San Diego: Episode 1: Attack of the Snack-Pack: Friday
We started by flying from Chicago to San Diego. This was my first time to fly with Emily in a long time. It was fun… and stressful. We had a lot of things to check on the plane, but a lot of carry on bags too. Emily demanded the window seat… which turned out to be good because Melissa and I were able to box her in. She really had no where to go.
She loved take-off… looking out the window and watching Chicago slip away to nothing. I am always so impressed with Southwest. On this trip, we received the customary peanuts, but we also received a snack-pack that included Cheese nips, honey grahams, and Oreos! (Yes, it’s true… I really don’t care about the flying ability of the pilots as long as I get good food.) Emily eats her Oreos like this: Open up the two halves… lick the two halves clean of the yummy white filling… throw away the two halves. Kind of messy.
Emily is strange: She is the most outgoing bashful person I have ever met. She can be bubbly to complete strangers and then spend two hours being bashful around family. Anyway, we got to our hotel and we were all starving. She sees a guy in the commons area eating McDonalds… and she goes right up to him and says: ‘Can I eat some lunch?’ I tell her immediately that she needs to eat her own lunch and that we would go for our own lunch later. But the guys responds: Well, can she have some fries? I reply: Sure... she can have fries. The guy dumps out about 15 fries on a napkin and she stuffs her face while we get checked in.
Our hotel was right in the middle of Downtown San Diego. The room was nice… not huge, but we aren’t picky. We had our own little balcony overlooking a few large sky-rise buildings. We also had wireless internet. I couldn’t believe it. I actually picked up about five signals… probably from various businesses here and there. Pretty amazing.
We walked down to a little Mexican restaurant. We ordered some nachos, a breakfast burrito, and some enchiladas. It wasn’t really that good. Over the trip, Emily made friends with several different little friends. At this restaurant, she tried her best to be-friend a little Hispanic kid. He was a little older than her and just thought she was weird.
We took Emily to the pool. This was a big deal. Up until this point, she was pretty much against swimming and pools. Melissa got her to not only get in the pool, but to kick and ‘swim’ with Melissa from one length of the pool to the other. At one point she even asked to swim alone. It actually caused Melissa to want to research mother-daughter swimming classes this summer.
Back in our room… we were sandwiched between two rooms full of high school boys. They decided to throw chicken wings, pepsi bottles, and peanuts at our balcony sliding door. They were loud. They were rude. They were noisy. They needed a butt-whooping. I figured it that it wouldn’t be a fair fight: Me versus eight high schoolers. I might hurt them too bad…
San Diego: Episode 2: Return of the Pacific Ocean
We went to breakfast and Emily met her second friend of the trip: A cute Asian girl. They ran around all the breakfast tables and giggled and had a great time. When it was time for us to go, the Asian girl sat down in the middle of the room and looked like she was going to start crying. We told Emily to go tell her bye. She went right over and gave this girl a huge hug. It was very, very cute.
We spent most of the morning in our room reading and packing up our things. After check out, we met up with a family friend and she took us to lunch and showed us a little of San Diego: Here are a few of my observations:
-Motorcycles can split lanes here. Out of nowhere, a motorcycle can go between two moving cars at anytime. Weird.
-I’m a Midwest boy… I am used to seeing cornfields and flat land. Even small hills seem like mountains to me. I love the San Diego landscape… so many hills and high places.
-Where’s the humidity? Holy cow. The first two days it’s been 70 degrees and a slight wind. Almost too cold for shorts, believe it or not. Not a lick of humidity. Perfect.
-The ocean is gorgeous. Melissa and I took a late stroll along the beach after dark. The moon was out and there was a soft, almost blue glow glinting off the waves. When you look at expansiveness of the ocean… it reminds you of how big God must be. Amazing.
Turns out that our condo is gorgeous. We were worried going in. As we drove down the main strip, we noticed that some of these condos didn’t look that great. They were almost smashed together. In fact, certain people could probably even manage to jump from balcony to balcony because they are so tightly packed together.
It’s a three level condo. Each level has it’s own bedroom and bathroom suite. There’s a garage. The main level has a living room with a TV/DVD and fireplace. It has a kitchen… a nicer kitchen than ours in St. Peters by a long shot. Also on the second level: a small walkout balcony with a gas grill. Yes, you can see and hear the ocean from this balcony. The top level contains the last bedroom/bathroom and a large walkout patio that overlooks the ocean. I wrote about half of this trip report out there. Best news of all: Someone has an un-secure wireless internet transmitter and I am able to hawk free internet all week long. We had originally thought that we would have to go to a coffee shop a couple of miles from here to check email and fantasy baseball teams.
After a long day of traveling… my parents, brother, and my brother’s girlfriend made it here. It was good to see them. We all have been looking forward to this trip for a long time… We ordered some pizza, hung out, played some PS2, debated on whether to attend church tomorrow, played some cards, and just enjoyed each other’s company.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Pet Peeves in Worship Ministry
1) Lack of God centered worship: I hate singing songs that are ‘me’ focused. I think we spend too much ‘me’ time in church services already. I want songs, prayers, and sermons that are centered first and foremost on God and His Word. I love what Ron Owens says in his book ‘Return to Worship’: "True worship is fundamentally objective, not subjective. The object and audience of our worship is God. It begins with Him, and it must end with Him. And everything in between is of Him and for Him."
2) Repetitive songs drive me crazy: Like this one: 'I will praise You with all of my life, I will praise You with all of my strength… All of my life, all of my strength, all of my hope is in You… My life is in you Lord, My strength is in You Lord, My hope is in you Lord, (and for good measure) it's in You, it's in You, it's in You."
It’s like the song writer forgot that he/she had already written the same thing twice already before he/she wrote the chorus. God is so deep and expansive… surely there isn’t a need to repeat the same words and themes three times in one song, is there? (Especially when we already repeat the chorus two or three times anyway…)
3) I hate being pigeon-holed. I can’t speak for all worship leaders on this one. I can only speak for myself. I really despise the ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ classifications. I understand why they need to be there, I really do… but I hate them none the less. Can I let you in on a little secret? Some of my favorite worship songs are… (keep this quiet, ok?)… hymns! Gasp! ‘My Faith Has Found a Resting Place’ ‘Near the Cross’ ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ These are such articulate anthems of the church!
Why do we have to throw them out because they are old? I love what Passion did a few years ago: They made a whole CD remixing the old hymns with a newer sound. I also hate feeling like I can’t teach new songs in a traditional service. Some of the newer stuff that is out there right now is so good lyrically… and would fit in fine musically.
When we get to heaven, do you think there will be classifications? Traditionalists will be on the right hand side… a quarter of the way back in the throne room… Contemporites can only sing on the left hand side of the throne room… three quarters of the way back, right next to the snake handlers. And if the drums get too loud, God will allow the snakes to get loose on the worship band… The postmoderns will be way in the back, burning their candles and incense… right next to the vents so that they don’t stink up the place…
Yeah, I didn’t think so either. We will all be so overwhelmed with the presence of God that the HOW of worship will be much less important then the WHO and WHY of worship. Plus, it will be hard to make a distinction when your face is flat on the ground in complete surrender to Him. What I don’t get is why we can’t worship the Lord like that in our churches right now?
Please understand that I am not saying that we shouldn’t change our methods in the church. In order to be effective… we must continue to change. I just want to make sure that we aren’t changing just to change: Sometimes we get rid of things that have tremendous value in the church.
I’m sure that there are other things that bother me about worship ministry… but since my humongous Episode 3 review… I’ve decided to keep the length down on my posts. Maybe I’ll do a part 2 later…
Coming up next week: My first San Diego trip report: I’m going to try to write my first one while watching a Pacific ocean sunset! We’ll see how that works out!
2) Repetitive songs drive me crazy: Like this one: 'I will praise You with all of my life, I will praise You with all of my strength… All of my life, all of my strength, all of my hope is in You… My life is in you Lord, My strength is in You Lord, My hope is in you Lord, (and for good measure) it's in You, it's in You, it's in You."
It’s like the song writer forgot that he/she had already written the same thing twice already before he/she wrote the chorus. God is so deep and expansive… surely there isn’t a need to repeat the same words and themes three times in one song, is there? (Especially when we already repeat the chorus two or three times anyway…)
3) I hate being pigeon-holed. I can’t speak for all worship leaders on this one. I can only speak for myself. I really despise the ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ classifications. I understand why they need to be there, I really do… but I hate them none the less. Can I let you in on a little secret? Some of my favorite worship songs are… (keep this quiet, ok?)… hymns! Gasp! ‘My Faith Has Found a Resting Place’ ‘Near the Cross’ ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ These are such articulate anthems of the church!
Why do we have to throw them out because they are old? I love what Passion did a few years ago: They made a whole CD remixing the old hymns with a newer sound. I also hate feeling like I can’t teach new songs in a traditional service. Some of the newer stuff that is out there right now is so good lyrically… and would fit in fine musically.
When we get to heaven, do you think there will be classifications? Traditionalists will be on the right hand side… a quarter of the way back in the throne room… Contemporites can only sing on the left hand side of the throne room… three quarters of the way back, right next to the snake handlers. And if the drums get too loud, God will allow the snakes to get loose on the worship band… The postmoderns will be way in the back, burning their candles and incense… right next to the vents so that they don’t stink up the place…
Yeah, I didn’t think so either. We will all be so overwhelmed with the presence of God that the HOW of worship will be much less important then the WHO and WHY of worship. Plus, it will be hard to make a distinction when your face is flat on the ground in complete surrender to Him. What I don’t get is why we can’t worship the Lord like that in our churches right now?
Please understand that I am not saying that we shouldn’t change our methods in the church. In order to be effective… we must continue to change. I just want to make sure that we aren’t changing just to change: Sometimes we get rid of things that have tremendous value in the church.
I’m sure that there are other things that bother me about worship ministry… but since my humongous Episode 3 review… I’ve decided to keep the length down on my posts. Maybe I’ll do a part 2 later…
Coming up next week: My first San Diego trip report: I’m going to try to write my first one while watching a Pacific ocean sunset! We’ll see how that works out!
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Mixed Priorities
I remember, right out of college, when Melissa and I were looking for our first ministry position, we were interviewed by at least four LBA’s and probably close to ten pastors and District Superintendents. One of the most common questions was this one:
What are your five most important values? Or, what are the five most important things in your life? Something like that. I remember answering each time: 1 – God. 2 – Melissa (and later kids… I would say ‘Family’ now) 3 – Ministry. I don’t remember what I said about four and five… probably tennis and Star Wars. Who knows?
The most important values were the first three: God, Family, Ministry. Of course, every time I said this to the pastor or board… they smiled. They knew that this was the correct order of values.
Here lies the problem for a pastor: It is so easy to mix up the first priority with the third one. In other words, God is at the heart of the pastor’s ministry and work. Many pastors feel like they are neglecting God Himself if they choose their family over their parish. Or try the other way around: Pastors can sometimes replace their quiet time with sermon prep.
It works both ways, unfortunately. The one that I really want to talk about in this particular musing is the mistake of putting your ministry before your family. Now, I understand that everybody has to make sacrifices. Some people have to work at certain times that conflict with the waking hours of their family. Some people have to work weekends. Some people have to work two jobs.
In the life of a minister… there are certain times when you MUST meet the needs of your congregation at the expense of your family. Sicknesses, weddings, milestones, deaths… these are all important occasions when the pastor can build trust and invest in the people of his church. That just goes with the job.
But there needs to be a line drawn in the sand about how much influence the church will have on the amount of time spent with the minister’s family. I really love Melissa… and I really love Emily. I know that Emily is growing up fast. She will only be three for another 10.5 months. I want to spend as much time with her as I can.
So, here are the decisions that I’ve made: I get up and go to work at the same time that Melissa gets up and goes to work so that I can put in a full eight hour day at the office and come home right around the time that Melissa gets off work. I have a to-do list in the office that helps me get the stuff done. I really don’t waste much time in the office… I get my job done efficiently so that my time with Melissa and Emily doesn’t suffer.
I take my day off. I can count on one hand the number of times that I have gone into the office on my day off since moving to St. Peters. I get to spend my day off with Emily, so why waste it by going in the office? And really, if I’ve done my job efficiently the rest of the week, there should be no reason to go to the office anyway.
With the exception of special events, parties, fellowship get-togethers and other such activities that happen on a Saturday… I can usually get by with spending most of that day hanging out with Melissa and Emily as well. When and if I become a Senior Pastor, that will probably change a little as I’ll want to get to the church to set up for Sunday morning. But again, right now, if I invest my time wisely throughout the week, I can spend the majority of my Saturdays with Melissa.
I take all of my vacation. Right now I get 20 days and 2 Sundays off during the year. I will never go a year without taking all of it. This is important to me. Typically, it’s when I get away from my situation that I start dreaming and getting ideas of how to make the different ministries that I oversee better. Vacation has always been crucial for my emotional and spiritual health in ministry.
I once heard John Bray preach about family. He talked about how, of all the human relationships in the world, he believes that his most important one is to his wife. Churches, friends, even kids come and go… but as long as both are alive… they always live together. Wherever he goes, she will go. Wherever he serves, she will serve. Wherever he lives, she will live. I will never forget that sermon.
Danny Janes, the pastor at Kalamazoo Wesleyan, models this about as good as I’ve seen. He loves and values his family… and it shows in every facet of his ministry. When I worked under him, he protected his time with his family. He protected his day off. He made sure he took vacations. And he was quick to encourage me to do the same. He was a great example.
Here’s a great truth: If I don’t take care of nurturing relationships with my family… eventually that will affect the way I do ministry. Worse case scenario: It might affect whether I do ministry at all. So I will guard my priorities fiercely. God, Family, Ministry. And I truly believe that God will bless me for it.
What are your five most important values? Or, what are the five most important things in your life? Something like that. I remember answering each time: 1 – God. 2 – Melissa (and later kids… I would say ‘Family’ now) 3 – Ministry. I don’t remember what I said about four and five… probably tennis and Star Wars. Who knows?
The most important values were the first three: God, Family, Ministry. Of course, every time I said this to the pastor or board… they smiled. They knew that this was the correct order of values.
Here lies the problem for a pastor: It is so easy to mix up the first priority with the third one. In other words, God is at the heart of the pastor’s ministry and work. Many pastors feel like they are neglecting God Himself if they choose their family over their parish. Or try the other way around: Pastors can sometimes replace their quiet time with sermon prep.
It works both ways, unfortunately. The one that I really want to talk about in this particular musing is the mistake of putting your ministry before your family. Now, I understand that everybody has to make sacrifices. Some people have to work at certain times that conflict with the waking hours of their family. Some people have to work weekends. Some people have to work two jobs.
In the life of a minister… there are certain times when you MUST meet the needs of your congregation at the expense of your family. Sicknesses, weddings, milestones, deaths… these are all important occasions when the pastor can build trust and invest in the people of his church. That just goes with the job.
But there needs to be a line drawn in the sand about how much influence the church will have on the amount of time spent with the minister’s family. I really love Melissa… and I really love Emily. I know that Emily is growing up fast. She will only be three for another 10.5 months. I want to spend as much time with her as I can.
So, here are the decisions that I’ve made: I get up and go to work at the same time that Melissa gets up and goes to work so that I can put in a full eight hour day at the office and come home right around the time that Melissa gets off work. I have a to-do list in the office that helps me get the stuff done. I really don’t waste much time in the office… I get my job done efficiently so that my time with Melissa and Emily doesn’t suffer.
I take my day off. I can count on one hand the number of times that I have gone into the office on my day off since moving to St. Peters. I get to spend my day off with Emily, so why waste it by going in the office? And really, if I’ve done my job efficiently the rest of the week, there should be no reason to go to the office anyway.
With the exception of special events, parties, fellowship get-togethers and other such activities that happen on a Saturday… I can usually get by with spending most of that day hanging out with Melissa and Emily as well. When and if I become a Senior Pastor, that will probably change a little as I’ll want to get to the church to set up for Sunday morning. But again, right now, if I invest my time wisely throughout the week, I can spend the majority of my Saturdays with Melissa.
I take all of my vacation. Right now I get 20 days and 2 Sundays off during the year. I will never go a year without taking all of it. This is important to me. Typically, it’s when I get away from my situation that I start dreaming and getting ideas of how to make the different ministries that I oversee better. Vacation has always been crucial for my emotional and spiritual health in ministry.
I once heard John Bray preach about family. He talked about how, of all the human relationships in the world, he believes that his most important one is to his wife. Churches, friends, even kids come and go… but as long as both are alive… they always live together. Wherever he goes, she will go. Wherever he serves, she will serve. Wherever he lives, she will live. I will never forget that sermon.
Danny Janes, the pastor at Kalamazoo Wesleyan, models this about as good as I’ve seen. He loves and values his family… and it shows in every facet of his ministry. When I worked under him, he protected his time with his family. He protected his day off. He made sure he took vacations. And he was quick to encourage me to do the same. He was a great example.
Here’s a great truth: If I don’t take care of nurturing relationships with my family… eventually that will affect the way I do ministry. Worse case scenario: It might affect whether I do ministry at all. So I will guard my priorities fiercely. God, Family, Ministry. And I truly believe that God will bless me for it.
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