Notes from the Trail

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You may recall my recent comparison of K.I.T. and Yojimbo. Verdict: K.I.T. wins hands-down. However, I just couldn’t work it into my digi-lifestyle.

However, thanks to Richard’s recent post concerning OmniFocus, I’m going to give it a try.

What do all these software packages have in common? They promise to help the regular user get more organized, think linearly and as a result, get things done. (No, I still haven’t read the book, but it’s on my wish list!)

I had hoped that iCal’s new connectivity with Apple’s Mail might revolutionize how I approach my tasks. Then I moved to Remember the Milk, and that has been a fair substitute.

I’m willing to look into OmniFocus and will keep you updated as to its integration.

For anyone who wears multiple hats as I do, anything that can help me focus and keep my tasks and goals prioritized is a huge help. However, what I keep coming back to is… drumroll… my brain. I work in a very fluid thought-stream kind of way. I always have. I don’t necessarily like that, and I’m open to change; however, it has defined my work habits for so long that I think it’s going to be an uphill struggle.

I’m interested to know if there is material out there about the benefits of the thought-stream approach (my wording).

It’s best described by someone who is a practitioner. Here is how I see it operating:

• The ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously
• Easily distracted; therefore, practitioners must discipline themselves to ignore what might interrupt their thought-stream
• If a reader, you usually are reading more than one book at a time.
• If a computer-geek, you most definitely have multiple windows and programs open at a time.
• You are an early adopter of all things geeky and technical, often opting for the untried and unproven in the hopes that you might “discover” something, sometimes only for the joy of being in “no man’s land.”
• You have an astounding ability to concentrate on whatever is before you - at that moment. You may switch between thoughts and projects frequently in an hour or so, but whatever is in front of you has your full attention.
• You daydream and envision better ways of doing things frequently. Often, you feel like the methods you currently use can’t be the best, and so you’re constantly on the lookout for a better way. (Thus, being an early adopter.)
• You frequently “awaken” from intense concentration to realize that your kids have created a bowling alley in your living room (right under your nose) or that your spouse has called your name several times, and the most recent call had an uncomfortably-threatening decibel level to it).

Uh… now what was I saying? (I paused to listen to what was happening in the kitchen…)

I got sucked into the Arkansas-LSU game in the third quarter yesterday because Sam was watching it and kept making exclamations like, “Omigosh!” and “Daddy, you’ve got to see this!” and “Wow!” I just couldn’t concentrate, so I plopped down and was quickly enthralled with the drama as unranked Arkansas dashed the hopes of #1-ranked LSU in a triple overtime game.It must have haunted LSU fans, because the only other loss they’d had all season was also in a triple overtime to Kentucky. Elton had a great post about LSU’s lost dreams here.It must have been equally frustrating (and every other team facing Arkansas this year) to have only one gameplan on defense: Stop Darren McFadden. And being completely unable to do so.

Right now, McFadden is in the hunt (again!) for the Heisman Trophy, but I don’t think he’ll get it. Not that he doesn’t deserve it.

However, he’s played for a coach who has been completely inept at creating an offense that would enable McFadden to truly become the player he could have been. It’s a completely astounding tribute to his athletic skills and prowess that he’s done what he’s done in an offense that is totally dependent upon and built around him. It has been aided by the addition of two other amazing backs: Felix Jones and Payton Hillis. They took some of the heat off McFadden.

However, with Arkansas’ final season game being played, I am optimistic that it is also Coach Houston Nutt’s last regular season game as coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks. I’ve been sounding off about this for over a year (here, here, and here) - even doing so before most folks in my area would acknowledge that Arkansas needed a fresh perspective.

Nutt’s uninspired, frequently frustrating coaching strategies when combined with a maddening multi-million dollar salary serves only to prove the U of A’s poor stewardship of its fans’ finances.

The rumor around the state for the past three weeks has been that Nutt will be leaving at the end of this year, his tenth year as head football coach. Perhaps Arkansas fans will no longer have to say, “Wait ’till next year,” after another botched season, in spite of all the talent necessary to finish in the top-5 or 10.

For now, however, every Arkansas fan has something to be proud of - an athlete that will most definitely be picked in the first round in next year’s NFL draft (and may be the No. 1 overall pick!), a team that knocked off rival and national #1 team LSU in their final season game, a happy finish to an otherwise mediocre (again) year, and a stable full of talented athletes for the development of a new coach.

In a recent sermon (11/11/07), John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis made eight observations about church planting:

 

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I’ve summarized them here:

1. There are 195,000,000 non-churched people in America, making America one of the top four unchurched nations in the world.
2. In spite of the rise of megachurches, no county in America that we know of has a greater church population than it did 10 years ago.
3. During the last 10 years, combined communicant church membership of all Protestant denominations declined by 9.5% while the national population increased during the same time by 11.4%.
4. Each year 3500-4000 churches close their doors forever, while only as many as 1500 new churches are planted.
5. There are now nearly 60% fewer churches per 10,000 persons in American than there were in 1920. (1920 - 27 churches for every 10K Americans, 1950 - 17 churches for every 10K Americans, 1996 - 11 churches for every 10K Americans).
6. Today, of approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.
7. One American denomination recently found that 80% of its new converts came in churches that were less than two years old.
8. “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches.” - Peter Wagner

I listened to the message on my way to Little Rock for Thanksgiving and was greatly encouraged by it. It simply echoed what we already knew to be true in our own experience in our context here in south Arkansas.

It’s a strange and often disconcerting revelation to learn of a reference to our four year-old church as a “cult.” We usually shrug off such statements, attributing them to ignorance. We prefer not to think that they may have been said in malice. However, the fact remains that planting a church in rural America is exceedingly difficult, draining, and may be one of the least appreciated enterprises in American Christianity today.

While the church planting movement in our country continues to pick up steam and grow, let me make a few observations of my own about it:

• Church planters often resort to “business models” and demographic studies to determine where to plant their church.
• After such studies are made, inevitably a growing suburb of a large urban area is selected.
• Few churches in the rural South have ever intentionally started another church. (There have been many unintentional church starts; we call them splits.)
• Even churches reknown for their focus on planting other churches tend to use an event model, even though the church of origin most likely did not start that way. You hear of “Launch Sundays” and the like, but there is no space shuttle, only a church-in-a-box, complete with musicians and in some cases, fully-supported, multiple staffs.
• Our current church culture encourages new churches to be “up and running” as soon as possible, and as a result, seems to discourage a bivocational model for church planters.
• There is an unhealthy preoccupation with numbers, buildings, and programs.

Honestly, it’s exhausting to continually have to redefine what church really is for people in our community. While they know it’s not about essentially about buildings, budgets, and butts in the pews, they unfortunately reduce church to that by their actions and preoccupations. Even this month, in talking with one denominational leader, I was asked early on in our conversation about our church, “How many are you running?”

When did spiritual success come to mean anything less than transformed lives and focusing on the glory of Jesus Christ?

As I pondered Piper’s eight points, I knew I had to proclaim them here for your own pontification. ;)

Simply put, it’s a proven and much better strategy to start new churches than to expect established ones to be able to penetrate their their communities anymore than they already have. In fact, in response to one pastor’s earnest questions about why we were starting our church four years ago, I did some research on established churches in our own town.

I discovered that the church population of Monticello has not grown at all in the past 30 years! Sure, there have been some surges of growth in different churches, but the net result has not increased.

That’s why our church hopes to become a church planting center for our region. Our leaders are actively praying and looking for families and individuals in towns near ours who are open to starting a new work, most often in their living room.

Whatever you may have thought about the church in America before, I hope you at least pause long enough to pray for it. The Bride of Christ must make herself ready for her Groom. It is far past time for us all to be content and happy with status quo Protestantism. We must vigorously pursue the glory of Christ by proclaiming his love to our neighborhoods and the nations.

Perhaps you would be willing to begin praying about starting a new work? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

It was a rather strange experience. We were sitting in the airport lobby of Love Field just outside Dallas sharing soft drinks with David James, the Collegiate Ministry Team leader for Arkansas Baptists. After visiting with him on the phone that evening, we had scheduled an initial interview with him.

During the last week of May 1995, I found myself sitting in a room at Ouachita Baptist University for the yearly Arkansas BSU Directors workshop. Campus ministers from across the state converged once a year for refreshment, fellowship, planning, praying and strategy for the upcoming year of ministry. There were several other “new guys” there during that May: Neal Nelson (then at SAU Tech, later to move to HSU), Jackie Flake (UAPB), and Tim Smith (UALR).

It was much easier attending the meeting and making the transition with others who were doing the same thing. In fact, I remain extremely close with three of those guys, including Ben Phillips (SAU) who came on board the following year.

In a short span, Carolyn and I had purchased our first house, met two dozen new collegians, and over that first summer “remodeled” the Baptist Student Union ministry building at UAM. We began to gear up for the fall of 1995, when students would arrive back on campus and planned an event-packed “Welcome Week.”

So began an eight-year love affair with campus ministry that still runs in my blood. Carolyn and I both found an incredible network of friends and support in the campus ministry family in Arkansas. Because we remained in the Southern Baptist Convention, our health insurance transferred over, which was a huge concern because of Carolyn’s cancer (the term pre-existing condition suddenly became an important part of our lives). In addition, our children were born while I ministered with collegians. I’m convinced there’s no greater place to raise your children than around Christian college students. They loved our babies and poured their lives into ours even as we also poured ours into theirs.

The BSU became the BCM in about 2001 - from Baptist Student Union to Baptist Collegiate Ministry. I’m still not sure if the change was necessary, but it was part of a wholesale denominational effort at transitioning what were deemed as generational names for organizations - “Union” - to a more apt description of who we were.

At our campus ministry at UAM, we developed the following vision statement:

• To magnify God as life’s ultimate joy by inviting students into an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ
  and equipping them for loving ministry to others for His glory.

In many ways, that vision statement still describes my own approach to ministry. God is life’s ultimate joy! We were created to know and enjoy Him forever. So many folks relegate God to some heavenly Santa Claus or Inglorious Grinch. However, the only way to truly love our Creator is to devote your life to knowing Him. It’s a life-shaping and never-ending pursuit that results in our own fulfillment and joy.

As a campus minister, my eyes were also opened to the world. Having always served on church staffs before this time, I had allowed myself to become myopic in my vision. It was always trying to get ready for the next week, the next worship service, etc. However, with collegiate ministry, we began to think.

What did we want a Christian college student to look like? What did we want them to do? And more importantly, how could God use young people who devoted their lives to Him while young?

Through the influence of the Passion movement and One Day events, I ran into biblical teachers like Louie Giglio, John Piper, Beth Moore, Voddie Baucham and others. Carolyn and I had our entire Christian worldview transformed as we saw in the scriptures that God’s primary goal is His own glory. He does not exist for us. It’s not about us. Life is about God and bringing Him glory!

We began to live that way. And we began to direct collegians toward God’s glory in everything they did. We saw lives transformed first by the Gospel through student salvations, and then we were delighted to see life purposes and missions being redirected as students embraced the pursuit of God’s glory wholeheartedly.

I was humbled to be able to lead student teams all over the world - all with students from southeast Arkansas and beyond. I walked the Great Wall of China two different summers as we shared the love of Christ in conversations on a Chinese university campus. A group of students were deeply challenged to get out of their comfort zones as we did evangelistic surveys on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. We ministered on the campuses of the University of Southern Maine, Colby College, and University of Connecticut. We walked the campuses of three different universities in Alberta, Canada, seeking to strengthen existing Baptist campus ministries there. I traveled to the Ukraine, to Slovenia and to the Dominican Republic.

In short, we realized with deep conviction that there was no place on our planet that was not under God’s authority. We took seriously Jesus’ words “to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28.19-20)

All the while, we continued to notice that the local churches in our area were much like the ones I had served at previously - more concerned with programs and activities than leading their members to spiritual maturity and preparing them to proclaim the glory of God locally and among the nations.

However, in the midst of incredible activity, ministry and delight, our life was turned upside down again.

To be continued…

I don’t think I really began to understand how revolutionary the iPhone, iPod Touch, and yesterday’s iPod video really are until the past two weeks. I was eating lunch with Taylor, and he began to show off all the video podcasts that he’d put on his iPhone.

Now, I have subscriptions to several church podcasts and a few others, but I had never really paid any attention to video podcasts. I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that every major news network produced a daily video podcast. As I began searching the web and iTunes, I began to discover other video podcasts and within an hour, I had clicked “Subscribe” to about 20 different feeds.

Since then, I find myself watching the ABC Nightly News… when I want to. Usually it’s when I’m lying down to go to sleep. It’s nice to put the earphones on, catch up with the day, and even to pray for leaders, situations, and world events as I quiet my mind and heart.

I have also begun putting the TV shows that I follow (Smallville, Heroes, etc.) on my iPhone to watch the episodes that I’ve missed. Combine that with other video podcasts from churches, technology sites, etc., and I have a wealth of information in my palm that defies my ability to take it all in.

Since my subscription spree the other day, I’ve been paring down the amount of podcasts that I subscribe to, simply for the sake of time; however, I’m confident that my viewing habits have been radically changed. I used to not enjoy watching anything (movies, favorite shows) unless I could do so with my surround sound (no, I don’t have a plasma, LCD or big screen - still just a Sanyo 27″ analog tube). However, with my iPhone and ear buds, I have found that my audiovisual experience does not really suffer in the least. It’s startling to realize the crisp clarity of the iPhone screen and the sound that you can enjoy with ear buds.

Once in the morning, I’ll tell iTunes to refresh my podcasts so that it will catch the newest video podcast of Good Morning America, and then in the evening, I update my podcasts again so that I have the newest evening news episode.

Update: Another thing that has proved to be wonderful and could be done with any other phone these days is the strategic use of Twitter and Flickr. I use Twitter regularly to encourage, have fun, and simply update folks on my whereabouts, thoughts, and activities. It’s posted instantly on my Wordpress blog thanks to the Simple Twitter plugin. In addition, I use the email address Flickr provides for my account and send pictures that I’ve taken with my iPhone. I’ve set them to automatically be tagged so that they appear on my picture stream on my blog as well (using FlickrRSS plugin).

I’m curious for the rest of you tech geeks out there… how have you found portable media players such as the iPod changing your media and viewing habits?