mistakes that I made

Well it happens to all of us. We make mistakes. This week, I have two, at least. Two that strike me like, "are you kidding Jeff?"

The first one was yesterday. I spilled an entire cup of coffee on my desk. I can not remember the last time that I did that. I had stuff spread all over the floor to dry out. Silly mistake.

The other was last night. I was leaving the church after my class and I walked out the door with everything. My wallet, checkbook, jacket, phone, everything except my keys. Opps. the door shut. I just locked myself out of the office area. My keys are inside. What do I do?

I obviously need to call someone. I thought about who was the closest. I called Sherri. She showed up in 5 minutes, in her PJ's and handed me a set of keys out her window. I was apologetic. She was accomodating. No problem. I will help you anytime. I am so glad to have people that will cover your sins, in the middle of the night. Thank you.

I know I made other mistakes this week, but that is all that I want to confess to you today.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

Christmas CD

It is give away day on the blog. I have three copies of Fernando Ortega's Christmas Songs CD. They are all legitimate copies still in their original wrap.

They are free to the first three people who post a comment to this post and request one. Be sure to leave your name and phone number.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.
news flash- the first CD has been claimed by Tonia at 9:33am
Terry takes the second one at 4:05pm
the third one went to missy at 830pm
ok, thanks, thats it, they are all gone.

new church

As you probably know, we have been working since August to get the new church, The Beacon United Methodist Church, off the ground.

Last Sunday I asked for help. We need some families who will make the commitment to be missionaries to this new church for 6 months to one year. You can still attend the 8am service at Woods Chapel, then go to the Beacon's 10am service. Another option is to go to the Beacon at 10am and then go to Woods Chapel at 11:15.

I need to hear from you. If you are willing to help or want more information please let me know. Post a comment here with your name, or send me an email. Remember, in 1975 a number of people went out of their way to help start Woods Chapel. We would not be here if it were not for their efforts.

Possibly the most selfless thing that a church can ever do is to make the effort to start a new congregation.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

Sunday

Sunday is here again. If you are a pastor, it seems like Sunday comes three times a week. Non-stop pressure. Time to preach, and it better be good. Well, that is bad enough when things are going well, but it is much worse, or it seems worse when there are problems.

Problems. Kids with problems, members with problems, employees with problems. You still have to be at church at 6am to get it all going.

So today, at 5:55 I am walking in the dark from the place where the pastor parks, thinking about problems, challenges. I notice something that needs to be taken care of. I continue my walk. I am in between the gym and the playground and out of the corner of my eye I see it. Something dark, darting across the parking lot. Next to the curb. A cat? A skunk? Armadillo? Some sort of ghostly gobinly alien thing that is here to abduct or scare an old man.

Then I see it. The dark object is a shadow. It is the shadow of my own head. The light from the corner of the gym and my own brisk walk have delivered the shadowy object to the corner of my line of site. I was afraid of my own head.

And God speaks. Most of what we worry about is a shadow. A nothing. A here for a moment and then gone. Release the worry. let it go. Get back on task, it is 5:58 and God's work awaits. Not just for preachers, but for all of us, God's work awaits. Let the shadows go.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

the internet

You know, it is hard to post a blog if you don't have the Internet. What is the world coming to. Everything is so totally reliant on electronic gadgets and wireless signals that run through the air.

You know, if something ever happened to all of the cell towers, where would we be? Well, the young people might be lost, but we who grew up without computers and cell phones might return with joy to the life that we grew up on.

Imagine again, you actually have a little peace and quiet in your world. You carried real paper and pen to meetings. You had a paper calendar.

Well, this post was late today because our Internet was down at home. Now its back up, "phew." What were we going to do? The whole technology thing is kind of mind boggeling.

It's a beautiful 50 degree day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

repetitive humor

Ahh. The joy of repetitive humor. You can tell the same jokes over and over again. That is one of the joys of making new friends. You can tell your old jokes over and over, and to them, they are all new.

So. I have a few annual jokes. I have a St. Patrick's day joke. I have a thanksgiving joke. I have some Christmas jokes. And I have a March 4th joke. That was yesterday.

This simple little joke is the only joke that was passed from my grandmother to my mother, and on to me. It is about going to hear the band, the band that is going to line up downtown and March forth. March 4th.

Sorry. that is all there is to it. Just a little play on words. But what a blessing a sense of humor is. What a gift it is to laugh. I hope that you did not miss the parade yesterday.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

the parade

Well, it is that time of the year again. Today is the annual parade. All of the local high school bands will be meeting downtown. At noon, they will all line up and March 4th.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

connections, pt.2

Yesterday I wrote about who we are more connected to, those who feed us or those who need us. Today, a little bit more on the topic.

As you go out into your day, are you a consumer or a distributor? A taker or a giver?

If I am a consumer, I tend to think that the world owes me something. Today is about me. When things don't do my way, I am upset.

When I see myself as a distributor, I understand that I have a product to offer the world today. I am not here to get something for myself. I have something that the world needs: God's love. I see every person as a possible client, a potential customer for my business. They are not annoying to me in anyway, they are simply an opportunity for me to reach out and share the love.

Interesting that my worst days are days when I am a taker or a consumer. My best days are the days when I am a distributor. A giver. That is because we were not created to be takers, we were made to be givers, brokers of God's amazing love and grace.

What kind of a day will you have today?

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

connections

Connections. Connecting. Are we better at connecting with those who support us, or those who need us? Human nature is to spend all of our time connecting with those who make us feel good, and to ignore those who need us, who sap our energy.

But, what does the kingdom ask of us? The kingdom asks us to spend our lives helping others find the love that we have experienced. That means that we have to learn to spend more time with those who need us than we do with those who feed us. Say that again, we have to learn to spend more time with those who need us than with those who feed us.

Actually, when you get out and do it, it is invigorating to help those who need you. Once you get in the practice of being connected to those who need you, it feels like home.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

favorite song

One of my favorite songs, from many many years ago, was sung by the choir today at 11:15.

Here are the words:

If I had all the riches, This world had to give, All the comfort that it brings, Never needing anything, I could search the whole world Over far and wide, Trying to buy this precious love, That was sent from God above.

But it wouldn't be enough; No, it wouldn't be enough. To buy one splinter of the tree, That Jesus died on; And I couldn't pay the price, For one single drop of blood, That was shed for my salvation.

It doesn't get any better than that.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

If you only had one prayer

If you only were allowed one prayer, what would it be?

God bless me.
God give me.
God help me.
God please fix my [fill in the blank].

Remember, you only get one prayer, and it is your prayer for the rest of your entire life.

How about:
"Not my will but thine be done." or "into thy hands I commit my spirit." or "Lord teach me in all things to be content." or "let me love you with a pure heart" or "thank you."

Well, there are some good ones to pick from. I think today I am going to stick with "thank you."

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

you never know

You never know when your words are going to touch someone. You have to always be ready. One minute you are wondering about your value as a person, and the next, someone has asked for your support, your love, your help. And, you give it with joy.

Suddenly, you are catapulted from the broken, sad person, to the person who is actually helping another. Funny how God works. You go from the downtrodden to the hero, in one moment.

So, the moral of the story is, never kick yourself too hard. In five minutes the tables will turn and you will be helping someone else. Be ready always.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

judge not

Someone sent an email and asked a very important question about the guys with the muddy boots from yesterday's blog. Their question was, "are we judging them?"

Well, let me back off of what I said yesterday. I don't mean to judge them. They are probably nice guys with wives and kids. Maybe they go to our church, I don't know. Wouldn't that be funny. What if they tracked mud into our church? We would still love them, but we would ask them to take their shoes off outside.

Nice guys can still make bad choices. Tracking mud into a restaurant, even a McDonald's is a bad choice, by even the nicest guys. I don't want to punish them, or hurt them, I just want people, good people to think about how their actions affect others.

Good people are not made bad people by bad decisions, but all people need to learn to make good decisions.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

muddy shoes

Well, sorry. I wish I had something funny or inspirational to say, but I have to write about the muddy shoes. The other day I was hungry for a healthy nutritional meal, so I stopped in at the McDonald's on 40 highway for a #1. #1 = Big Mac, fries, and a diet coke. Nectar of the Gods. This is so good, it is worth getting fat over.

As I walked in the door, I noticed that there was mud on the floor. Not tracks of mud, but tracks of mud and chunks of mud. I stepped over it and around it. It led from the door to the register, then to the drink station. Back to the counter and back around to the seating area. I got my food and followed the trail. In a booth are two construction guys, about age 35. Their boots are covered with mud. I am thinking, "they are lucky that my mother is not here right now."

Well. At least we know the source of the mud. Now I am trying to figure this out. Were they born in a barn? Surely my momma did not raise them. What are they thinking, to just walk into a place of business and make this kind of mess. What were their other options?

The first thing that comes to my mind is to have another pair of shoes in the car if you intend to get this muddy. The second thing that comes to mind is this, take off your shoes. Leave them outside the door. I promise you, no one will want to steal your mud infested boots. My wife, who is much smarter than I am, had a better solution- go to the drive up.

The word respect comes to mind. Sure it is McDonald's, but come on, you just made a huge mess and a ton of work for someone. When I was a kid, occasionally my Dad would see someone misbehaving and he would say, "I wish that was my kid for 20 minutes." I asked him why one time. He said, "well, I would teach them a lesson." I never asked again. Anytime Dad said, "I wish that was my kid for 20 minutes" I knew that those guys were very close to a good paddling.

The world would be a better place if more people were raised by good old fashioned parents. At least there would be less mud on the floor.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

KC Public Schools

Well, we have another new superintendent, and now yet another attempt to stabilize the budget of the KC Public School system. The new super has put fwd a plan to balance the budget by closing 30 [half] of the schools in the district.

Radical. Aggressive. Needed? There has been a good deal of unhappiness shared by parents who do not want their kid's school to close. It's like everyone is ok with closing some schools just as long as it is not my kid's school. Again, its all about me. Inconvenience everyone else, just not my kid.

So, here is my point. If you don't like the plan to close this many schools, what is your alternative? It may sound radical, it may be a radical plan, but if you don't want to do this, what do you want to do. There are lots of complainers in the world but very few people who will work for answers.

Bottom line is this. The budget has to be balanced. Period. We have to do it at home and businesses have to do it as well. If they don't, they go bankrupt. Our leaders in Washington need to figure this out too. It is a law of life, when the budget is out of balance, you have to increase income or cut spending. When finances are handled poorly, trouble is on the way. When they are handled well, people sleep at night. Personally, I like to sleep at night.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

The Great and Powerful... Dorothy?

In the 1980s and 1990s, some Christians wrote a bunch of great leadership books. Men like Bill Hybels were teaching Christians how to lead like corporate pros. And this is a good thing. We need good organizational structure in the church. In times of crisis, we need great leaders.

But not all people can lead like Bill Hybels. We’re not the same people. Still, I think the rest of us who find ourselves with an opportunity to lead can follow another model of leadership. As Brian McLaren explains in his book Adventures in Missing the Point, we can follow a model of leadership from The Wizard of Oz.

There were really two main leaders in this movie. There is the great and powerful Oz. We later find out that Oz is just a short, fat man behind a curtain. Not quite the strong, powerful leader he had made himself out to be. The other leader is Dorothy.

See. Dorothy is on a quest of her own, and along the way she finds a few characters who have some things missing from their lives. So she says to the Scarecrow, Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion – why don’t you come with me? We’ll find what we’re looking for together. And in the end, it is Dorothy who leads them to find that what they were seeking, they actually possessed all along. Scarecrow had acted brilliantly. Tinman showed his heart. The Cowardly Lion wasn’t so cowardly after all. They only had a chance to prove themselves when Dorothy brought them into her journey.

What I am proposing is that we can all be leaders, even if it’s not in a stereotypical corporate American way. We can all look at the people around us, and invite them on our journeys with us. Along the way, they will see our vulnerabilities, and we’ll see theirs -- there’s no curtain to hide behind on this journey. We will find that the things we seek were created in us all along, and they are just waiting for the right time and the right person to bring them out of us. So leading others is not about being the smartest, the coolest, or the one with the “gift of leadership” all the time. It’s about being a part of a community of people all moving in the same direction.

Will you invite others to journey with you? Along the way, will you point out the heart, the gifts, and the love that God has given them? Maybe that’s all it will take to turn someone into the person God created them to be. May you also see yourself growing as you help others grow.

With love,

a young shepherd.

care or control

I read a very interesting article last week about churches that care and churches that control. Or, I guess I should say, churches that try to control.

Obviously it is the job of the church and the Pastor and staff to care for its members. When the church does this, everybody feels good about what is happening. Keep in mind when I say "care" I don't mean 'entitle." Part of caring for members means that we need to help them find and retain an outward, other focused life view. With that in mind, Pastor's need to love their folks and be patient with them.

Sometimes though, Pastors, churches, denominations try to control their people. Here are some examples:
"good Christians believe this or that about the trinity." "Good Christians believe this about a certain social issue." "Good Christians must do this or that."

Now I do believe that when we are listening, that we sometimes behave differently, but the issue is should the church use guilt and shame to try to force people to act in certain ways. Somehow, I do not see Jesus shaming people into certain behavior.

Fact, is, you just can't control your members. They are going to read books that you just know are bad for them. They are going to watch TV shows that you do not agree with. They are going to support causes that you think are less than Christian. They are even going to decide that they need to move on to another church. As a pastor, you can't stop this, and to the extent that you try, you only make yourself and others miserable.

When we remember that our job is to love people, we release ourselves from wishing everything was a certain way. I choose to just love. Period. You love that author? Ok, no problem. You only come to church once per month? Ok, I still love you.

Control does not work. Manipulation and guilt are bad motivators. Love is the the thing that holds us together. Love is the only thing that matters. God is love.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

No Robe

Well, a couple people asked so I guess I will provide an answer as to why I did not wear my ministry robe on Ash Wednesday.

As a rule, I have never been one to wear a ministry robe. I have one, and I know that some people see it as somehow "respecting God" but I have always felt that it attracted attention to me. I have always felt that a robe somehow made others feel that I was "set apart, other than, different from, even better than." That is not my model of ministry and I don't think it was Jesus' way either.

Consequently, I have not been a robe person. I have in the past made one exception, and that was on Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday has a very formal feel to it to me. A very holy, special time, so I have in the past worn my robe. [some joked when they saw me that they bet I was wearing shorts underneath the robe.]

This year, for the first time, I did not. Why? Well, here is why: it occurred to me that none of our associates have robes or wear robes and I don't want to set myself apart from them or make them feel funny. So this year, no robe for Ash Wednesday. I hope you understand.

[by the way, we are having church today. of course! First church of the Yukon at WCC is open. Park your sleds and snowmobiles and come on in.]

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

what does a pastor do?

Every now and then I run into people that really believe that pastors only work one day a week. They ask things like, "is that a full time job?" Or they ask, "what else do you do for a living?"

Once, several years ago, I had a young man come see me about going into the ministry. We had a nice talk. He was interested in my schedule during the week. I showed him my calendar and we went over it. I never heard from him again. When I called his family to check on the situation, they told me that when he found out what went on the rest of the week, he was no longer interested in ministry.

So, what does a pastor do all week? I will work on this information in upcoming blogs, but first lets just talk about sermon preparation. In seminary they told us that it takes one hour of preparation for every minute of delivery. 20 minute sermon = 20 hours of preparation. That is probably true, the problem is, that I don't know of many pastors who are afforded the luxury of sitting at their desk for 20 hours to prepare. For most pastors, preparation is a 24 hour a day event. Looking, listening, thinking, praying. Making notes, collecting pieces, molding, shaping, starting over. Making sure that it has a connection to the divine. Making sure that it makes sense. Reading, typing, running over it in your mind: once, twice, three times a sermon.

Somewhere at the end of this process, you go to bed on Saturday night and sleep. Hopefully well. Hopefully not consumed with something with the sermon. Sunday morning, having done your best preparation, you get up and go. You do your best. You put it into the hands of the Lord and hope that the words are blessed and have their intended effect.

Next time, a little bit more on how a pastor spends their time.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

cholesterol

Here is some good news. After eating fast food and other random junk for years, I succeed in getting my cholesterol u pt o 240.

For the past six months I have been taking some pill and these giant fish oil capsules. The little pill is fine but the fish oil capsule is a monster. Eat two of those and you feel like you had breakfast.

Anyway, I got a recheck this week and my cholesterol is down to 175!!! Looks like I will be around here to bug you for a long time [the Lord willing.]

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.