Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Friendship in Proverbs
Did you know the book of Proverbs has LOTS to say about relationships?
Today in the BE[cause] ABF at New Covenant, we started a new "topical" series out of the book of Proverbs. I got to start the series off by looking at Relationships. We looked at five types of relationships I could find in the book: 1) God2) Others (strangers and acquaintances)
3) Family
4) Marital/Romantic/Sexual
5) Friends I made a mistake in my prep. I thought we'd skim through the first four relationships and spend the majority of our time on the fifth - Friendship. But they had much more to say about these first four types of relationships than I expected (and they had some GREAT thoughts!). We saw in Proverbs 1:7 (and again in Proverbs 3:5-6) that the foundation to living life (including relationships) is to be completely surrendered to God. So in order to live out the last four relationships, we had to have this first relationship, a relationship with God through Christ. On the topic of "others" we looked at Proverbs 3:27-30 which encourages us to not withhold good from those who need it when it is in our power to give it to them. The "Family" topic was the area that received the most discussion - this was a bigger issue than I had expected. We looked at Proverbs 4:1-2, Proverbs 6:20-22, and Proverbs 13:1 and then discussed why a twentysomething should listen to parents, and when a twentysomething single might need to NOT listen to parents. What a great discussion! We actually did skim through the Romantic/Marital/Sexual section, because we were just coming off a 3-week series on the first 3 chapters of Song of Solomon. Basically - don't fall for the seductress (i.e. don't have an affair) and stay faithful to your spouse. (See Proverbs 5:3-5 and Proverbs 5:15-18). Because 80%+ of the group is single, I encouraged them to be faithful now to the spouse they will have one day. Then the area I expected us to spend the most time got cut short. We had time to discuss what makes a good friend (but not time to get to the verses) and a fruitful-but-cut-short discussion on why God says the righteous are cautious in friendship (from Proverbs 12:26). I wish we had had more time to make it to Proverbs 17:17 about a friend loving at all times, Proverbs 17:22 about how a cheerful heart brings healing, Proverbs 18:1 which warns against isolating yourself from people, and Proverbs 22:11 which says that people with a pure heart and gracious speech are friends of the king. And if a king wants to be your friend, everyone wants to be your friend! :o)
Weekend Wrap-Up
As I headed home from church this morning, I realized I had a really good weekend:
- While it wasn't technically on the weekend, I enjoyed watching the Husker's football game on Thursday night. I have never watched a Cornhusker game quite like the Missouri game. Pouring rain, no yardage, tons of penalties, and no Husker points until the 4th quarter, where they absolutely dominated, winning the game 27-12. It was crazy! - I downloaded a GREAT iPhone app - Photoshop.com Mobile on Friday. It has a great feature set of basic photo editing options (I created the photo above with it). And it's FREE! - Friday night I led the wedding rehearsal for two friends. They met through Watershed, the city-wide young adult ministry I used to be a part of (and still miss being a part of!). The wedding was in fact held in the facility of the church that allows Watershed to meet. - We didn't have a "wedding coordinator" for the rehearsal so I was in charge of everything. While things went well, it took longer than planned and I gained a greater appreciation for the wedding coordinators I work with at New Covenant. - I really enjoyed Leadership Community on Saturday morning. Don Purdy did a great job of giving an update on our church family's Relocation Journey. And even though it was short, Kim Pagel's devotional thought on the prayer life of Jesus was a great reminder for me of the importance of prayer in the life of a Jesus-disciple. And the delicious hot breakfast of Belgian waffles was a real plus, too! - Saturday afternoon brought the wedding ceremony. It was a ton of fun! Not only did the couple and their attendants look fantastic, but Christ truly was at the center of the ceremony. It is always a joy to me to officiate the wedding of a couple who are truly seeking to follow Christ. My message was based upon the Message version of Philippians 1:9-11 because that was the passage the couple chose for their Scripture Reading. - I enjoyed teaching and leading the discussion once again in the BE[cause] ABF. We started a new series out of Proverbs. Today's topic: relationships. More on that in other post. - Then after BE[cause], I had a great conversation with a guy trying to apply his faith in his friendships, the very issue we talked about in class. - Tonight, we are going to have our weekly Family Night (moving it to Sunday from our normal Monday time slot due to a church business meeting). Next weekend already looks to be great as well - hanging out with our Equipping staff and their spouses for a mini-retreat, seeing my parents (who are coming in to watch our kids while we go on our mini-retreat), preaching in all four services at New Covenant, and enjoying time with my kids as they get a 4-day weekend.Friday, October 09, 2009
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Catalyst, Clothes, and Contentment
God seems to think I need to relearn contentment (Philippians 4:11).
1) The Catalyst Conference is meeting this week. I have told myself every year for the past 6 years that I am going to go. But each year I have a conflict. Usually it is because I've led a group of college students to the Navigators fall conference called Main Event. This year I am officiating a wedding for two friends (which I truly am looking forward to). But I still REALLY wanted to go this year. In fact, this past Spring, I was making plans to attend Catalyst with a fellow young adult pastor, and when he had to cancel our plans, I decided it was not the best to attend alone, so I went with our staff to the Leadership Summit instead (which also opened my schedule up for the wedding this weekend). But when another good friend received a free ticket to Catalyst, and he has NO clue what Catalyst really is, I found myself fighting a bit of jealousy (it doesn't help that just about everyone I seem to be following on Twitter is at Catalyst as well...). "Be content, Erin, in every circumstance..."
2) This summer I was swimming laps almost 3 times per week. I was feeling great. I lost 10 lbs. I really enjoyed it. So I mentally made plans to buy a pass to an indoor pool to continue swimming through the cooler months. However, when LeAnn and I sat down to reexamine at our budget a few weeks ago, we saw there was zero room in our budget to make it work. "Be content, Erin, in every circumstance..."
3) There have been some other areas I haven't been content in, but the tip of the iceberg (which prompted this post) came when I stood in my closet trying to decide what to wear. You'd think with the cooler temps I'd be excited about the "new" clothes I would get to wear now that the warm temps are now but a memory, but instead I just looked the perfectly good clothes in front of me and thought "I'm tired of these." That's when the next thought came - "This is ridiculous! I have SO much. Be content, Erin, in every circumstance..."
Our family sponsors 3 kids through Compassion. I wonder if they struggle with contentment. I have SO much compared to them, and yet I'm unsatisfied from time to time. I complain about not having much margin in our budget. I long for new gadgets. I get frustrated we can't afford to actually paint the walls in our house or afford decent landscaping to finish the backyard after our deck project. And yet Lucia, Rosina, and Aleki are just grateful when they get new shoes for Christmas. They're grateful for the healthy meals they receive each day. They write us saying how thankful to God they are that they have us for a sponsor. While I have never met my Compassion kids in person, I sense they are quite content with what little they have - probably because they knew how much they didn't have before being sponsored.
Thinking of our Tanzanian kids helps me be content. I can give up swimming passes and new shirts so that they can have food and an education. Giving seems to be a path for me to learn contentment. Perhaps I need to consider finding something to give to this week just to help me be content.
(I know, I can give myself a new iPhone app that will... "Be content, Erin, in every circumstance...")
Sunday, October 04, 2009
A new church metric
Outreach Magazine has produced another list for the American Church to read, learn from, envy, emulate, criticize, and more. I know Ed Stetzer (someone I'm coming to admire and appreciate more and more everyday as I follow his Twitter feed) was involved. Kent Shaffer says lists like this help others learn about church systems. And I'm sure many other devoted Christ-followers were involved in the creation of this list or benefit from this collection. But I have to confess I had a bit of a reaction when I first heard about this new Top 100 list.
In America, bigger is often hailed as better. And each year, I hear various pastors and church leaders from around the country offer counter-statements to say that it should be different in Christendom - and yet more "top 100" lists come out. A few of the people who pastor these churches have had a profound influence on me, so I'm not "anti-big church" (plus, I'm on staff at the second largest church in my city). But I wonder if we are too enraptured with the wrong metrics - giving too much attention to things that don't matter nearly as much as those numbers more inline with the movement of God.At the Sticky Conference this past year, I heard Larry Osborne say that the church he serves doesn't count "salvations" - instead, they count how many people are still with the church 6 months after making a declaration of becoming a follower of Jesus. And then they measure this number again after 1 year. And then again after 3 years. Larry reminded us that the Great Commission does not say, "Go, and make converts." It says, "Go, and make disciples." This concept really got me thinking.Recently, I read about a couple of churches that saw hundreds of people "cross the line of faith" on one Sunday, and they baptized several hundreds on that same Sunday. I truly celebrated when I read that! But how many of the new believers will still be connected to a church body 6 months from now? Knowing the churches that I heard about, I truly believe they will do everything they can to help these people become fully devoted followers of Jesus. But how many other pastors heard the numbers and envied?
On the Top 100 list (I didn't purchase the list, I saw a summary of it on Kent Shaffer's site, Church Relevance) they gave the attendance numbers over the last four years. I wonder if some saw the "declines" as bad. But image if a church of 10,000 planted 10 churches and sent 100 people with each church plant in one calendar year? And just for fun, let's say this church saw 300 people become genuine followers of Christ, but they also sent 200 people on the mission field long term. Assuming no "sheep stealing" (church growth through transfers) this church would decline in weekly attendance! While I think God would be celebrating that a church allowed Him to do such an amazing work in one year's time, I wonder if a some people would look at the raw data and wonder what's wrong.
There is probably a good argument for the existence of this Top 100 list. But perhaps it's also time for a new church metric. Rather than just counting how many seats are taken on a Sunday, maybe we need some lists sharing how many people were sent abroad. We need a list sharing how many people in their church began giving more sacrificially to the Kingdom and the community. We need a list exposing the exciting news of how many church plants were made in a year or decade out of a particular church. We need some list showing the most generous churches. I think THOSE numbers are more inline with the heart of God than just how many showed up on a Sunday.
---
One more thought (this is much longer than I had intended): There may indeed be some things to learn from these churches and their teams, but maybe it would be best to teach those lessons through stories and interviews, rather than just raw data. (And because I haven't bought the list - those things may very well be in the full document.)
---
As I finished up this post, I took a look at Ed Stetzer's website and saw that he blogged about this list. Reading this almost led me to NOT publish this post because I don't want to just be another one to hammer on a team that probably has good intentions, but as you can tell by the fact you are reading this, I've thrown my small (and probably insignificant) voice into the discussion.
Fly After Your Dream!
While watching some college football yesterday, I saw a commercial for the new "borderless" flat panel TV by LG. You can see the commercial above.
While I have no plans to rush out and buy this TV (my budget laughs at the very thought), I was struck by something in the commercial. I wonder how many people have dreams like the protaganist in the commercial. But they don't pursue them because everyone around, like the scoffing bird that shakes it's head, says "can't be done!" And so we sit on our island frittering away our days.
But if God has placed a dream, a vision, an idea in your heart and you just can't shake it, then you MUST pursue it! You MUST spread your wings and try to fly after the dream. Yes, there will be risks. Yes, you might fall. But wouldn't you rather live with the lessons learned through a failure than with the regret of not trying? And keep in mind - it might not fail. The vision might go even further than even YOU dreamed it could go.
So spread your wings. Get a running start. Jump and fly. Fly after your dream!
The best book (outside of Scripture) I know of on the topic of pursuing a dream is Visioneering by Andy Stanley. If you are thinking about flying, it is worth the investment to buy this book, and learn through the biblical book of Nehemiah how to fly after the vision God has placed on your heart and mind.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Original "Alive" Choreography by the Bird Girls
My girls created their own choreography to Kristian Stanfil's song "Alive." They even included their 5-year-old brother! They wanted me to make it clear that this was just a practice, and they didn't start creating it until today. :-)
A.W. Tozer's Prayer
O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.
From The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
-----
Erin Bird
erin.bird@newcovenantbible.org
Young Adult Pastor
www.newcovenantbible.org
erinbird.posterous.com
Erin Bird
erin.bird@newcovenantbible.org
Young Adult Pastor
www.newcovenantbible.org
erinbird.posterous.com
Twitter: erinbbird
-----
-----
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)