Notes from the Trail

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Caro and Sam are in our bed watching Sunday night football. Sam is into NFL this year since I’ve set him up a team in our fantasy football league. Joe Theisman is one of the commentators, and upon hearing this, Carolyn says, “Joe Theisman is still alive?!” incredulously.
Surprised, I say, “Well, yes…”
“But what about the Theisman Trophy? Isn’t that really old?” she says.
“You mean the Heisman Trophy?” I say with my best I’m-a-man-and-am-so-glad-you-asked-that-question voice.
“Oh,” she says.
“I’ve got to go write a quick blog article,” I laugh, and gleefully dash to the living room where my trusty Powerbook is waiting….

Came across this article by accident today and thought it was a great pictorial statement of who our heroes are… As the White Sox won the World Series last night and I saw the slobbering, hysterical celebrations going on in Chicago, this picture reminds me again that our nation has no clue what a hero is. It’s not someone who gets paid millions of dollars for playing baseball, basketball, and football. (many of whom have no moral commitment or integrity). True heroes are those who serve (and die for) others for the great causes of humanity: life, liberty, justice, and freedom.

Thank you to our soliders in Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, and other parts of our world who serve for someone else.

There’s a powerful new ad by Apple on their website today commemorating the life and commitment of Rosa Parks to civil rights. I have to confess that I am an Apple fanatic. A Macintosh geek. A Mac Daddy.

Let me trace my Mac Roots. In 1988, at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, I was a sophomore journalism major. Dr. Bill Downs spent a wad of money on the latest,greatest desktop publishing computers, and challenged us to be the first yearbook in the nation to produce an entirely “camera-ready” yearbook. It was a daunting task for a bunch of 20 year olds.

Our yearbook and newspaper offices were soon decked out with the coolest looking “computers” (could you call them that?) I’d ever seen… Mac Pluses! Everywhere you looked, we had a box with an 8 inch black and white screen and a small box with a button on it attached to a cord. They called it a “mouse.” Crazy.

And so we went to work… and I felll in love. Using Adobe Pagemaker, Microsoft Word, and a few other programs, we missed our goal of being the first, but the OBU journalism department became Mac-dominated. And I was converted.

Since that time, there’s been a long parade of Macs in my life, including a
Mac LC, a Performa 6400, a Powerbook G3 333 Pismo, a Powerbook G4 17″ 1ghz, the first Powermac G5 1.8 single, an Emac, a Powerbook G4 867, and we’re now waiting the arrival of our first mini Mac.

Somewhere along the line, I began to realize how many unfortunate and lost people there are in the world who have to live with these things called computer viruses (what’s that?) and who even have to reformat their hard drives regularly or reinstall system software. You know them as PC users. I’ve taken it upon myself (since Steve Jobs seems totally clueless about how to produce a convert in non-urban areas) to escort these poor, imprisoned, and misled PC users into the marvelous light of the Mac.

In the last year, I’ve made more than 6 converts single-handedly in our town of 9000 (with several more in the making). Now that’s not much, but when you consider that there is little to no Mac presence here, that’s a major inroad. Because everyone of these new converts talks about their Mac experience…. How fun it is, how problem free it is, and computing has become enjoyable to them again. They have no fear of wanton viruses anymore, and no longer do they plan a week of their lives every quarter to reformat their hard drives. (When do PC users have time to enjoy life?)

What am I passionate about?
That brings me to this question. As much as I love the Mac, I love Jesus more… My faith in Christ has totally changed my life, and He has brought forgiveness, peace, and purpose to this struggler. I’ve personally witnessed the miraculous, and been a regular partaker of His grace. Yet, while I’ve made several converts to the Mac platform this year, I am unaware that I’ve led anyone to the throne of grace. To my knowledge, I’ve opened no “Windows” into the reality of Christ for anyone this year. That’s humbling.

You heard it here first… I am hoping and planning to start a “MACUG” (Mac Users Group) in Monticello thr first of next year. My express purpose for doing so is to tie two passions together. I hope to discover fellow Mac users and learn from them. We’re going to have a blast. As they learn about me, I am committed to opening my heart and sharing with them my first love… the creator of Apple… Jesus Christ.

The bitten Apple logo is my reminder that sin has entered the world, and the only solution is a love relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Next time you see a commercial about the iPod (how cool is the new video iPod?!), look at that logo and ponder the bitten apple. Could it be that your life and mine was profoundly and eternally directed by an ancient decision? Chew on that one.

From the land of the double-click…

By the mere mention of the title, now I’ve got that inane tune in my head again. “Do you wanna Fanta? Wanna Fanta?” Dangit! Our church has been manning (and womaning) the concession stand for the local high school football games. It’s the Billies’ band main way of raising money each year. They’ve struggled to find folks to man it, and since TJ is a core member of Journey, we decided we wanted to serve him and the school throughout the football season by selling Snickers… and Fantas.
It’s actually been enjoyable. One of our core convictions as a church is to serve our community. In order to serve your community, you must streamline your church activities (which we’ve done ruthlessly). You can’t simply tack on volunteer projects to an already full church calendar and be able to serve wholeheartedly. You’ll soon find your people exhausted and worn out. Many “pastors” then get frustrated with their people for not “sacrificing” or “carrying their cross.”

Yet, a full church calendar many times is symptomatic of a church that only exists for itself, to meet its members’ “needs.” It is not necessarily seeing its people maturing into the image of Christ, but it is sure keeping them busy. Busyness is not godliness. Nor does a full slate of religious programs, from kids to senior adults, equate to building the kingdom of God. Unfortunately in many churches, our activities and programs are simply religious alternatives to similar programs and activities already present in the community. Heaven forbid that we should dine with sinners… or that our senior adults should participate in that devel-ish local senior citizen’s center. I mean… they quilt there! (and occasionally… gasp… play bingo!)

We are earnestly trying to cultivate a mindset and lifestyle in our church that our community’s activities and interests should be those of our church. We seek to plug our church into the life and times of the community rather than creating a Christian subculture or Christian coountry club or Christian “Rotary Club” for ourselves. Our belief is that many churches are in full retreat from their society and community rather than engaging it lovingly, thoughtfully, and as salt and light. You cannot flavor that which you’re not in contact with. You cannot light darkness that you’re not in. So go join that senior center or Lion’s Club or volunteer to serve at the local library rather than filling another “slot” at your church. So many of those slots are only keeping the machine running and are doing little to advance the kingdom and bring people into the joy of knowing Christ for the first time - or more fully.

We do not believe in compromising the biblical message and call for repentance and simple faith in Jesus Christ. But we also do not believe that the best place to preach and communicate that message is in a religious building on certain designated (”holy”) times. The best gospelling occurs in the context of relationships, working alongside your “not-yet-Christian” (taken from Hirsch’s The Shaping of Things to Come) neighbor. As you faithfully live out the joy of your faith in Christ in FRONT of your community (rather than in your religious places and programmed events, you will see the Spirit begin the amazing and miraculous process of life transformation and faith giving.

We’ve got one more home game this season to work the concession stand. We’re indebted to servantevangelism.com for our shirts that we wear. On the back of our shirt, it says, “Journey Church has left the building…Gone to Serve.” May we all earnestly scale back our “religious activities” that seem only to meet our own needs rather than to serve the our neighbors’.

So, if you’re in Monticello next weekend and stop by the game…. “Wanna Fanta?”

Go Billies!

Just came across this article today while searching the web for some sermon background and thought I would post a link to it. It’s from John Mark Ministries. I know nothing about them, but the little I perused while on the site seemed good.

But this article on encouraging your pastor was particularly good, or at least it resonated with me….
check it out here.