The Church and School

An interesting article on what some churches and schools are doing together.

I stink at tetherball!

I resumed mentoring my mentee over at Cleveland this past Thursday over lunch. After lunch, we hit the playground as he wanted to play tetherball. I don't really get the concept of tetherball- a pole, a ball on a string, an oval playing surface. I mean there are so many other options: football, basketball, even four square seems a better option, but tetherball is a big deal right now for 4th graders as every tetherball court (is that what you'd call it?!?) was full with lines waiting to play. I quickly learned that I stink at tetherball! The game favors those with height, and since my mentee is a couple inches taller than me (seriously!), I inevitbaly lost to him several times. No big deal. A bit more crushing to the pride was losing to a 4th grade girl who was like 3 feet tall!

Wednesday Night Review

The boys and I were with the Furniture Mission this past Wednesday Night. We had lots of help (thanks Jason, Sam, and Shane!) and the we didn't move anything heavier than a loveseat, but it was another impactful night. Our first stop was at Scott's. After moving the furniture, we talked with Scott for awhile and learned that he had spent the better part of the last year 'camping' in Sioux Falls. In other words, he was homeless. He decided he couldn't make it through another winter homeless, and so is in a modest apartment with some furnishings from the Furniture Mission. I am struck every time I volunteer with the furniture mission, as I meet the faces and hear the stories of people, real people, who are experiencing some tough times, even to the point of not having a home.

The ironic thing is I know Scott. 10 years ago when I was managing apartments, Scott was one of the guys who did some maintenance work me. To have seen him in this spot on Wednesday night reminds me that something like homelessness really can happen to anyone.

What to do?

Last week a rough week as #4 went to play for the dark side. I've never gotten so many texts, emails, and facebook messages as I did last week when this dreaded news hit. The author of a blog I follow loves this development as he's both a Packer and a Viking fan. Not sure how that works. That's like saying you voted for Obama and McCain, that you hope either the Red Sox or the Yankees win the World Series, or that you don't care if your next new truck is an F150 or a Silverado.

Either way, it was a rough week, and now I'm left with the task of cleansing my house from all green and gold #4 items as if it were yeast the week before leaving Egypt. It seems there are a few options:

• Cremation- I have a backyard fire pit and could easily see the boys and I having a good time burning the mesh replica jerseys and roasting mallows over the open flame.
• Burial- much like burying a beloved pet, I could also bury the items. I would probably choose the spot in my backyard where we've had wasp nests two consecutive summers.
• Donation- several friends who cheer for the dark side could use my jerseys (with a can or two of spray paint), or I could follow the lead of these guys.

What to do, what to do.

The sport my kids play

Before I had kids, I referred to soccer as the sport others kids played.

When my kids were young, I told them that soccer was a sport other kids played.

For the past several summers and falls, I would drive past the soccer fields, look at the kids playing and the families watching, and think thoughts such as "suckers" and "glad we're not there".

Well, that all ends today, as soccer becomes the sport my kids play. Sigh. Our next two months of Saturdays will be spent at the soccer fields, watching R and W and other rugrats their age play a sport I really don't understand all that much. The important thing is that they are excited and are already having fun.

Back to school

It's back to school time. Sioux Falls Public students went back this Monday (sidenote: WAY too early in my opinion) and our oldest, Riley, is in 1st grade and in full days of school for the first time. He seems to be doing well and liking school; it helps that his teacher is fantastic.

Hillcrest is also in back to school mode and we've been renewing our partnership with Cleveland Elementary. In the past couple of weeks we have

• bought the staff lunch for their back to school inservice day. This is the 3rd year we've done this and it's such a good time. The better we get to know the school, the better time we have.
• put together two circular clothes racks so a staff member could hang coats, jackets, shirts, etc instead of having them come out of boxes. Thanks to Ben and Roger for their work with that project.
• touched up the paint on the playground. Several of the bars were losing paint and so a team painted the equipment. Looks great and pictures to come. The interesting thing about painting a playground is that several kids asked why we were doing it and one even helped! Thanks to that kid plus Josh, Shane, Doug, Jen, Kristi, and a bunch of our kids for their work on that project.
• sent each staff member a back to school card with a $5 Starbucks card. Now, granted that buys like 1/2 a drink over there, but who doesn't like 1/2 a Starbucks! Thanks to Allison, Kadie, Deanna, Kelsey, Renae and kids, Christy and kids, Linda, Tarina and Jennie for their work on that project.

In the weeks to come we hope to invite more Hillcresters to serve as reading buddies and mentors, for there's great needs there as well.

Seth Godin on ending poverty

Check out his blog post here.

The Right Kind of Fear

I continue to read through the Bible with Hillcrest and we finished Deuteronomy and are into Joshua now. It’s interesting how significant a theme courage is in these sections as the Israelites get ready to take over the promised land. They are taking the land that their parents’ generation was too afraid to take. They are going to 'burn the ships' once they cross the Jordan and there’s no going back. You can certainly think there’d be some healthy sense of fear going into their preemptive strike, but for the Israelites (at least for the new generation led by Joshua and Caleb), the fear of going into these occupied lands is outweighed by the fear of going back to Egypt or being taken into captivity again.

I’ve also been reading in Tim Kimmel’s Homegrown Heroes, where he writes that fear can often paralyze children and parents, but we need to be motivated by the right kinds of fear. The fear of letting my character derail me keeps me from giving into things that would allow my character to slide; the fear of raising undisciplined kids keeps me from giving into the fear of them not liking me when I say no to certain things; these are examples where fear is ok, you just need to be fearful of the right things so that it motivates you to keep doing the things that you need to do.

Wednesday Night Highlight

This past Wednesday night we were able to get started on the Cleveland playgroud painting project. I had assumed this would be a great spot for Riley and Wesley to be at as they could play while I and a couple other guys worked. I was wrong. They wanted to help paint! So I gave them each a brush, told them where to put the primer, and they went at it. They primed for about 40 minutes and then went and played. I was proud of both of them for their desire to serve.

Watching our words

In my message last Sunday, I mentioned two areas (election/free will and baptism) in the church today where we battle over words and ideas that seem to take off of the greater point of loving others with the gospel. For those of us in evangelical churches, you could probably add the issue of women in leadership as a third area. Here's an interesting article from the Southern Baptists on the issue.

Missing time

Stearns also writes on the topic of our time and concludes that “if we (American Christians) all just volunteered one hour a week to serve a charitable cause, it would be worth $62 billion each year. That’s what it would cost if our churches and nonprofit organizations had to pay for that time” (assuming $10 an hour, page 260). Non profits in Sioux Falls periodically have a tougher time with getting volunteers than they do raising funds. People value their time and can sometimes be much more stingy with it. At Hillcrest, our most successful community effort has been the funds we raise for the backpack program. Our community effort that has 'struggled' the most, mentoring in the schools, is one where you can't give anything except your time to.

Missing Monies

I finished The Hole in our Gospel this morning and a couple final thoughts stick with me. The first is I have always wondered how much more money would be available for the kingdom if all American Christians tithed? That is, how much money is available if each Christian gave 10% of their incomes instead of the 2.5% we statistically give? Richard Stearns, author of the book and president of World Vision, estimates we would have an extra $168 billion to spend in funding the work of the Church worldwide! That’s a big number, but when you consider that we spent $65 billion on jewelry in 2008, $58 billion on state lottery tickets in 2007, $31 billion on our pets in 2003, $13 billion on cosmetic surgery in 2007, we already have some discretionary funds.

Stearns writes “if every American churchgoer tithed, we could literally change the world. In fact, $65 billion could eliminate the most extreme poverty on the planet for more than a billion people. Universal primary education for children would cost just $6 billion, the cost to bring clean water to most of the world’s poor, an estimated $9 billion, and basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world, $13 billion (218)." Grandted, we might have to change some of the ways in which we handle and would operate with these additional monies, but the truth is that the monies to change the world are already here.

The second thought comes tomorrow.

Mistake!

I preached on 2 Timothy 2 yesterday and made a mistake (shocking, I know). Paul talks quite a bit about work and discipline in the passage and so I cited Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour principle as one way to understand all that goes into a person experiencing success. All good until I told 1/2 my church that if they were reading through the Bible with us, that at the end of the year they'd have logged over 5,000 hours- 1/2 way to be an expert. Now, I had edited my sermon and practiced it several times but didn't realize the math mistake until shortly after saying it at the 9:00 service!

Reading the bible for 15 minutes a day = 91.25 hours.

Reading the bible for 15 hours a day = 5,475 hours

There lies the mistake! And a big one at that! I apologize to 9:00 AM Hillcresters (and didn't make it in 10:30 service, so we will be posting that one on the web site!), and yet it also underscores just how much work it takes to reach expert status.

Window Washing

This past Wednesday, a few of our Hillcresters were washing windows as part of Workers on Wheels. Here's a couple pics:

Change of Plans

This Past Wednesday Night, a group of us were scheduled to begin painting some of Cleveland's playground equipment. Key word here is were. I had went to Cleveland that afternoon and then to the paint store and found I had bitten a bit of a big project. I was peppered at the paint store with questions I should have known the answers to (what color? Yellow. What kind of yellow? Uh, playground yellow? That's not helpful. Do you have a sample we could match it with? Uh, no. Well, we'll need to tint the primer too, so until you can identify the color, there's not that much we can do). So needless, to say, we had to go to plan B, which was helping Cleveland collalate back to school packs for their 29 classrooms. It was a great time, our kids were able to participate (thanks to the folks in the picture for being so kind with our kids serving), and we completed a tangible project. We'll paint next week, and you can bet I'll be better prepared! By the way, the color is "sunnyside up". Who knew?

Strong Words

Richard Stearns, World Vision President and author of The Hole in our Gospel nails it here:

There lingers in some conservative American churches a suspicion that social action and reform are somehow part of a liberal theology that substitutes good works for evangelism. Working to reclaim and reform our world today is of little import, they say, because we’ll all soon be “beaming up” to heaven. Further, the notion persists that committing one’s life to Christ begins and ends by reciting a brief prayer that activates one’s “fire insurance”. The parts about helping the poor, working for justice, and being salt and light to redeem a rebellious planet are seen as optional (202).

I think some see churches and their missional involvement in the community as a fad or the latest tool in the church growth tool box. Some adhere to Stearns' words and essentially argue that social works are misguided and are not part of the gospel. Othes will argue that churches need not go 'all in' on justice issues, but rather do them incrementally and add them on as a church program similar to small groups or children's ministries. As we prepare tonight to mow Lorna's lawn, wash Jeanette's windows, help Cleveland with some back to school work and playground painting, and stuff 200 envelopes with $10 HyVee cards that we will give to our neighbors next week, these words remind me that faith is lived out both by what we believe and what we do.

Open House

Our neighbors have their house for sale. If they move, it will be a sad day as they are great neighbors, good friends, and our kids all get along together. They had an open house the other day, and their realtor sent us a postcard inviting us to come and to check out this "3 bedroom ranch with a great fenced in backyard, close to parks and schools, and in a great neighborhood". I wondered why we received an invitation. Surely, the realtor doesn't honestly expect that I will move one house over to this house! I mean, I already have what the postcard was talking about because I live next door! I don't get it.

Good links

Andy Wright, a church planter in Dell Rapids (SD), has two good recent posts. One on the important, but tough, issue of discipling parents to disciple kids here and the other an article on 'radical' churches selling their buildings to give back to their communities here. Good stuff.

Aaron's Leadership- Part 2

I wrote yesterday of one of Aaron's glaring weaknesses, but today's post highlights one of his finest moments. In Numbers 15-16, some rogue groups are rebelling and beginning to take people with them. God responds with a plague that is wiping out thousands, but God also provides instruction for how to stop this devastating plague. And in Numbers 16:48, this is written of Aaron:

he took his stand between the dead and the living, so that the plague was checked.

This for me is such a profound statement. I know that it describes literally what Aaron did- by taking his censer with the incense on it, he literally prevented the plague from continuing. But I can’t help but make the connection between this event and what I am reading in The Hole in our Gospel. Years ago, the big buzz word, coined by Promise Keepers, was ‘stand in the gap’. But this image of standing between the dead and the living is also a moving image- of literally standing between life and death and preventing the spread of death. And reading a book on poverty and how preventable some of these things that are causing 26,000 people to die each day is quite sobering. The author paints the picture of 100 jets crashing each day- that’d cause quite an uproar. And yet the equivalent of that die each day and we sit on the sidelines and do nothing. Or at least I do. So I am challenged and moved by the actions of Aaron to stand between the dead and the living and to check the plague.