Friday, September 30, 2005

What's goin' on? name that artist

Not a great picture, I know, and by the time I made it home the rainbow was barely visible, but a rainbow over this community is important.

It’s been a while yet I have nothing to say that would interest a soul.

The baby has still not come.

We held our open house this week and had a million young people and parents stop by.

My divisional ministry is challenging me to be the person I think I should be, I think the church should be, I think DHQ should be, and that I gripe about others not being. In other words, it’s challenging me to not be a hypocrite. Yeah, it sucks.

So with all of those boring details in mind, two separate friends have said things this week that have challenged me. They are as follows:

“Out of sheer curiosity, how has God shown himself to you lately?” Annie

“Failure is the foundation of truth. It shows you what isn't true and that's a really great place to begin" Mel

Thursday, September 15, 2005

SALVATION ARMY GRID::BLOG

Posted by Gordon over at urbanarmy.blogspot.com

"Just a thought to try.It seems that daily there are salvationist blogging - if we title a blog entry as above we could link together through a google search. Could be a good way of linking up - or you could leave me there by myself - a real Billy no mates! Get "Salvation Army grid::blog" in the title - spread the word and lets see how many sally's blog!----Sorry to any baptist, CofE, Methodists etc... and anyone else who feel left out in this parochial exercise."

He's CO of the first Army Corps ever, so you have to listen to him. : )

He sucks at pro-evolution soccer though.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

baby nursery

Several of you have been asking to see pics of the new nursery. Jamie has them posted on her site. You can check them out at: http://twostepsfromhavingittogether.blogspot.com/

Monday, September 12, 2005

post modern toilet paper

Today, while discussing (with a friend) the placement of the toilet paper in our bathroom, I realized that we have a very post modern approach to it. See, we have toilet paper placed in the wall holder, in a basket beside the toilet, and (often) one sitting on the back of the toilet. So, no matter your approach to wiping, there’s an approach here for you.

I could be writing some people’s blogs FOR them! I’ll mention no names here.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

church services?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about church services. They seem to keep coming up. From people writing about them on their blogs, to others writing me about them in emails. More importantly, I’ve found myself desperately trying to find ways of somehow taking a really old outline and making it new and interesting. In addition to all of this, an alliance of churches in our community have been considering ways to reach out to the community. One of their ideas was “open airs” (I kid you not).

I, like many of you, have spent the last decade or so trying to amp up church services. Tweaking here, adjusting there, and then presenting the exact same service with the “sermon” in the MIDDLE of the worship set, drama at the end, video throughout, and cool visuals going all of the time. I’ve done services where nobody ever sits down (well, rarely). I’ve done services where the message is primarily shared through small groups. I’ve done services where the song selection, with verses in between, were meant to deliver the sermon. And in the end, I still ended up doing a tweaked version of a church service. Now, I’m not one of those people who want to change things just for the sake of changing them. I used to be, but I’ve learned that that isn’t much more profitable than just doing it the same old way. But it’s pretty clear to me that people aren’t engaging like they need to be. I’m not even engaging like I need to be. It’s also pretty clear to me that we, as leaders, spend a ton of time trying to come up with ways of engaging people in something that just isn’t all that interesting. It seems to me that if we’re having to find ways of getting people interested, that maybe we should just find something else that already does. ???

With that in mind I ask the following questions.

How important is it to have a weekly church service?
Do you see this as a negotiable?
Are there more effective ways to promote all of the reasons we say we have Sunday morning church (fellowship, worship, Bible study)?
When you attend a church service, do you see a congregation that is engaged, or a congregation ready for the service to be over so that they can visit or go home?

This isn’t part of my “A New Kind of Church” posts, but I wonder if the new church might focus MUCH less on big corporate worship services and much more on smaller group worship, fellowship, Bible study, and accountability?