Tag: life

Revisiting “The List”

Pastor Ryan shares a list he worked up this week during his men’s group meeting. I have to say his list is great – and very honest as well.

It’s a list of his life goals. I think he’s made it to 75 on his list.

I’m still working on mine. Still thinking, still dreaming. I’ve had these numbered but its really more of a growing list than any particular order…

* get out of debt
* eat a more healthy diet
* get my weight back to 200lbs
* go skydiving
* spend a week in New York City with Laurie
* spend a week in the UK & Scotland with Laurie
* spend a week in Ireland with Laurie
* spend a week and return to Nigeria with Laurie
* write a best seller
* have a top rated podcast on iTunes
* get a regular gig sharing people’s stories on the radio
* work from home/freelance and/or own my own business/ministry
* start a family with 3-4 kids
* adopt at least 1 or 2 of those said children
* build deep/real communities of faith
* get another tattoo (or 2 or 3)
* have an article published in a national magazine
* complete the hotter-than-hell bike race in Wichita Falls
* complete the Flickr-365 project
* give at least $1,000 away to someone
* pay off all our consumer debt – including our cars within the next 4 years

For now, its 4:38 – and “I am not my work.” So I’m heading home to see my beautiful Life.

How now should we live?

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove writes ::

In the neighborhood where I live, people sometimes “flip” a house to make a quick buck. They buy it cheap because it’s in bad shape, but rather than fix the structural issues that compromise the house’s integrity, they just put some fresh paint on the walls, install a few flashy fixtures, and slap some new vinyl siding on the outside. The house often looks fantastic, but underneath the flash it’s still the same old shack.

For some time in North America, the church’s work has looked a lot like like house-flipping to many observers. Jesus easily becomes vinyl siding, a quick-fix for turning our lives around. Christianity becomes a way to clean up and make ourselves look respectable in the eyes of others, when all the while we’re still on the same path. Christians do business more or less like everyone else, but we do what we do “in God’s name.” If truly following God’s call to abundant life makes Christians into well-adjusted middle-class citizens, it makes you wonder how Jesus ever got himself executed.

Read the rest of Wilson-Hartgroves post.

He raises some excellent questions. Is Christianity all about becoming a well-adjusted middle-class citizen? My characters in #nanowrimo are struggling with some of these questions as well (and I’m struggling with giving them an answer ;-)).

What would you say? How does a person know they’re a Christian or my preferred terms – a Christ Follower or a Follower of The Way? What does it mean to be saved? Is it only a ticket to heaven when you die?

Look forward to your responses.

5 things I want to do…

Thomas tagged me over the weekend, asking what are 5 things you’ve always wanted to do…

I don’t know if these are things I’ve always wanted to do, but these are 5 things I really want to do (as of today)…

1. Spend at least two weeks visiting the UK (England, Scotland and Ireland) with Laurie.

2. Spend a week in New York City with Laurie.

3. Start a family :: aka have kids – (just don’t get any ideas that we’re planning on doing this tomorrow :-))

4. Freelance/work from home and/or own my own a business that supports my entire family so Laurie can also stay at home (and no I’m not interested in your pyramid marketing scheme). I’d love to see this as a regular paying gig on the radio (or a podcast), sharing people’s stories. Or — improving my web/video/media design skills so that I can make enough money to support my family with it.

5. Continue building real deep communities of faith.

In the process of building this list I also added a few more items to my life list over on 43things.com.

As part of the journey, I tag Laurie, Trucker Frank, Jessica, Brian, Michael, Kevin and Josh.

Tagged or not tagged, feel free to leave a list of the 5 things you want to do in the comment section below (or on your own blog)…

Friends through adversity

I’m in the midst of reading “If God Disappears” by David Sanford. It’s an interesting read thus far. It hasn’t made it to the top of any of my reading lists yet, but several points he’s made have stood out so far.

As we talk about relationships and our relationship toolboxes, I thought these thoughts lined right up with several aspects Brian’s touched on over the last several weeks.

Over the years, I’ve discovered that whenever someone becomes enraged at me, odds are we’re only two steps away from becoming good friends.
Why?
First, because that person is emotionally engaged in our relationship. That’s passion!
Second, because if true Christianity is about anything, it’s about reconciliation. Once a matter is settled, the other person and I are bonded. Sometimes for a while. Sometimes for life.
The same principles apply to a relationship with God. He isn’t defensive or threatened when we feel angry at him. After all, we’re passionate. And he’s equally passionate about being reconciled to us, whether or not we want anything to do with him right now.
God is waiting for us to express our innermost feelings toward him and then ask ourselves, Is that true, or is that how I feel?
Sometimes we’re not angry with God, it turns out. Instead we’re angry at a caricature of God we’ve painted like graffiti on the walls of our psyche.

I can think of a couple times this has played out in my own life. Most of them came from my time working at a newspaper. Many people would write in and be angered about something I or another writer might have written. If handled correctly, we could often get to the bottom of the issue and with understanding and patience, a great friendship and bond grew out of it.

Other times, if one side or the other is firmly set in their way and there’s no chance to agree-to-disagree or build understanding, the relationship may be doomed from the get go.

I hope that I do all I can to avoid being to set in my ways to offer understanding and love to anyone and everyone – regardless of what we may disagree upon.

Better be living it out…

listening to Matt Chandler at a church planting conference….

“If you’re gonna teach this (missional life) you better be living it out. Because eventually the people are going to look around and say – we haven’t seen any of your neighbors in the water”

– Matt Chandler from Resurgence Conference
Vision of a Church Planter

ouch! a slap in my face.

goes back to the ideas several of us have been talking about as far as what a leader/pastor/facilitator looks like for community groups and/or home churches.

what is a leader ::

a leader takes responsibility to create desire to know God more

how do they do it ::

live out the 6*
assumes the responsibility of others lives
assumes the responsibility of guiding others toward personal priesthood
creates an environment of:
– spaces of grace
– intentional relationships
– relevant truth

*the six (or what we do) ::

celebrating what God is doing (worship)
telling others outside what God is doing (evangelism)
connecting and accepting on another (fellowship)
intentionally guiding one another to Christ and towards personal priesthood (discipleship)
being sensitive to know and meet needs (serving)
living and being transparent and authentic

thoughts? ideas?