“Collaboration and working together is not a nice option – it’s a necessity…
especially when talking about the church”
– Charles Lee from The !deaCamp in Las Vegas this week
Thoughts?
Category: misc
Hug a pastor
For an upcoming episode of the podcast, Travis interviewed author Anne Jackson about her story and her two books Mad Church Disease (a great read) and Permission to Speak Freely.
As Johnny Laird and I did the show wrap this weekend, we focused a lot of the discussion on the issue of burnout in ministry — a major focus in Mad Church Disease.
As we talked I was reminded of some of these stats from Pagan Christianity…
At the time of this writing there are reportedly more than 500,000 paid pastors serving churches in the United States.
- 94 percent feel pressured to have an ideal family
- 90 percent work more than forty-six hours a week
- 81 percent say they have insufficient time with their spouses
- 80 percent believe that pastoral ministry affects their family negatively
- 70 percent do not have someone they consider a close friend
- 70 percent have lower self-esteem than when they entered the ministry
- 50 percent feel unable to meet the demands of the job
- 80 percent are discouraged or deal with depression
- More than 40 percent report they are suffering from burnout, frantic schedules and unrealistic expectations
- 33 percent consider pastoral ministry an outright hazard to the family
- 33 percent have seriously considered leaving their position in the past year
- 40 percent of pastoral resignations are due to burnout
It’s shameful that the church has come to a place where so much pressure is put on our leaders (intentionally or not) and there are so few support mechanisms in place for them.
I would personally love to see people really step up and see themselves as the priesthood believers and realize that they too can care for the people in their faith communities as well — and avoid “passing the buck” off to the “paid professionals.”
I dream of a day when groups come together on a regular basis for the sharing of life and community and these same people rally around one another, viewing their role as pastors to their small community and share in the pastoral ministry of one another — giving the “paid professionals” an opportunity to find some relief in their jobs.
But until that day happens — how about calling your pastor (and perhaps his wife) and inviting them over for dinner? Invite them to coffee. Invite them to come with no strings attached and simply give them an opportunity to unwind, feel free to be themselves and offer your encouragement and support for all that they do.
When our Church leaders can find the time and opportunity to care for themselves, the entire Church benefits.
Five questions with Joe Rawlinson
What does an average day look like for you?
I’m usually up at or around 6am to exercise and/or get ready for the day. The kids wake up shortly thereafter (or before on bad days) and I help them get breakfast and dressed while my wife gets ready for the day.
On weekdays I’m off to work at a tech company where I spend lots of time in meetings, conversations, and in front of the computer. I return home for dinner with the family and then we begin the night routine. I give all four kids baths, help them get in their pajamas, read stories and scriptures, say prayers, sing songs, and say good night (hopefully by 7:30). My wife and I then usually spend about an hour cleaning up the kitchen or house in preparation for the next day.
Once things are settled, I’ll get to work on my projects. These include my Pepe’s Chile site (pepeschile.com), my Dad’s Guide to Twins blog (dadsguidetotwins.com) or our private family blog service (familysays.com).
What’s been the best day of your life?
The best day of my life was my wedding day. Marrying my wife was the best decision I’ve ever made.
What’s been your greatest achievement in life thus far?
My greatest achievements are my kids. They are happy, healthy, and already I see them making good choices at an early age. Surely the types of people my kids become will be the visible manifestation of my abilities and efforts as a father.
What made the biggest difference in helping you achieve that goal?
My wife. She is my outstanding companion in the home and helps keep our family on track and moving forward.
If you could solve one problem in the world – what would it be?
That kids could have stronger families with a solid home foundation. A lot of the world’s problems would be prevented if we all learned moral discipline and responsibility in the home.
Joe Rawlinson is the father of four children: two boys and identical twin girls. By day he is a Senior e-Commerce Product Manager, by night an entrepreneur, and a family man all of the time.
From Austin to Kenya: JC music video
My friends Russell and Elora recently returned from a trip to Nairobi with the students from Reagan High in Austin.
While on the trip one of the American students, Ni-D (Nijalon), connected with one of the Kenyan students, Daniel, while the two “battled it” out on the soccer field.
A brotherhood was formed, a song was written, recorded there in Kenya and then a video was shot in the largest slum area in the world, Kibera, Kenya, during the last few days of the trip. The video was later edited back in the States.
I love the collaboration between not only the two cultures but also everyone involved in the process.
Beautiful!
Interviews with Shaded Red and Jars of Clay
Tuesday night I came across a couple sweet cassette tapes while sorting through and trying to archive some of my old audio tapes.
The first one is audio from my days with Lighthouse 21 (KVTT 91.7 and KTPW 89.7) and the second was an air check tape from my KEOM 88.5 days).
What’s so special about The Lighthouse 21 tape is that it has two of my first “real” interviews — the first with John Roberts of Shaded Red and the second with Dan, Charlie and Matt of Jars of Clay.
The interviews took place Sept. 26, 1999 (aka almost 11 years ago – wow!), at an outdoor concert both bands were performing at (along with Plumb) here in the Megaplex.
Now I know there are some who could care less about these tapes — but for me, it was definitely a highlight of my time with Lighthouse 21. Sure, it wasn’t Sting or U2 — but these were fairly big names in the CCM market at the time.
And this first interview with John Roberts led to a follow-up interview with both John and Jamie of Shaded Red later on and led to me bringing them to perform at UMHB while I was in charge of the UMHB Concert Company.
So without further ado… here are my interviews…
John Roberts:
[audio:http://www.casadeblundell.com/media/johnroberts-shadedred.mp3]
(download the shaded red audio)
Jars of Clay:
[audio:http://www.casadeblundell.com/media/jarsofclay.mp3]
9/8/10 storms over Dallas and Forney
Well, it started out like this…
And ended up more like this…
Last night we thought the storms from Tropical Storm Hermine had moved out of town earlier in the day and around 5:30 p.m. we decided to run over to my brother-in-law’s house, about 5 miles from our house, before “heading to town” to grab some dinner.
We heard about tornadoes in Ellis County (45 miles or so south) but didn’t think much about it until we arrived at Brad’s house and discovered the storm was heading our way.
We rushed home just in time to get our digital TV tuner working (satellite sucks in storms) and in time to see the storms roll in from the south.
We took cover around the 2 minute mark in the video above — although Laurie was wanting me to take cover a lot sooner. I turned up the TV, grabbed my laptop and headed to the bathtub with Laurie — watching the radar feeds online as the storm passed over (6:04 – 6:18 or so).
You can see what looks like some rotation in the first two minutes of the storm (between the two homes and on the right hand side of the screen) and then some smaller rotation after the two minute mark.
The Forney Post has photos from near Hwy 80 and FM 460 (about two miles from our house) that appear to show the rotation you can see in my video between the two homes.
I’m not aware of any damage in our area, but Dallas and some areas to the south didn’t fair so well. Luckily I’ve heard no reports of injuries so far.
It all made for an exciting evening — and a late dinner — and helped us realize we may have trouble getting (our soon to be) family of five in the bathtub if needed. Between Laurie, the dog and I… we were quite squished.
So how was your Wednesday evening?
(Both videos filmed with my Flip UltraHD Camcorder