Preparing Our Hearts for What?

Some of my thinking is changing.  I guess, since none of us are perfect, we should all have a continual progression of thinking.

Maybe it’s a little thing, or a big thing.

We say this in church, but do we ever question it?  We address our time of worship and ascribe to it the purpose of ‘preparing our hearts to receive the Word’.  It struck me today.  "Wait a minute!  We worship God to worship God.  It is not a device of mental preparation." 

I’m not going to totally discount the value that worship might have for me personally.  The value is a reality, however, I’m not going to focus on it.  My motivation for worship should never be, in any way, personally beneficial.  Allow that to be a side issue.  Priority number one:  God is worshipped because God should be worshipped.

As  I continued to think about it, I found the opposite to bear more truth.  Learning the Word should prepare our hearts to worship.  That sounds way more appropriate to me.

This is what I’m thinking about right now.

Is It Enough To Just Teach The Bible?

Our fellowship has some good strengths. I took a survey. Most of the people say that we are strong in: Teaching, Worship and Fellowship. Those are really good things.

We are weak in Leadership, Discipleship and Serving/Evangelism. That’s bad.

My biggest lesson of 09 is: “Invest in your strengths”. We are going to invest in our strength of Teaching, to be more intentional about discipleship, in order to raise up more leaders, who will in turn enable us to be a serving church again. Why? I want to serve better. -I’m starting, by giving the Bible the boot.

Summing Up Vision

Most folks in the church don’t really understand what is meant by ‘vision’.  Very simply stated, vision is the act of seeing.  If you can open your eyes and see the; walls, windows and humans around you, you have vision.  If you open your eyes and see Bigfoot in a tu tu, then you don’t have vision.

The easy part of vision involves seeing what ‘is’.

The hard part of vision involves seeing what ‘is yet to be’.

The hard part of vision can be broken down into two segments.  1.-  Walt Disney Vision  2.- Nehemiah Vision

Who Is God Voting For?

I am completely confident that God gives us the leaders we need/deserve to fulfill His ultimate plan in our midst. I’m pretty sure that He’s going to allow things to happen, that I’m not particularly comfortable with.

• He is going to determine which party has the greatest influence and which individuals in that party will have a play in it all.
• He is going to allow corrupt things to happen under the government He establishes.  (Mankind will still have his free-will and mankind will still be subject to their fallen natures.)
• He is going to allow our system of government to either; strengthen in Capitalism, or continue to creep towards Socialism. 

Not At All Impressed With The Superbowl

One thing impressed me.  4 people showed up for prayer tonight.  I had a no-show a few weeks ago during the play-offs.

But.. here’s what didn’t impress me.   I got home late, so I only saw the last 5 minutes of the game.  Therefore, all the good commercials had passed, the little smokies in bbq sauce were gone, the chip dip was warm and the chips were all broken.  The coach didn’t argue with the ref.. didn’t kick dirt on his shoes or even throw a folding chair onto the field.  The game was indoors and it didn’t rain.  I like it when it rains on astro-turf and the players slide all over the place like a bunch of ballerinas on ice.  That didn’t happen.  The least they could have done was hose the field down a little bit.  Tom Petty did the half-time show?  Call me when they book Tom Waits.  When they dumped the cooler on the coach.. it should’ve been cool-aid.  Not water.  Cool aid is all sticky, and the idea of some rich coach walking off the field feeling all sticky would have been somewhat amusing.  If the winning coach got to dump cool aid on the loosing coach.. I’d consider that entertaining.

Next year, I’m buying 3 packs of little smokies.

When Are You Old?

It all starts, the moment you turn 38.  This is when we are first affronted with the reality of our age.  This is when we are forced to give up the youthful daydreams that have always floated around in our minds and accept the fact that “being a rock star” just isn’t going to happen.  This is when we get the notice that our graduating class will be holding it’s 20 year reunion.  This is when the gray hair transitions from being a novelty, to a reality.  This is when the babies that those classmates in High School had are in college.  This is the year we become those people that we always looked at before as being kind of old.  This is when our metabolism gives up and goes into retirement.  This is when things like creamed spinach, pickled beets and liver start sounding good.  This is when we stop wanting to go to rock n roll concerts. This is the year we reach the half-way point to 76, which, by the way, is when the odds for death are extremely high.

This is where old begins, and quite honestly, I’m relieved to accept it and dismiss the burden of becoming a rock n roll star.