Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Monsters Inc.

So I was talking to a friend the other day over lunch. We were talking about the church and culture and how the two relate. I left that conversation thinking about "Monsters, Inc." Have you ever seen it? It's the story of a bunch of monsters who work at a power plant of sorts. All of Monstropolis runs on the power that is captured from the screams of young children. The monsters go in to work, where doors are brought to their station. They open the doors (which are sort of like doors into another world - think Wardrobe and Narnia), go inside and scare kids. The kids scream, their scream is captured and converted to power. It's a rather clever story line. However, there is one thing about this job. It's a dangerous job. The monsters believe that any contact with humans or human things requires decontamination. Alarms go off, monsters get shaved, its crazy really. But one day a little girl follows the monster through the door and into Monstropolis. A couple of monsters grab her (after much debate about whether it was safe or not) and spend the rest of the movie trying to get her back where she goes. Along the way, the monsters figure out that the girls laughter is way more powerful than her screams and eventually the whole process gets revamped. The monsters are no longer mean and scary, but funny and nice. It's a great movie for helping kids with the inevitable fear of monsters in the closet.

So why did I leave a lunch conversation about the church and culture thinking of "Monsters, Inc."? Many people in the church live in a sort of bubble. We are afraid of what is outside of Monstropolis, but we need it in order to maintain our way of life. So we'll go in, but only as much as we have to, and take what we need in order to carry on life. So we'll go to the grocery store, the mall, the car dealership, etc. but we do so with great caution and great care - knowing that we could be contaminated quite easily. Those that live in the real world (the humans) are afraid of us too. They only see us step in on occassion, and it's never with good news. We're usually there to make noise and then we retreat to the safety of our churches, christian coffeehouses and book stores. I wonder if we can't learn a thing or two from a good old Disney movie. What if the people in culture (the humans) aren't as scary and contaminating as we think? What if they actually have something to offer us? What if there was a way to bring joy to them rather than fear? What if when they saw us coming they didn't scream or hide under the sheets, but rather got excited because we brought with us hope and joy?

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Art


Ever wonder what you look like in the eyes of children? We went swimming this weekend at the home of one of our students. Hannah was in the pool the whole time. She drew a picture of the day. She's the one with girl hair and a tube around her waist. I'm the square guy with huge nipples and lots of hair. A classic picture.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Father's Day


I love my wife. She is awesome. She and the girls made me this amazing Father's Day gift. She had each of these pictures strung up across our living room. I went ahead and put them all together here. So cool.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Teaching

Tomorrow I get the opportunity to teach three times. First, in the morning I am part of a team of pastors who will be teaching a Father's day message from Ephesians 6. My part is the first three verses and asking the question "How can children build up their fathers?" It should be fun, but I have to keep it short, as three other pastors are doing a part of this too. After that, I'll be leading the high school ministry in a discussion of 2 Timothy 1-2. There's a really cool thing happening there where Paul continues to remind Timothy of his spiritual heritage, and then calls him to become part of someone else's heritage too. He tells him to take the things he has heard from Paul and entrust them to reliable men who will pass it along to others. The gospel is meant to be relational and I think there's a lot of cool things in there to talk about. Finally, tomorrow night I have the privilege of being the main speaker at Baccalaureate for Yucaipa High School. I'm excited about this opportunity as I get to challenge students about their participation in the kingdom of God. I hope to encourage them to pursue hope and healing and restoration in the world and to give their lives away for the sake of others.

Because of the nature of church planting, and the near proximity to our move, I don't have that many times left to teach here. Once we move, I'll have a bit of a sabbatical from teaching as we begin to form relationships and grow a launch team. It will be a good refresher for me. I love to teach, but there are times when I feel like I don't have much to say.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Blogs

Over the last few months I've been getting into this whole world of blogs. There are several that I read every day now. What I've noticed is that most blogs are way cooler than mine.Haha . Besides that, these people are dedicated. I try and write on here as often as I think about it, but it is still way sporadic. These other bloggers are writing at least once a day and Carlos writes like 3 times a day. That is some crazy dedication. I just don't have that much to say. I could give updates about every little thing I do (which I guess is what Twitter does) but I just don't think that would be very interesting. Anyway, I think in the future it will be a great way to stay in touch with supporters, and with our church. But for now it's more of an outlet, a place for me to put my thoughts out there.

Seriously though, you should check out Carlos - the guy is an animal. You can click the link on the right to see his blog.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Fundraising

We are in full on fundraising mode at this point. After a couple of weeks of accumulating names and addresses, our first letter has been sent off. We need to raise quite a bit of money - something like $3000 per month of support. It's quite a challenge and quite overwhelming. I hate asking people for money. It's really difficult for me to do. Aside from letters, there are some people that I have set meetings up with and have begun to share our vision for what God wants us to do. That's kind of fun because I get to talk about something that I have a passion for. I hope that people get a sense of what it is that God is putting on my heart and catch a vision for how they can help make it a reality. It's really important to me to have the support of my family and friends and so I'm looking forward to seeing how they respond. I know that God will take care of us, but it is a pretty stressful time nonetheless. In addition to trying to raise all this money, we need to sell our house. Although, more recently I am exploring the idea of renting it out. If we could swing it financially, that would actually be the better route for us, because this is a terrible time to try and sell a house. I wouldn't mind hanging on to it for two years or so and putting it back on the market then.

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More