Get Inspired

I saw this today and just had to post it, too funny.



T

How Well Do You Know Jesus' Story?

I was doing some reading this week and the authors mentioned something I didn't think much about, well, until now.

If you were to ask the average person the story of Jesus, they'd mention Christmas. Most will add in Easter too. But very, very few seem to know what happened in the middle. And here at Christmas, I see it. Most people seem to know the Christmas story (the basics anyway) and most know the basics of Easter, but to name ten miracles, five parables, it gets a little harder.

And then the other author mentioned how we tell Jesus story without going into the big picture. Many people hear that Jesus died for their sins, but how many people know it was to restore us back to where we originally created to be with God? Not we're born sinners, but before we were born, we were created in the image of God to know Him! Christ is simply restoring something we have long forgotten and lost.

It makes the Christmas story more interesting, and it helps understand that the story of Jesus doesn't end in the manger... :)

T

Real Christmas Laws

Today I'm listening to classical Christmas music in my office and I found this list of laws from England I read a while ago. I thought you may like them. They are all still on the books, although I'm sure they are not thoroughly enforced.

~Playing sports on Christmas (except archery) is illegal.
~According to the Holy Days and Fasting Days Act all citizens are required to attend church on Christmas Day (and they must walk there and back, that's a part of the law).
~Christmas dinner is legally limited to only three courses. Mince Pie and Christmas pudding are not allowed, they are banned to be eaten on Christmas.
~Working on Christmas is banned.
~Hunting on Christmas is banned.

Now we laugh at those, but I don't know. To me it's kind of sad that we find it funny. Aren't those good suggestions for Christmas anyway, not over indulging, not working, spending time with God and family...?

T

I'm Back

It's nice to finally be home, with Thanksgiving and Liz, Lorie and I at YS (a Youth Pastor conference), it's been a busy two weeks.

But I have something for tonight. If you can, go out and look at the moon. Jupiter and Venus, the two brightest planets, are next to the moon tonight. I could even see them through the clouds, it looks like a real Procter & Gamble symbol :)

T

3 Year Old Road Rage

I'm sorry, but I saw the funniest thing today. I know it shouldn't be funny, but it was...

I walk in the gym and the preschool kids are playing, nothing new there. Now the preschool has a few Fisher-Price cars that a single kid can ride in, roof, doors, everything, there's just no floor so you move it with your feet. You get the idea. Now one girl was in a car and she was at a 90 degree angle with the wall, head on. She could not go forward or turn. The funny part was the kid behind her, he was also in a car and ramming her repeatedly like they were in bumper cars.

The girls has enough. She yells at him, gives a nice road rage face, then gets out, slams here door and pushes his car away. I know, it shouldn't be funny, but I just kept thinking, "Boy, we've trained our future well..."

T

Do You Give?

This article kind of sums up how Christians do not give to their own church.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081103/lf_nm_life/us_religion_giving_1

I just like the question what could God do with 133 Billion Dollars?!

T

Who's Inviting?

A quick recap on some things that have happened the last few days...

I go to lunch at the high schools here (HSE & FHS, sorry LN) and usually it consists of me sitting around a lot with a few people who know me well coming up and saying hi (which is always nice, please do that). A few weeks ago I met a guy who just walked up and said "hi". Nice guy, we talked for a few minutes, I told him who I was and about our church. Next Sunday he's there. He's now been here every week and last week he was even inviting new people. Then, just last Thursday, a guy walks in the church during NewSong practice for Youth Sunday (our Youth worship team practice for those that didn't understand the code). This guy knows no one here but said he just felt drawn to show up here at that time, the one Thursday a month when the people his age happen to be there having worship practice.

So I have two theories (or a third, which is both of them together). One is that quite possibly God is real, and even more possibly people are trying to find God and in their search God's Spirit is moving in our church and people are being led here to find God. My second is that perhaps God is tired of waiting for us to do what He asked us to do and tell people about His love, so tired of waiting that He is doing it Himself to kick start us a little. Or, like I said, possibly both of those things...

Either way, if God is here and if there aer people looking for Him and if He is calling to those people, perhaps we should jump on board and do our part. Our part can't be that hard, if people are coming to church without even being invited, imagine what would happen if we did invite them! If people are so desperate for God they are just appearing, imagine how receptive they would be to having a person say hello and talk to them about God.

Just a thought...

T

Punk'ins

Sorry it's been a few weeks, I've been a little behind with the pumpkins.

But there is good news! We sold more this year than in years before, even after throwing out hundreds and hundreds of rotten ones (I wish we hadn't thrown them out, people were buying them on Halloween!).

So a big thank-you to everyone who helped out this year. This will definately help our student ministry with our mission trips next year. Thanks again!

T

Adding Insult To Injury

I'm sorry, but this was just too stupid, funny and mean all at once. I read it today.

"When medieval Europeans burned witches, the victims' families had to pay for the firewood."

Now come on, that's just mean!

T

Magnifying Glass Theology

I just finished reading a book that I really enjoyed by Philip Yancey. Anyway, he said something that kind of got me near the end, although I don't think he meant for it to be as impacting as it was to me.

He talked about how sometimes we view the tapestry of God through a magnifying glass. Think of it like a person who is appraising a piece of art. They take out a magnifying glass and see the tiniest of cracks, the little specks of colors under that glass. The problem is, they can't see the full picture and lose the ability to admire it's beauty.

I wonder how many times we have done this with God, that we spend so much time arguing or mulling over some tiny, almost insignificant piece of theology so much so that we lose the ability to see the true beauty of who God is. We lose the sense of God's love for us.

Just wondering...

T

Best Ad Ever

The other night I was up late watching TV and this ad for the Honda CR-V came on. Usually, I don't care, but the pitch they gave this car was so ridiculous I wrote it down (and tried not to wake Lorie laughing). I tried to find it online, but couldn't, but trust me, this is what they said to show how awesome their vehicle is.

"Convenient, easy access door opening."

Really?! You can open the door? Easily? Yeah, those other cars, I was having such a hard time working the handle, the whole pulling thing. I'm glad they finally perfected that.

I guess what made it worse is after saying that they showed a woman opening the door and putting art in the back seat. It's so easy they had to show me how the door opens.

I am so fascinated I may need to trade in my Geo. Forget that it's small and old, I want doors that are easier to open darn it.

T

What Kind Of Impression Do You Leave?

Today I had the fun job of going to hotels and finding out their room rates in case people come visit our church. I repeat. Fun job.

Well, there is a hotel across the highway from the church. You can see the church from it's front door. It makes sense that we would go there first.

So I end up talking to the woman at the desk and telling her about what I'm looking for. She's very helpful, giving me prices, etc. Then I ask how many people can stay in a room. She's a little confused by the question so I explain that teenagers may be involved. She immediately gives me back my card, explains how the hotel has a "no teenager" policy (I don't know how that works) but it's because they are too messy and loud. I tell her it's for a church, it doesn't matter.

But that got me thinking, obviously the person who owns that hotel had something happen that forever left a bad impression on them of how a teenager will act in a hotel. And faith made no impact on how they viewed teenagers.

So my question to you is, what kind of impression do you leave with people...?

(I hope I do okay)

T

Question And Funny

First the question, why do we have to work so hard to get people to do their best? Or even better, why do we have to convince people to do their best? If you take a job or volunteer to do something, or join a sport, why on earth would you even consider doing it if you have no intention of giving your best? Or another one, do people honestly think this is the best they can do when it's obvious it's not? Sorry that was more than one question, it's just been bugging me today...

For the funny though, Lorie and I went to the zoo (of course) where we spent a lot of time looking at otters and things of that sort. We also had to go see Martin, the new baby cow. He was in his pen and friendly and really soft. So I pet Martin, and he liked it (as animals do). So Lorie goes to pet Martin, and he turns into her arm like most animals do when they like being pet. But as he turns in, he flicks his head and gives her this huge lick down her arm. It was really funny. It would have been funnier if she wasn't wearing my sweater...

T

Another Bad Church Experience

Today I was at lunch at Fishers High School, my first full lunch all year, and I ended up talking with a student who knew I was a youth pastor (it's not hard to figure out) and immediately told her story of the one time in her life she had been to church and why she wouldn't go back.

I won't bother getting to the details, but can everyone do me one of two favors. One, if you've never been to church or been to one bad church, realize they're not all the same. That's like saying "I went to a party and it was bad so I'm never going to any type of party again." There are different churches with different styles of music, different people, different approaches to worshipping God. And for those who ware in churches, can you please be nice to people? Be friendly? Say "hi"? It's amazing how many people I talk to who go to a church and cannot remember anyone saying "hi". That doesn't mean that absolutely nobody said hello, but greetings were few and far enough between that it didn't stick into their memory.

On the flip side, I had one student today realize how easy it is to invite someone to church. Someone asked what I did, I told them, said they're welcome anytime and what do you know, they're thinking about it. And I'm a stranger. Imagine if a friend of theirs invited them...

T

Time

Okay, enough Monkey Kickball, you all beat me...

For some reason all day yesterday I was thinking about time and how we've made our lives so incredibly constrained by it. Let me explain.

Go all the way back to creation. God creates and there are only two units of time, evening and morning. Our day was divided into one of two, you were either in daylight, or you were in night. That's it.

Then, sometime, the standard for the day was split into 5. There was dawn (6:00), the mid-morning, or the 3rd hour (9:00), noon (12:00), mid-afternoon, or the 9th hour (3:00) and dusk (6:00). If you were to meet someone, you would use one of those first 4 times (you didn't usually meet after dark). Our day was now divided a little more...

Then at some point we divided our day into 24 hours. Some trace this back to the Babylonians using a 12 hour clock but I don't know how reliable that is. There is also evidence of Egyptians having a 12 hour clock in 1300 B.C. (10 hours day, 2 hours twilight, 12 hours night), but it wasn't in common practice like the 5 division Roman day. The Romans still recognized those hours (as evident by the 3rd hour, 6th hour, etc.) but were still 5 divisions in practice. Either way, for centuries this was used, mostly by astronomers and people related to the stars (navigators and scientists too). Why 24? Who knows. A common theory is because 24 is an easily divisible number (2,3,4,6,8,12).

But that wasn't enough.w had to break it down more. Back to those whacky Babylonians and their astronomers, at sometime between 300-100 B.C. they divided by 60 (again, easy to divide by) and created minutes and seconds. Now our lives are measured even more minutely.

But that's still not enough. If you watched the Olympics, you would have noticed that they needed to make time smaller, 100th's of a second. And for me, all the music stuff I do, well, that's even more minute. I go to 1000ths of a second.

We have made time so small, and in doing so, made it so big in importance. It just seems crazy to me that we would do that, we would micro mange ourselves into the 1000th's of a second.

And yet, through all this, it's still not right. A standard day, full revolution of the earth, well, that's only 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds...

T

I Beat Liz

My Monkey Ball Score (so far...)

http://totebo.com/mko.php?c=qporrrotBoutuorFBoUBoppsotrqUoD6OmouUEr

T

Poison Ivy

Sorry I haven't been on, I've been in and out of consciousness and energy the last few days. I got poison ivy from head to toe at the Guys Night Out last week. Right now I'm sitting at my desk feeling the itch on my arms and neck, it's awesome...

Life Hurts God Heals starts Sunday, hope to see you there!

T

The Right Thing

Sorry it's been a few days, I've been getting stuff ready for our new series at Drink Deep & The Refinery (our Sunday night program for students). Anyway...

Suffice it to say, I was watching TV the other day and heard something really profound. "Even if you do the right thing, it may not turn out the right way." That's true, isn't it? Think of the times where you told the truth, but you didn't get the forgiveness you expected but got in trouble.

But then I started thinking even more (scary) and thought about this. Who says what outcome is right? Well, obviously, we do. We have an outcome to every action that we think is the right one. Maybe we're not as smart as we think we are.

And one more thought with that. Does this mean that we start to decide what is right based on the outcome? I took that in ethics class, if we base all actions on what we think are the outcomes, it really waters down what is right and wrong...

Things to ponder.

T

More English Meanderings

I have another one for you, although this one was not as clear-cut when I read it...

I was reading a book in which the author used the word disgrace, but spelled it dis-grace. And that's when I started thinking. Really, the word is intended to mean a loss of grace, as in the acts that we see as "disgraceful" are really meant to be thought of as so repulsive that you can actually lose the grace of God for taking part in them. What a crazy idea!

But then I went further. What do we see as disgraceful? If you were to walk down the street and say "That's disgraceful", what would the person be doing? Begging on the street? Eating out of a trash can? How about something less, wearing something that was in style last season but definitely out now?

And aren't people who do those acts the ones who need grace? And yet surprisingly, when good, middle-class, upstanding Christians lower themselves to that level, their loving counterparts mutter under their breath "How disgraceful"...

T

Another Quirk Of The English Language

I can't be long, sorry, but here's a tiny fact I read tonight.

The word "listen" has the same letters as the word "silent".

Food for thought about our listening skills...

T