Luckiest Man....

From Lou Gehrig's July 4th 1939 speech- less than two years before his death.

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans...When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift – that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies – that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body – it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed – that’s the finest I know. So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”

imperfect information

Last Wednesday on my trip out to Midland to preach at GCR (one of Venture’s two main supporting churches) I read Andy Stanley’s Next Generation Leaders. The one thought that has stuck with me from the book is a quote from the WWII submarine movie U-571.

(on being a captain) “Now that’s the job. It’s not a science. You have to be able to make hard decisions based on imperfect information, asking men to carry out orders that may result in their deaths. And if you’re wrong, you suffer the consequences. If you are not prepared to make those decision, without pause, without reflection, then you got no business being a submarine captain.”

A leader makes hard decisions based off of imperfect information. Stanley says that a leader is never going to be more than 80% certain of his/her decision, and if you wait for more certainty you will most likely miss an opportunity. At Venture we have issues of which we are certain- we follow Jesus, God’s grace is enough, love, forgiveness…. But issues of style, preferences and forms aren’t always reaching 80%, In these times I am learning as a leader to trust in God and secondly to focus on clarity instead of certainty.

Venture Small Group

We started weekly small groups last week and had our second meeting last night. We had a great group thats starting to act like a church. It's truly exciting to be apart of this church plant.

On the second picture you can see at the table three of the Avery's, including my Avery in the yellow, who are apart of Venture. I guess great parents think alike when naming their kids.

Core Issues.

In high school, my sophomore track season got derailed because of a back injury that started months before during wrestling season. Despite consulting a couple doctors, I couldn’t figure out why my back was bothering me. Chiropracters tried adjusting my back. Another doctor had me wear a heal lift in my shoe to compensate for a difference in the length of my legs. A physical therapist thought with a combination of electrical stem, ice and massages it would get better. The latter was my favorite, but even that didn’t fix the real problem. The real problem that caused my mid-lumbar strain was my hamstrings’ flexibility, or should I say, lack of flexibility. As a 15 year old, I didn’t understand the importance of stretching. The tightness in my legs caused my back to become extremely tight and then it couldn’t handle the trama delivered to it from wrestling or pole vaulting. The solution was surprisingly a basic core issue, but we all erroneously thought complicated treatments would do the trick.
It seems to me that many of us have a deep wounding or brokenness at our core that we try to medicate with shallow home remedies- a few more compliments from your peers, new stuff, more success (however we define that- the size of your bank account or “your” church), or a plethora of other options. All to no avail. Instead of turning to the core issue of connection with one’s creator.

Tim Keller-“Sin is the despairing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to an identity, apart from him.”
Barbara Brown Taylor- “Contrary to the legal model, the essence of sin is not the violation of laws but a wrecked relationship with God, one another, and the whole created order. “All sins are attempts to fill voids,” wrote Simone Weil. Because we cannot stand the God-shaped hole inside of us, we try stuffing it full of all sorts of things, but only God may fill.”

Sitting Alone- part 2

Here is a follow up to a previous post on the subject of churches that don't do a good job of being welcoming-

Many churches that do a good job of drawing large crowds to their services don't do a good job of creating community. One reason could be very pragmatic. Many people in many different services isn't conducive for building meaningful relationships. But it could be much more than just that, because what you win them with is what you win them to. If you get people in the door by just giving them a good worship product, then you could be establishing a consumer culture in which people expect to receive and not give. When you go to church to receive, then you aren’t in the mindset to give to anyone including the stranger sitting next to you.
So the million dollar question is how do we lead meaningful worship experiences while concurrently calling people to discipleship and community?

Avery's 1st MLB Game

We had a great time taking Avery to her first MLB game this week. She did well, but she got upset when the ballpark erupted in boo’s when A-Rod batted. She couldn’t understand why people would do that to him, but once I told her about the “Kissing the Mirror” pic in Detail magazine she understood. While I am not a huge baseball fan, I must confess that I am a Yankees fan. They do a good job of filling the sports void created by the Cowboys recent short seasons, and they always spend the money to try to be competitive.

Sitting alone in church

We had visited this good church before, but this time when no one talked with us after church it bothered me because my pregnant wife was feeling ill. Church should be a safe place to feel ill considering all the “love people” stuff churches typically talks about.

Lindsay sat down hoping to get over her temporary illness during the last few minutes of the service. But it didn’t go away. The service ends, and everyone rapidly leaves. And we awkwardly sit. She needed water, but she also needed her husband to stay next to her. So we sat, alone. Not one person came over to talk with us during this long five minutes, and while it never bothered us before that no one talked with us, it bothered me that time.

I am not trying to bash this church, I am just trying to figure out how not to repeat this mistake. What do we do to establish a church that makes everyone feel welcomed?