metaphor shares is an attempt to recreate a series of events that brought the church to its present point. After this is achieved, the IIM will then help the church to deal with any lingering issues and then move on.

But each of these metaphors presents a problem: the focus is on the IIM and what he can figure out. With these metaphors, what is the role of the church in this situation? Is it to sit around and wait for the IIM to answer all of the questions? Clearly a fresher approach is needed.
I’ve been mulling over (and using with Pecan Grove) the metaphor of a puzzle. The current church is like a puzzle with various pieces scattered around. There are lots of pieces to this puzzle, and I don’t know what (or where) they all are. So I’m depending upon the members of the church to share them with me and then to help me put them together to form a coherent narrative about how the church has arrived where it is.

But this puzzle isn’t the kind you put together by yourself. It’s more like putting a puzzle together over a vacation with the rest of your family. The more eyes you have on the puzzle, the more likely you are to have a solution. And the faster it goes.

In order to help identify the pieces, I’m setting up a series of listening groups with different members of Pecan Grove. This last Sunday, I put out sign-up sheets for several periods of time that last about an hour each. I asked the church to sign up at one of the times on Sunday afternoon in groups of nine or ten. Two of the senior adult classes told me that it would be difficult for them to come back up on Sunday afternoon, and they asked if I could meet with their classes during the Sunday School hour. These groups will start meeting on this coming Sunday.

For each group, I’m going to ask two questions: First, on a scale of one to ten, with one being utterly demonic and ten being heaven-on-earth, how would you characterize the current state of Pecan Grove? Second, what do we need to do to move higher up the scale? Essentially, I see this as performing a SWOT analysis and getting the church members to participate in identifying what is working well, and what is not working well in the life of the church.

Review: Don't Let Me Go!

Don’t Let Me Go is a wonderful exploration of the relationship between David Pierce and his teenage daughter Chera. Somewhat on a whim, David and his daughter decided that they would climb Pike’s Peak, despite never having moved much beyond the comforts of the couch in their living room. After climbing the mountain (and experiencing numerous obstacles) they decide to continue undertaking several challenges that included running in marathons and culminating in an attempt to climb Mount Rainier. As they overcame these various physical obstacles, they grew even closer together. It made their last four years together before Chera went off to college deeper and more meaningful. The book ends in a poignant moment as Chera must face the last (and greatest) challenge with Dad as a spectator.

As Pierce shares the present day story of his daughter, he also narrates the past mountains he faced in his own childhood. He tells the story of a distant and alcoholic father and his own search for God throughout a difficult childhood. The contrast between his own upbringing and the way he raises his child is light years away.

This was a tough book for me to read. Squealer, at 13, is precisely the age that Chera was in the beginning of the book. Pierce models the kind of parent that I think most anyone would want to be. Certainly he presents himself in the best light possible (that never happens here at Coffeespoons;) but Pierce models the kind of involved, caring parent I aspire to be.

(Spoiler Alert)The book ends with Chera getting married (thus morphing the tale into, as Bowden would say, a “horror story”). David is made all too aware that the mantra he repeatedly told himself while he and Chera were on mountains (“Don’t let go!”) had to change, as the minister told him to place his daughter’s hand into the hand of her husband and then to “Let go!” Good grief! (End Alert)

Overall, this book expands beyond the story of one father and one daughter to include all fathers and daughters. This is the mark of an memorable piece of literature. You start off thinking about this character and their relationships and end up meditating upon your own. I recommend this work highly.

Squealer is 13 and goes off to college in four years. The clock is ticking…

(I have one extra copy. Whomever first tells me which Southern Baptist seminary I attended gets it.)

Spring Break

A week "off" filled with a list of honey-do's, leaves little time to blog. Today we spent painting the outside of the house, already looking forward to returning to work next week!

Nostalgia Animals

After taking Squealer to the doctor last week and forced to sit through an entire viewing of Milo and Otis in the waiting room, I was reminded of how many animal shows I watched as a kid. Here are the intorductions to the two I enjoyed the most.

Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
(Note Marlin Perkins sniffing the wind like a prairie dog).




Daktari





It wasn't an animal show of course, but no one did animals better than Johnny

Crazy, Crazy 2

I mentioned last week that Ed Young performed an exceptional service for ministry types (or frankly, anyone who deals with people) by identifying characteristics of crazy, crazy people. Here are 8-13. You can tell crazy people because:



9. They dress in the full uniform of the team they cheer for. Shoulder pads, helmet, the whole nine yards.



10. They always talk about their dysfunction. They marinate in their difficult kids, their loveless marriage, their awful job situation.



11. They have crazy pets. "If your cat is jacked up, you are crazy."



12. They answer the phone ‘mmmmyellow?’



13. After you finish speaking, they are the first people who come up to you, but the last ones to speak. That way they get your undivided attention.





What would you add to the list?

The House of the Sick

Squealer has been sick throughout this week. Influenza A. “That’s the most contagious kind!” the doctor’s assistant informed us in a chirpy voice. He’s been home all week, feeling pretty beat down. When Scooter arrived home Tuesday, he was lying on the couch with his eyes closed, but not asleep. Just feeling awful. Scooter said “It really doesn’t feel the same around here without Squealer running around destroying everything.”

Indeed.

But she’s right of course, the house of the sick doesn’t feel right for the whole family. Whenever one of us goes down, things are out of sync until they revive. I would expect that to be true for the parents, but its interesting to see that its true for the kids as well. There is a certain stability, a routine we fall into. When the family is firing on only four, instead of five cylinders, it’s not the same.

I’ve been reminded this week of one time when I was sick, around the age of five or six…exactly the age of Squealer right now. I had some severe illness that prevented me from holding down any liquid, and I remember being desperately thirsty. For some reason beyond my understanding, Mom and Dad wouldn’t give me any water. I couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) connect the dots between drinking liquid, and then ummm….undrinking it a few minutes later.

So I recall sneaking out of bed one night and beginning the process of crawling down the hall to the bathroom. I knew that a cup of cool, cool water awaited. But shortly before I reached the oasis, my father silently walked up behind me, scooped me up and carried me back to bed. He again patiently explained why I couldn’t have any water. I wonder how many of these evenings Squealer will remember. The way he's feeling, I hope not many.

Review: How to Argue Like Jesus

Sometimes I receive a book I request for a review and wonder “Why did I ever request this book?!” Such was my feeling when I opened the packaging for How to Argue Like Jesus by Joe Carter and John Coleman (Crossway, 2009). I expected another book that carefully explained how the views of Jesus happened to coincide with the views of the particular author and now the reader should spread these views a bluntly and confrontationally as possible.

Happily, I was very much surprised by this work. Carter and Coleman focus on the art of communication in this book. They spend the majority of the work, exploring the rhetoric of Jesus in the gospel accounts, and locating his rhetoric within the context of Aristotle’s analysis. For example, they discuss the concepts of pathos, ethos, and logos and cite several examples from Jesus’ teaching that reinforce these concepts. The authors also use Jesus’ discussions with opposing religious officials to highlight their usage of various rhetorical fallacies.

After their focus on Jesus’ logical argumentation, Carter and Coleman turn their attention from building the message to spreading the message and explore several contemporary examples of how churches follow the example of Jesus. Jesus engaged in discipleship, using his own material, and developing the first concept of cell groups. We should do the same. Following this section the authors include a couple of case studies of rhetorical analysis and a glossary of terms.

This is a helpful book, one that would be a nice addition for any preacher or teacher who devotes time to speaking in front of people. I recommend it. (But I would’ve changed the title. How to Communicate Like Jesus would’ve been a better one.).

Don't Do It!!

The Chronicle of Higher Education is the primary professional publication for higher education in the United states. Thomas Benton, one of its best writers, recently took up the question of how he advises his undergraduate students who are considering graduate school in the Liberal Arts.

The money paragraph:

“Nearly every humanities field was already desperately competitive, with hundreds of applications from qualified candidates for every tenure-track position. Now the situation is becoming even worse. For example, the American Historical Association's job listings are down 15 percent and the Modern Language's listings are down 21 percent, the steepest annual decline ever recorded. Apparently, many already-launched candidate searches are being called off; some responsible observers expect that hiring may be down 40 percent this year.

What is 40 percent worse than desperate?”


His advice to his students? “Just Don’t Go!”

Leningrad

I've been to St. Petersburg, Russia twice, once in college and once while in Seminary. In fact the first time I went (1991) it was Leningrad, the second time in 1994, the city had been renamed St. Petersburg. (I've mentioned my trip previously here). One of my most cherished possesions is the passport that I have stamped with the ominous CCCP of the Soviet Union (in red ink of course!).





Leningrad was the site of one of the most monstrous of battles during WWII. Nazi troops laid seige to Leningrad for close to 900 days before the seige was broken. I came across a series of pictures contrasting modern St. Petersburg with WWII Leningrad. Haunting.

Look here for more.

Crazy Crazy

A few weekends ago, I attended the C3 conference at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. Not having been previously exposed to Fellowship Church, or Ed Young I wasn’t sure what to expect. Our associate pastor asked me to go and I enjoyed it immensely. (Actually I enjoyed the preaching, the music wasn’t as enjoyable. But at least they didn’t paint anyone during the worship time).

One of the best sermons preached was by the aforementioned Ed Young. In his message, called “Crazy Pills” he distinguished between good crazy and crazy crazy. Good crazy he described as a focused passion on the positive things of faith. Tim Tebow and Jesus (natch) exemplify good crazy. But then he spent the rest of the sermon on crazy crazy people. By this he’s not talking about people who are clinically insane, or diagnosed with some particular disorder. Rather, those who can function just fine in society, but are in fact crazy crazy. He noted that there are a lot of crazy, crazy people out there and that most of them are attracted to churches.

This presents a problem for ministers, because they often waste their time working with, praying with, advising people who will in fact never change. Better to focus on those who are open to personal and spiritual growth. To more closely define the craziness he spoke about, he identified several characteristics of crazy crazy people. I’ll post his list this week and next. When he shared the list I thought “Yep, I’ve worked with him before.”

People who are crazy:

1. They have crazy eyes.

2 They are always playing the God card – ‘God told me to do this’ or ‘God told me you should do this’

3. They are constant name droppers

4. They always find a way to ‘one-up’ you – If you went to Olive Garden for lunch today, they will say ’ ‘Well, I flew to Tuscany last week on my private jet and ate a feast in a vineyard going back several centuries.’

5. They will blow up your phone. They will text you and email you all day long!

6. They ask for your advice. You spend time and energy and prayer preparing to give them the proper advice. AND THEN THEY DON"T TAKE IT!!!!!

7. They talk endlessly about themselves. Their conversations are scattered with I, I, I, me, me, me, mine, mine, mine.

8. They don’t have a filter. They speak whatever they think (and are proud of it!).

More next week.

Fridays are for Family

The Sunday I went to Pecan Grove in view of a call, the church requested that I bring the family to meet them and to give us a lunch fellowship. After the morning service, the church hosted a reception for the family, but asked me to stay in the sanctuary and answer questions. The kids went on to eat lunch while Kadie stayed with me until the Q and A ended. They asked us a lot of questions.

By the time Kadie and I arrived in the Fellowship Hall, the Scooter, Skeeter, and Squealer and were finished eating. Squealer was completely wired, so I asked Skeeter to take him into another room so that we could finish our meal and fellowshipping with people. She took him into the toddler Sunday school room down the hall from the Fellowship area and left him there to play.

After several minutes, I completed my meal and went to the dessert table to get some pecan pie (natch!) when I saw movement coming down the hall. It was Squealer. He was heading back down from the kids' classroom, coming back into the Fellowship hall. But he was walking very strangely, quite gingerly, as though he were walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope with his arms out from his side. He was also looking down at the ground the whole time, but I couldn’t see what he was looking at. So I stepped over to the side so I could see down the hall at what held his attention in such a powerful grip. I immediately set down my pie as my eyes went down to his feet and what he was wearing on them.

A pair of pumps.

Purple Pumps.

Plastic Purple Pumps.

Princess Purple Plastic Pumps.

Apparently, the toddler room contained several princess outfits and Squealer had helped himself to a pair of princess shoes.Perhaps he heard my gasp, or sensed my inspection, because he looked up and our eyes locked in place. We both froze, uncertain how to proceed. Then, a devilish grin crossed his lips.

And he began “running” for the Fellowship Hall.


I didn’t want to yell at him from across the room (attention was the last thing I wanted) so I tried to walk/run to the doorway before he reached it.

And I almost made it.


He beat me to the doorway by a half step and shot into the fellowship hall. All eyes in the room turned toward him (plastic pumps are LOUD on a tile floor) as he dashed/slid into the middle of the fellowship hall in front of God (presumably) and everyone. There was a half second of shock as every brain in the room slowly processed this unexpected sight. Then the entire room erupted in laughter. And Squealer loved every second of it. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Squealer ended up right next to an aged deacon who looked him carefully up and down. The deacon then slowly turned to me and said:"Brother Taran, I've just thought of a few more questions I need to ask you before we vote."

Blog Note

It was brought to my attention by a reader that the RSS feed was only showing partial postings, requiring each person to click directly on the site to read the whole thing. This news surprised me greatly.

Mostly because I was unaware I had any readers.

I think I've successfully reconfigured the thingamajig (not to get too technical) and correctly tuned the doohickey.

You should be able to read the entire post from your RSS reader. I mean, you'd hate to miss posts like this one.

Two Reviews

Thursdays are for Reviews

In a previous post, I mentioned the difficulty that readers face in filling in the gaps of biblical texts. One of the great benefits of gaps is that it leaves a narrative space for creative reflection on the rest of the text itself. The artist is invited to dialogue with the text by carefully reading and noting these narrative gaps.

I recently received one artist’s attempts to creatively interact with biblical texts. After a recent review in which I noted the paucity of pink books on my bookshelf, Benjamin Potter graciously sent me two works which fill in some of the literary gaps in the infancy narratives of the gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke.

Something Special at Leonard’s Inn (Loom and Wheel Publishing, 1999) is the story of the birth of Jesus told through the eyes of the innkeeper in Bethlehem who let Joseph and Mary use a stable and the manger.

Just a Simple Carpenter: the Story of Joseph (Loom and Wheel Publishing, 2000) retells the same story from a different vantage point: the perspective of Joseph. In this work, Potter casts a wider net as he begins months before the birth of Christ and ends his story right after Mary and Joseph lose Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem.

I enjoyed each of these works a great deal and would recommend hem highly. I was reminded as I read them about the great challenge that we have as Christians to retell the Story to others and to ourselves. As we read the Christmas story year after year, it can become repetitive and comfortable. Potter resists the comfortable reading by engaging each text from the first person perspective. He fleshes out the characters of the inn-keeper and of Joseph with much care.

One consequence of Potter’s telling of these tales is that they are darker than the sunny Christmas story we set out on our lawns every December. As Potter rightly (writely?) notes, the splendor of the visit of the Magi is shortly followed by the (no doubt) desperate flight of the first family to Egypt before the murderous edict of King Herod.

And in Leonard, Potter reminds us that each of the peripheral characters in these narratives bring their attendant hurts and sorrows to these stories. The shepherds, the inn keepers, the wives, and the Magi were all genuine people with actual thoughts and feelings. Far from the two dimensional images we meet in Christmas pageants throughout December, they were real, actual people.

Each of these books remind us that the people surrounding Jesus shared sorrows and rages, pleasures and joys. Just like us.

Wednesdays are for Work (and Play)

Wednesdays will be Work or Play Day. I’ll attempt to find some bloggable material at the location where I spent the majority of my time, or from what I enjoy doing. Today, it’s all work.
A substantial reorganization was recently announced at our institution. It will involve the elimination of a few administrative positions and will rename several academic units across the campus. I don’t want to belabor the reader with the particular merits of the decision, but I do have a concern with how it was devised. The reorganization was developed by a small group of leadership and then announced to the larger campus in an email.

There are more similarities that you may think between communities of faith and academic institutions. One dysfunctional similarity is that a silo mentality can develop between leadership and the larger community. This mentality is especially strong in how leadership makes decisions and communicates ideas to the rest of the organization.

The situation plays out like this: out of a concern for negative feedback (or a feeling that feedback is unnecessary), leadership expedites the implementation process. When there is the predictable blowback after the decision is announced, leadership commends itself that it made the right decision and it was better to generate the feedback after the decision rather than before.

The primary problem with this thinking, is that it detaches the rest of the church or institution from the decision making process. Then when the organization depends upon the members of the congregation to carry it out, they often have nothing personally invested in the process and they don’t participate. By involving the congregation (or the rest of the organization) in the decision making-process, you get more buy in down the road.

Tuesdays are for Nostalgia

Somtimes looking back can be a good guide to the future. With the injunction of Ecclesiastes in mind, on Tuesdays I'll take a look back.

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is
done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."
Ecclesiastes 1:9

One of the worst parts of parenting a thirteen year old is seeing the recycled teen culture that you thought you'd sucessfully escaped the first time around. This dawned on me again recently when Scooter showed me her new heartthrobs: the band called the Jonas Brothers. They are the most recent Disney singing group. Here's a fair representation of their work: Lovebug.







It bugged (sorry) me how familiar they were, but somehow I couldn't quite place them. Until finally it came to me. Yes, I distantly recall in the far recesses of my mind another long haired trio of brothers who took the teen demographic by storm. Regrettably, their video cannot be embedded (it has been disabled at their request, the punk kids). Perhaps they were embarassed by it.

As I told Scooter, enjoy the Jonas brothers, but don't blink or you'll miss them.

An Open Door and Changes at Coffeespoons

After much reflection, and at the encouragement of no one, I've decided to stretch out the thin gruel that is Coffeespoons, into a blog post each weekday. By arranging the days topically, I hope to build some accountability for the blog.

So, from now on, today will be known as Ministry Monday.

Recently I've had several ministry opportunities that I want to talk through in blog format, drawing upon the wisdom of the readers. The most significant of these is that last night I was called to be the Intentional Interim pastor at Pecan Grove Baptist Church, a church an hour away from our home.


With these opportunities in mind I anticipate that I can genereate at least one interesting meager blog post per week.


Or not.

A Closed Door...

A few months ago, I received a call about the Intentional Interim Ministry (IIM) from a church in a town around 2 hours from my home. They had been given my name by the state director (from another state) who trained me in IIM. They church had recently terminated their pastor and they thought that the IIM might be appropriate for them. So they asked me to come out on a Wednesday night and share with the church the Intentional Interim Process.

I visited with the deacons and they described a fairly bleak picture. Their pastor had been there for twelve years and church attendance had decreased over that time period. The average church member is in their sixties and the pastor (according to the deacons) did little to address the serious issues facing the church. I asked the chairman of the deacons why he thought that they needed an Intentional Interim Minister. He replied “I can look out from the choir and see the congregation seated in the pews. Everyone is sitting where they’ve always sat. But people are beginning to die off. Now I see the holes in the congregation where people used to sit. There’s no one to replace them and the holes in the congregation are growing.”

They thanked me and asked me to come back a few weeks later to preach to the church on a Sunday morning and to attend a fellowship afterwards. The deacons expressed one bit of concern. They were unsure whether they needed someone full time or part time. In a follow up phone call, the deacon chairman quizzed me in some detail about the necessity of the minister being either full time or part time.

When I returned a few weeks later, I led in worship and then went to the lunch fellowship. Following the fellowship the church called a business meeting. I was asked to address the congregation and give another brief summary of the IIM. At the business meeting, the deacons recommended to the church that the church undertake the IIM. After a brief time of discussion, the church unanimously agreed that the IIM would be the best option. They expressed an excitement and a joy at what God might do.

They then turned to the question of full or part time. After much discussion, the church voted to call an intentional interim minister to lead the church full time through the process. They would try to find someone willing to relocate to their community (of around 8,000). As I prepared to leave, the deacon chairman patted me on the back and thanked me for visiting with them. I told him I’d keep the church in prayer and I asked him to stay in touch.

I haven’t heard from them in months.

One amusing occurrence. After finishing my lunch I went back to get some pecan pie. Right after I stood up, a lady approached me and said “We don’t have any church by-laws. Isn’t that strange?” I confessed that it seemed unusual for a Baptist church not to have any by-laws. When I reached the dessert table I was about to select the largest slice of pie I could find and another lady gently caught my arm in her hand. “Preacher, don’t you think it's important that a church should have by-laws?” I replied “Since you are the second person to ask me that question between the dinner table and the dessert table, yes I think it’s important that you have some by-laws.”

Valentine's Book Review (II)

But the best book of these four is I Do Again by Cheryl and Jeff Scruggs. This is a powerful book by a married couple narrating an affair that one of them had and how it destroyed their marriage. Rarely is a book put by a Christian publisher so frankly honest about the tragedy of an affair and the difficulties of reconciliation.

Cheryl narrates the “harmless” flirting that led first to an emotional, then to a physical affair. What was striking about her story is how she lost her heart long before her physical affair was consummated. Cheryl pushed for a divorce so that she could leave Jeff and continue her relationship with the man. Jeff opposed the divorce, and (not knowing about the affair) was mystified that Cheryl pursued the divorce with such determinism. Ultimately, she achieved the divorce

But after the divorce, Cheryl found little happiness. Although she did continue her relationship with the other man for a time, this relationship was ultimately unsatisfying. But in the aftermath of the divorce, Cheryl did form a relationship with Christ for the first time in her life. Through the mentoring of some Godly friends and increasing involvement in the church, she gradually became convinced that God wanted her to reconcile with Jeff.

There was only one problem: Jeff (who was already a Christian) wanted nothing to do with her. When Cheryl shared with Jeff her hopes for reconciliation he threw her out of his house. It was only after a lengthy process (covering some seven years) that Jeff too became convinced that God wanted them back together and overcame his own anger and bitterness toward Cheryl. They then remarried.

There are two other characters in Jeff and Cheryl’s narrative. They have twin daughters who were around the age of two when they were divorced. Their presence formed a powerful force that required Jeff and Cheryl to live in proximity to one another and to interact weekly as they shared custody of the girls.

What I liked a lot about the book:

1. As I mentioned earlier, I Do Again is brutally honest in its powerful description of the sheer pain and hurt that came into their marriage as a result of Cheryl’s unfaithfulness. But the book takes a hard look at Jeff’s emotional neglect of his wife during their first marriage.

2. This is a book that should scare the heck out of anyone involved in “harmless” flirting with someone besides their spouse. Cheryl’s heart left her husband long before her body did and that fact made her unwilling to work on their (first) marriage, even after counseling.

3. This work emphasizes the impact of the divorce on the kids. Towards the end of the book, after she and Jeff are reconciled, Cheryl talks about the night when she had to tell the girls about her adulterous affair that ended their marriage. The girls were thirteen and she painfully describes how she had to explain the affair in terms an eighth grader would understand. Furthermore, in a Q/A section at the end of the book, one of the twins (now aged 20) describes how she wrestles with trust issues in her relationships, attributing this fact to her parents’ divorce.

4. Lastly what I really liked about the book is that it was complex. I expect in books like these that the central characters will find Jesus and everything will work out nice and neatly. But not here. Even after Cheryl became a Christian, life remained hard, messy, and painful. Like the rest of us, her new life in Christ didn’t erase the consequences of her sin.

One of the best books I’ve read this year.

Valentine's Book Review (I)

A three pack, yea a four pack of valentine reading pleasure for you. I’ve divided these four reviews into two posts. Just read the second post if you’ve not got much time.

First up is a devotional version of the well reviewed book from last year Love as a Way of Life. This devotional takes the five categories of love in Chapman’s book and breaks them down into 90 devotionals, with stories added for illustrative purposes. Frankly, the entire enterprise reeks of repackaging. Chapman had an assistant work on this and I could never tell how much Chapman wrote and how much his assistant contributed as both writers speak in first person throughout the text. Regrettably, this has the feel of a repackaged text, aimed at a literary marketing microniche. Skip this book and read the original.

Two books I had not encountered before are entitled For Men Only and For Women Only by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn. These two books have just been released as a boxed set entitled For Couples Only. They each contain a great deal of useful information for members of the opposite sex. Based upon interviews and surveys of thousands, the Feldhahn’s make numerous conclusions about each gender. They then summarize their findings in this work.

Each of these books reads like a wildlife handbook for examining strange species. Now I understand that Men are from Mars while women sojourn from Venus. I am further willing to concede, that after living in close proximity with not only a wife, but two daughters, for almost a decade and a half, I know less about women than I did while I was single. But I do think we need to be careful in the broad stereotyping that goes on in some of these books.

For example, For Men Only comes with a fold out cheat sheet on women (I’m not making this up). It’s called a “Quick Start Guide.” Again, let me emphasize, I’m being serious. This is a sheet (not unlike what you would find accompanying a box of software or a new stereo system) that allows you quick knowledge without having to read the entire manual. This guide is subdivided into several different areas (reassurance, beauty, emotions, etc) that contains questions like “Why does she ask ‘Do these pants make me look fat?’” Answer “When she asks you how she looks, she’s not asking whether or not she’s presentable for the party. She wants to know that she still rocks your world.” I think that there is a lot of valuable information here, but packaging it as a quick start guide is offensive and dehumanizing. She’s your wife, not your new Kubota Tractor.

But aside from the packaging, I would recommend each of these books. For Women Only offers an accurate, though stereotypical, exploration through the male mind. And a quick check with Kadie confirms the accuracy of For Men Only as well.

Review: The New Media Frontier

The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ is the first work that I’ve read to take a detailed look at how the emerging world of cyberspace is affecting the way we Christians commonly think about connecting people together. This work illustrates how several institutions are affected by these various new media. The book divides into two parts: the platform and the content (these are my terms).

The first section covers the essential elements of the growing media presence online. It provides several reflections on the consequences of media migrating from print to pixels. Helpfully, this section doesn't simply take up pom poms and cheerlead this new reality, but it also explores some of the very difficult implications of these new media for Believers. It concludes with two chapters on the nuts and bolts of the new media: blogs, podcasting, vlogging (video blogging) etc.

The second section of the book takes a magnifying glass to several different areas of these media and explores how they are shaped by some of the top practitioners in the field. So Fred Sanders looks at what changes that the internet will bring to higher education, Scott Ott to Journalism, Roger Overton to Apologetics, and Mark Roberts to Pastoring.

Some chapters simply take the existing topic and translate it into cyberspace. Other sections, like the one on Bioethics by Joe Carter and Matthew Eppinette go beyond simply looking at how Bioethics are affected by the media and include an excellent survey of the topic itself that their work could be used in a classroom setting. It could be stolen by some unscrupulous professor and foisted off as their own material. Not that anyone would actually do that.

Conclusions from the book:

As one might expect, each of the authors takes a position that the new media have emerged to stay. There will be no turning back the clock. Those who ignore this new media will increasingly find themselves marginalized from contemporary community. The benefits of the new media are a wider circle of contacts and a greater opportunity to provide megaphones for individuals and organizations.

But the authors pretty consistently argued that the wide opportunities carry a significant cost: while these various media allow more and more people to be reached than ever before, their impact is proportionately smaller than ever before. For all their breadth, the new media sacrifice depth.

Additionally, these new methods of communication add to rather than remove barriers between actual humans. Human interaction is always mediated through electronics. Anyone who has perused the comments of a blog often see how the commentators can misunderstand one another.

But the authors of The New Media Frontier know these shortcomings of their approach. And since these media are here to stay, they engage proactively, and constructively with them. Anyone wishing to seriously harness these new media for the good of the church and the good of the Kingdom of God, should be familiar with this work.

Full Dsiclosure: One of my good friends wrote a couple of chapters of this book and provided me with the review copy, which no doubt affected my glowing review. A little.