Archive for October, 2007
Silence as Worship
One of the themes that I want to explore on this blog is worship in real life. I can’t talk about worship in the context of music, the only instrument that I play is the CD. However, I can talk about silence as worship. I did one or two Retreats of Silence while I was in college. These were fairly short affairs, usually lasting less than a whole day. More recently, I have tried a couple of longer retreats of silence.
A couple of years ago, I needed a mental break and a spiritual retreat. I took a weekend off and went to a state park in Clermont and camped for the weekend. It was just me, the tent, my Bible, and my bike. It was only two nights away, but was a great chance to recharge. It was also probably the starting point for my Eschatologue series.
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Church Planting - Encouragement in the Trenches
What is it about pastors and football analogies? Eric Taylor, a church planter in Auburn, AL has written a post comparing Tommy Tuberville to church planting.
Among his thoughts:
It’s amazing the difference a few weeks can make. Just a few weeks ago, Nick Saban was the second coming of Bear Bryant, now, listening to Sports talk shows… some folks are questioning his coaching ability. Of course when Auburn lost to South Florida and Mississippi State, people were ready to gas up the plane to go look for another coach. Now, after beating Florida, Tommy Tuberville is popular with the fans again. . . .
If you’re a church planter, you can approach what you’re doing in one of two ways: Like the fans do…or like good coaches do.
His advice is good whether you are a church planter, or just a member of a church plant. Check it out all of Eric’s thoughts here.
It’s just a shame that he is an Auburn fan.
Short Term Missions
My son is almost 13. For the past couple of years, I have been looking for a good opportunity to take him on a short term missions trip. There are a number of reasons why I want to do this.
- Global Perspective -For Josh, a bad day is when he doesn’t get to play on his XBox 360. I want him to gain a better perspective of what life is like for those in other cultures. Places where a good day is that you get to eat.
- Passion for what God is doing - I think that seeing a group of Christians participate in sharing their faith will energize his excitement for what God is doing. He is active in our church plant, but I think there is always room for more passion.
- Teach him to share his Faith - He invites people to church, but I don’t think that he has ever learned how to share his faith. That is probably quite the indictment of me as his father. I have probably not done a good job of modeling evangelism. I hope that the missions trip will help remedy that.
- Model Missions within our Church - We are part of a small church. I think that we should model risk-taking in missions and evangelism. I have not done a great job of this. I am great at rolling up my sleeves and working, not so good at the inviting others part. I need to move outside of my comfort zone and stretch myself.
Eschatologue - Introduction
Eschatology is the doctrine of end times. It focuses on Jesus’ return, and other aspects related to the end of this age. I have never put much time and energy into studying this area. I have always figured that there was so much for me to work on in the here and now, and that those were higher priorities than trying to figure out how the world would end. I still believe that it is a higher priority to focus on my daily walk and efforts at being closer to God than spending hours counting Biblical references to figure an exact date that some prophecy will be fulfilled.
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