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Archive for the ‘Community’ Category

Lessons From a Flying Squirrel

Posted in Community, Formation, Grace, Hope, Motivational on September 16, 2009| 1 Comment »

I had the unique experience of participating for the last two and a half days with a great group of people in a leadership retreat.  Leadership Levelland began this past weekend.  We were bused to a Christian camp a couple of hours north of here where we had sessions on leadership, personality studies and various activities.  On Monday, we spent all day on the challenge course – all 26 of us.  We did all kinds of different things there but one of my favorite was called the Flying Squirrel.

In this element we had 12 people.  One person was hooked to one end of a long rope that extended up to a pulley 30 feet off the ground and then down to the other 11 who were hooked to the rope as well.  There were simple instructions:  “The squirrel (ie. me in this case) runs in one direction, and the team runs in the other direction.  When all the slack is taken out of the rope, the squirrel will be immediately carried 20 feet in the air.”

I was excited.  This was going to be a rush.  The facilitator counted off and on 3, I ran one way and the team ran the other.  I took off as fast as I could – the part I failed to remember is that I don’t run much.  I was trying so hard to make this work that I lost my balance and fell flat on my face, Superman style, in the dirt about 10 from where I started.  (Yes, in my mind I had envisioned this very differently).  Just as I was doing the chest crawl to try and get back up, the team hit the end of the slack in the rope and I shot 20 feet in the air.  It was still a rush!  The others watching said all they could see was me go down into the dirt, a big cloud of dust and then me shoot up out of the cloud – I am sure it was quite a sight.

Here are two of the things I took away from the flying squirrel experience.  One is that sometimes when we are trying new things and working our plan as best we can we still fall.  It doesn’t mean that we are a failure, it just means that we failed in that one thing – we have to get up and keep trying.

But the most important aspect to this experience was the reminder that when you have a team working for the same goal, they are there to pick you up.  We are all in this together.

So where are you today?  Have you fallen?  Get up, dust off and keep going.

Or, are you the person who should be helping someone else up after they have fallen?

As Christians, we are all on the same team, striving toward the same goal.  Reach down and pick someone up today.

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Top 5 Things Heard at the Football Game

Posted in Community on August 31, 2009| 1 Comment »

I thought I would do something a little out of the ordinary for the post today.  Last Friday night I was a loyal fan and made the one hour trek to our season opener high school football game.   The weather was perfect and the stands were full.  I thought I would share with you the top 5 things I heard in the stands at the game.  Here we go (imagine if you will a drum roll).

5.  “Get him Coach Goot!” (Our new coach is Coach Guitierez, I don’t think it is that people can’t pronounce his name, it’s just that, “Get him Coach Guitierez” just doesn’t chant as well)

4.  “Now that’s how you ride a mule!” (The team we played were the Mules)

3.  “Come on ref, your cheatin’ a bunch of kids!” (No explanation needed)

2.  “You mean I have to walk all the way over there to get something to drink?!” (They had one concession stand for the entire stadium and yes, it was not on our side!)

1.  “They played with heart and they never gave up!”

It was a good game despite the outcome.  Our boys played hard and they never gave up.  It takes heart to do that – a lesson from which we could all learn a little something.

Oh, just a word of warning, if you are sitting beside me at the next game, give me some room for the occasional jump to my fee to yell AND be careful what you say, it may end up on the next post!

Have a great week!

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Change Through Love and Grace

Posted in Church, Community, Grace, Leadership on August 28, 2009| 1 Comment »

I have been talking all week about change.  Change is a part of life – we all change and grow.  But even though change is a part of life, not everyone embraces it. All of us like to be comfortable.  We may say that we want change and really mean it – as long as you aren’t changing this or that, whatever is too personal or already “just like I want it.”  Change is often called for by one person or group but it may mean the bulk of the change will have to actually happen with another group.  This is where conflict often occurs.

So what am I saying?  Should we seek change or not?  Absolutely, as I said, change is a part of life.  But we must always remember that Jesus came and changed the world but he did it with love and grace.

If life transforming change is to happen in this community or any other for that matter, it will come from a position of love and grace, not pride and arrogance.

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Walls or Patios

Posted in Church, Community, Grace, Hope on August 27, 2009| 3 Comments »

Yesterday I mentioned that I would be talking about walls today.  I have been thinking a lot about walls (I still have a wall in one of the rooms in our house I built a while back and I’ve never finished – hmm, maybe I’ll do that this weekend).  Walls have one main purpose – to separate or divide.  I can’t imagine living with three boys all in one big room, I don’t care how big the room.

Walls also provide a perceived safety, keeping us safe on the inside from the evils and danger on the outside.

While Jesus was a carpenter, he was not a wall builder in the spiritual sense.  In fact, he was notorious for smashing walls down – walls between organized religion and the common folks of the day.

In our society, much work has been done to build walls in the religious circles – the taller and stronger the better.  But as I stated yesterday, maybe we need to stop focusing on our differences and start concentrating on our similarities.

What would our world be like if we took the bricks we have used to build walls and made patios instead?  A brick wall separates, a brick patio invites.  A brick wall keeps me in and you out, a brick patio provides a place for community and dialogue.

I truly believe that we can hold on to our distinctions and still work together – after all, we are all on the same team.

I don’t know about you but I think I want to live on the patio and not behind a wall.  Come on over and we’ll sit on the patio and share life together – might even throw a few steaks on the grill and really enjoy being together.

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An Unlikely Meeting

Posted in Church, Community, Grace, Missions on August 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I had a great conversation yesterday with a gentleman about change – change in the lives of people, change in our community and change in our churches.  The cool thing about it was that the conversation was not between two people who would normally interact on this level.  We have known each other for years but really never had a deep conversation until yesterday.  How did it come about you may ask?  Twitter.  Yep, we connected over the topic of change through Twitter.  A dialogue began there and moved to a face to face meeting.  So here two guys sat, one from the Church of Christ denomination and one from the Baptist denomination, having a conversation about change in peoples’ lives and the need for a fresh movement of God’s Spirit here in our town.

Now for you who may be reading this not familiar with denominational life in a rural town, it has not been too long ago that a meeting like this would not have happened.  But the tone of the conversation and the desire in both hearts were to work together to further God’s kingdom.  It was an amazing thing.

Here’s the deal – followers of Jesus (yes, all of us) are called to take the message of love and hope to a desperate world.  But in case you haven’t noticed, its a big honkin’ world.  We are going to have to work together to accomplish God’s mission.  Walls must come down (more on that subject tomorrow).

Now before you get all flustered, no, I am not a bleeding heart that thinks we should throw away our traditions and beliefs.  Those traditions and beliefs add color and beauty to our world.  I love being a Baptist.  The doctrine I choose to follow is more in line with the Baptist belief system than others, but I do not think for a minute that I have this stuff figured out.  That is why the grace that covers me, and also covers you, is so important.

What I am saying is that there is much to do in order to further the kingdom of God and it is going to take all of us working together to see the changes in lives that only the love of God can bring.

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One More Layer of Community

Posted in Community on June 17, 2009| 7 Comments »

I know I wrote about this topic last week but I had an incredible meeting with a gentleman yesterday the result of which has had my mind spinning ever since.  Matt has a global consulting company that deals with cutting edge ideas in the area of community, marketing and communication.  He is based in London but he was in my office yesterday.  (Yeah, I know, cool huh?)  

He discussed his excitement about the growing opportunities for the church in the social community networks, ie. Twitter, FaceBook, Linked In, etc.  Even though the media has been around for a while, the church (as is normally the case) has been slow to jump in.  So the opportunities are still brand new.  Opportunities such as having the majority of the church using Twitter (Idealistic?  Probably)  But think of the possibilities – a person has a medical emergency and a friend Tweets about it.  Within seconds, prayer is being offered up from all over the city.  People are there in minutes to do what they can.  Now, online communities must never replace face to face time.  But the real value here is the added layer of community that social media provides.

Here is my question for thought (and please comment if you have any ideas):  How do we help our people make the transition to truly value social media and commit to use it?  Any thoughts?

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