Just Thinking

Never Stop Learning

I’m in Eagle, Idaho this weekend to speak at a retreat on Contemplative Prayer, and I’ve been enjoying the chance to hangout with my good friend, Robin and his family.   One of the things I enjoy the most about Robin is that even after years of ministry and life experience and a doctorate in ministry he still approaches life with a learner’s heart.  Every time I visit Robin and spend time looking around his library, I always go home with a big list of books I’d like to get from Amazon, and an even longer list of questions I need to ponder.

So what do you do to keep learning?   Read more…

The power of story.

Yesterday, I started writing about some of the conclusions, or ideas that came from a brainstorming session we had in our church community about children’s ministry in a missional context.   Much of this comes from my fear that my children will grow up thinking that church is a place you go on the weekends, and not a force for the Kingdom of God in this world everyday.  Our desire is to see our children’s ministry develop new disciples of Jesus, rather than just nice, kind Christian kids who can regurgitate all the right answers.  As we talked about how to be more effective in reaching this goal we started talking about the practical issues of Sunday mornings and what it might look like.  We talked about the role of music, and the role of scripture, and I will likely blog about them in the near future, but we also started talking about the role of story.  That’s what I want to tackle today.

Story engages the whole person in that place where reason, emotion and context meet. Read more…

"Suffer not the little children..."

There’s been a lot of talk, and writing, and blogging lately about the whole idea of missional church.  I am one of those that believes that while the church in North America is not the great whore of Babylon, it may have drifted a little from what it was initially called to be.  For that reason, I have been wrestling, as a pastor, and church leader, with some of the missional concepts and also with some of the questions that need to help us understand how we got here in the first place.  As I’ve been reading, and talking with others on the missional journey, I have noticed a disturbing gap in the thinking and theorizing that’s been done so far.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of talk about what children’s ministry might look like in this missional paradigm.  In fact, it seems to me that a lot of the churches that might be considered to be missional are actually undermining themselves in their children’s ministry.  While the adult congregation is coming to see church as something that you are, their children are still being trained to see church as somewhere that you go.  So last night we decided to tackle this issue in a little brainstorming session. Read more…

Hey there, everyone. I’m sitting in the Denver Airport waiting for my flight to Boise and catching up on a little blog reading. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on getting the painting done in our new home, and I’m really getting sick of it. I chuckled when I came across this post from Michael Hyatt, so I thought I would share it with you. Definitely worth the read.

Check out the post.

Sometimes I can’t concentrate very well.

Pastors preparing their next sermon?

I just started chuckling after I wrote that last sentence.   What I was thinking was how incredibly understated that was.  The truth is, sometimes I can barely even sit down, let alone concentrate on the sermon I’m supposed to be preparing.   This used to feel like a hinderance to me, but I don’t really feel that way anymore.  Now I think it’s actually a helpful guard against the same old, same old disease that plagues so many preachers.

Today is a sermon prep day, or at least that what it says on my iCal page.  Actually, what it says, inside the big green block, is “Sermon Prep, Study and Reading.”  So this morning, after dropping off my boys at their respective day camps, I headed for a time of sermon prep, study and reading, only I headed to the local mall rather than my office.   I find walking around a mall to be a very conducive activity to sermon prep and study.   This weekend I’m preaching on the book of judges, so I brought my bible with me, as well as my trusty Moleskine Notebook and started strolling.  Dr. John Ratey says “Exercise turns on the attention system, the so-called executive functions — sequencing, working memory, prioritizing, inhibiting, and sustaining attention.”  Whether you have been diagnosed with ADHD or not, have this system turned on has got to be helpful when trying to plan a sermon. Read more…

When I was in grade three I got sent to the office by my teacher, Mrs. Campbell.   She had finally lost her patience with me because as she was trying to teach her lesson, and I was talking incessantly at the back of the class room.   I can still remember having to sit outside the principal’s office writing “I will not talk in class.” over and over again.   If I remember correctly I had to write it all of twenty-five times, which, for me, seemed like an impossible task at the time.  Mrs. Campbell told me that if I didn’t learn to stop talking all the time I was never going to get very far.  The irony of it is that these days I talk for a living.   “In your face, Mrs. Campbell.”  :)  I’m just kidding.   Actually, she was a very sweet lady.   She was one of those teachers that was always gruff and grumpy, but when you met her outside of class, she was a sweet, caring woman.   In fact, I remember she came up to me when I was in high school with a small toy car.   She had found it in the back of her desk, and was fairly certain she had confiscated it from me when I was in her class.   I couldn’t believe she could remember me that well.  I guess I made an impression. Read more…

Technology, Entertainment, And Design

These have been around for quite a while, but I thought it was worth giving them a fresh voice again.   If you are a communicator of any sort, these are some great things to keep in mind while you’re preparing.  Some of them won’t apply, obviously, in every setting, but good thoughts nonetheless. Read more…

How often do you slow down and reconnect?

I’ve been reading the book “The Wounded Healer” by Henri Nouwen lately and I came across an interesting quote that I had highlighted the last time I worked my way through it.   Nouwen says, “I am afraid that in a few decades the Church will be accused of having failed in its most basic task: to offer men creative ways to communicate with the source of human life.” What’s powerful about this quote is not just the assertion, but the fact that Nouwen made it in 1972 when he wrote the book.

I wonder if he was correct, or not?

Have we as a church failed in our task of providing opportunities and ways for people to communicate with the source of human life?   Have we missed the mark?  Have we got so caught up with teaching people about God, that we’ve failed in our role of connecting people to God?