Numbers Matters

I had a conversation with a friend the other day who recalling a conversation with his son. His son was reading through the Scriptures and had enjoyed Genesis and Exodus, but wondered aloud if he had to continue through Leviticus and Numbers. Those who have (or have tried) to read the Bible cover to cover recognize the sentiment- the amazing work of God in and through his people seems to stall out with ritualisitc laws and mind-numbing counts of the Israelites (with and without the priests). I told my friend, though, that while I can understand the comment, I think Numbers is really one of the more fascinating books of the bible. Here are just of its tidbits:

• Fire by night- God leading his people with a cloud by day and a fire by night (chapter 9)


• We want to go back- The desire to return to the good ol' days of Egypt (chapter 11)


• Leader envy- where Miriam and Aaron are jealous of Moses and question whether God only speaks to Moses (chapter 12; bonus verse is 12:3 where Moses is the most humble man on the face of the earth; if this was written by Moses, it's hilarious!)


• Spying out the Promised Land- the spies are sent to scope out the Promised Land, but only Joshua and Caleb feel they can take the giants living there. Excellent lessons on fear and following God's leading (chapters 13-14).


• Coup!- chapter 16 records a potential coup of Moses and Aaron's leadership and the penalty paid for those who revolted


• A Harsh Sentence- Moses' growing frustration leading the people is evident in chapter 20, and his disobedience costs him the Promised Land


• Talking donkey!- yes, the Shrek movies weren't the first to have a talking donkey, and this talking donkey in chapters 22-24 shows that God is at work within people who are outside the fold as well

Who knew right? I think Numbers matters and it's worth checking out!

Book Report: Enchantment

Enchantment is a bit of a marketing book from the guy who used to be the chief evangelist at Apple (yes, that really is a title!). It was a bit more ‘nuts and bolts’ than I thought it would be- it’s chock full of useful tips, things to do (and not do), checklists, etc and I was expecting more of a principle or philosophical book, but it has some good stuff nonetheless: • Default to yes- one way to become likeable is to adopt a ‘yes’ attitude. This means your default response to people’s requests is ‘yes’. To make a default yes work, you must assume people are reasonable, honest, and grateful. Everyone isn’t always reasonable, honest, and grateful, but most people are, and you can live your life in one of two ways: thinking people are bad until proven good or thinking they’re good until proven bad (24-25). Here's a very useful question- do you think people are bad until proven good or are good until proven bad? I think our answer reveals a lot. • For presentations- my guideline is called the 10-20-30 rule: make a ten slide presentation in 20 minutes with no font smaller than 30 points (122). We'll see if I can follow this rule when I preach this Sunday! • Judge your results and others’ intentions. People often judge their intentions against the results of others: “I intended to meet my sales quota, but you missed yours”. By doing this, they seldom find fault with their performance and almost always find shortcomings in the performance of others. If you want to enchant employees, you should reverse this outlook: Judge yourself by what you’ve accomplished and others by what they intended. This means you are harsher on yourself than others and embrace an understanding attitude like ‘at least his intentions were good’ (153-154). Really good word here. • And even some good marriage advice(!): If your wife asks you to do something, drop everything and do it. You may not think it’s important, but you aren’t juggling four kids, a career, and several charitable causes. You may think you see the ‘big picture’, but you don’t see her big picture (166-167).

Book Report: Poke the Box

Seth Godin is one of the authors I will read whatever he puts out. Poke the Box was a quick read that build off his linchpin book about making work art. Some thoughts: • Make your schedule before you start. Don’t allow setbacks or anxiety to push you to say “hey, maybe I should check my email for awhile, or you know, I could use a nap” (19). • Tell your ego that the best way to get something shipped is to let other people take the credit. The real win for you (and your ego) is seeing something get shipped, not in getting the credit when it does (20). • If you had a chance to do a TED talk, what would it be about? What have you discovered, what do you know, what can you teach? You should do one. Even if you don’t do one, you should be prepared to do one (41). • The person who fails the most usually wins. If you never fail, either you’re really lucky or you haven’t shipped anything. But if you succeed often enough to be given the privilege of failing next time, then you’re on the road to a series of failures. Fail, succeed, fail, fail, succeed- you get the idea. Talk to any successful person. He’ll be able to fill you in on his long string of failures (52-53). Overall, a very quick read and such good reminders about how to go about our business of work, no matter what that business is.

New tools

The past couple weeks we've rolled out some new financial tools that Hillcresters can use to partner with us:

• Hillcresters can go here to be able to contribute online in an easy and secure way. You can even set up your account to be able to donate through text message!


• Compuscrip is a program I am really excited about; Hillcresters can go here (and use the code "HCBC") to set up a new account. Compuscrip allows you to buy gift cards from local and national retailers- HyVee, Applebee's, Shell Gas, Burger King, Menards, Wal Mart, just about any national merchant, really. You get the gift card you paid for (a $25 Starbucks card costs you $25), but receive a percentage of the sale that goes into your account (in this instance, Hillcrest gets the extra). In the future, we will use this as a fundraising tool for student ministries, mission trips, etc.

If you're a Hillcrester, I'd encourage you to give these programs a try. In fact, I gave online this morning and it worked so slick- no check to write, comes right from my bank account, and I even set up a recurring donation so that it comes out the same time each month. Compuscrip also worked so well. If you have questions about either of these tools, let me know.

If you're not a Hillcrester, but would be interested in either of these programs for your church or organization, let me know that too, and I'd love to refer ya.

Book Report: Crazy Love

I have had the opportunity to read several books the past couple months and thought I'd share some insights in a more regular post entitled 'Book Report'- creative, hunh?!? I'll start with Crazy Love by Francis Chan. This has been one of the more talked about books from the Christian community in quite some time. Anytime the high school students at my church are read the same book that my mom is read (the students read it last summer; my mom this past fall), I'm always curious. I’ve always enjoyed and perhaps more importantly respected Chan as someone of integrity, who lives out his convictions and challenges us to do the same. At a time when builing bigger churches was a sort of spiritual arms race, Chan's flock decided to build a significantly cheaper outdoor ampitheater that would serve their people without a humongous mortgage or facility budget. The pieces that stuck with me the most included his statements on people who are obsessed with Jesus. On Pages 132 and following he writes that people who are obsessed with Jesus . . . • Give freely and openly without censure. Obsessed people love those who hate them and who can never love them back. • Aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress. • Are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected of fulfilling the status quo. Obsessed people will do things that don’t always make sense in terms of success or wealth on this earth. • Knows that the sin of pride is always a battle. Obsessed people know that you can never be “humble enough”, and so they seek to make themselves less known and Christ more known. • Do not consider service a burden. Obsessed people take joy in loving God by loving his people. • Are known as givers, not takers. Obsessed people genuinely think that others matter as much as they do, and they are particularly aware of those who are poor around the world. • Have an intimate relationship with him. They are nourished by God’s word throughout the day because they know that forty minutes on Sunday is not enough to sustain them for a whole week, especially when they will encounter so many distractions and alternative messages. • Is more concerned with his or her character than comfort. Obsessed people know that true joy doesn’t depend on circumstances or environment; it is a gift that must be chosen and cultivated, a gift that ultimately comes from God.

Youth Ministry 2.0

I served in some capacity of youth ministry from 1994 through 2005 before taking this role as the Ministry Pastor. And now during this time of transition at Hillcrest, I have the pleasure and privilege of stepping in and leading our 180 student ministry yet again. I really mean those words because it's really been a blast this past month getting to hang out with some very neat and gifted students and also work alongside a committed and dedicated group of volunteers. In some ways, not much has changed when it comes to student ministry and in some ways, it has changed, at least from my perspective. First, the things that haven't changed too much:

• Generally speaking, high school students prefer not to hang out with middle school students (and to a lesser extent, vice versa). Not rocket science here, but my first leadership meeting with the students I combined the groups. This Sunday, I'm splitting them!


• While this stereotype doesn't hold true for everyone, the gals prefer to have more time for small group and discussion and the guys prefer more time for gym time and hanging out.


• People like to have fun- doesn't matter if you're a student or a child or even an adult, who doesn't like to have fun? Fun is always an emphasis for student ministries and it's been great to have fun with these students each Wednesday night- and give away some fun prizes too! Hillcrest's facebook page has some pics of the fun we're having.


• My increasing waistline! Seriously, my first year at Hillcrest as youth pastor I put on 15 pounds. I blamed Sunday night meals at church and a Burger King within walking distance from the office. This past month or so I again have put on some pounds, but this time I blame my slowing metabolism and my standing addiction to pop as we no longer do weekly meals at Hillcrest and I rarely visit BK.

And the things that have changed:

• I am a dumber now than I was then! When I was in youth ministry, I didn't have any kids and even when I did have kids, they were babies and couldn't mouth back yet. I had the audacity to host parent meetings- sometimes 4 a year- and teach them on how to better parent their teenage son or daughter. Now with my oldest only three years from entering our student ministry, what was I thinking?!? I can barely keep my head above water parenting my own kids, much less giving advice to someone else, and giving that advice without being a parent myself!


• Our students face lots of pressures- I know that perhaps that could be one of the things that has stayed the same, but I think as our world gets more complicate, those pressures and anxieties trickle down to our youth, whose world is more uncertain and unstable than mine was growing up.

Well, that's about it for now. Time to grab another Pepsi . . .

Church bouncer

:You're free to leave our church". I actually said those words yesterday between our morning services as I had to ask a gentelman to leave our building. It seems weird to even type those words, but yes, I asked a man to leave our church. After this man had grilled Pastor Doug after his sermon, he came over to me and asked what our church's thoughts were on wearing hats in church (at the time, I didn't know he had just finished with Pastor Doug). I said people were free to wear hats or not to wear hats, their choice. As expected, he fired back that I must not take the bible seriously because in the bible it says that men are to remove their hats during worship (he's referencing 1 Corinthians 11). I said we do take the bible seriously. He countered that we must not since no one asked him to remove his hat (he had worn it throughout the service). I said, well you must not take scripture seriosuly either if you know the scripture and wore it throughout service. He said he did it as a test (now mind you, this conversation isn't happening in my office, but by the front doors as people are coming for second service! I'm uncomfortable, because the conflcit is escalating, and now is quickly moving to public spectacle!). I said we weren't going to confront a new person over a hat, and even more so knowing that said person was going using the wearing of a hat as a test. When he repeated his speech, I said "we can continue this conversation in my office or you are free to go". He said, "oh I know I am free to go" and then I said "well you should go then". I began to escort him out when he told me not to touch him (perhaps a mistake on my part!). As he left, I made sure he left our premises and then tried to collect myself for the start of second service! Good times.

Two thoughts: first, it remined me of the time when I was a youth pastor and called the cops because one of our students had become so disruptive that we feared for our safety. But that's probably another post! And second, I understand that one's theology and doctrine are serious and that we are to take them seriously, but is it serious enough to initiate that type of conflict and conversation? I'm tempted to think the man felt justified or confirmed that his opinion was right based on our lack of confrontation over his hat and then our ensuing conversation, but I wonder how events such as these impact the kingdom?