Christmas Plans

Melanie and I are planning to leave sunny Orlando for Dublin, GA tomorrow (Wednesday). We will be spending Christmas with her family, the Gryzenia's. All Melanie's brothers and sisters will be there which is very exciting. We realized that we had not been to Dublin since we moved to Kentucky for seminary in Feb. 07. Wow! Its been too long. Melanie and I plan on leaving Sunday morning as she will need to be back in Orlando to work that night. I am off from work till Jan 5th, gotta love working an educational job! Melanie also has off through New Years. We plan on heading to a beach somewhere for a day or so. Maybe St. Augustine? I hear there is a lot we can do there. Believe it or not, we will not be at Disney World for the New Year's ;)

Melanie and I were talking about how much we enjoy living in Florida. This past weekend was in the 80's (which was a heat wave for this time of year), but we realized that in just a few more months it would be warm enough to swim again. We love to be at the pool! Some people in Orlando come to miss the seasons, and maybe we will too. But right now, we can't get enough of the mild climate and sunshine.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2010!

The Backwards Kingdom

My small group was talking about "surrender" the other night. The discussion question asked, "Why we have such a hard time surrendering control to God? and, Why is self control so hard?" One guy was confused, after all, isn't self-control listed as a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23)? We all stared at the table a while. We always understood self-control to be a good thing. There are so many times in life when you are in a rough situation, you want to act or respond one way, but know that God would you respond different. You bear down, "white-knuckle" it, and push forward with your own strength. It was at this point we realized the problem and was reminded of the solution. 

It seems everything in the Kingdom of God is backwards.

In order to win the battle, we are called to first surrender. Now, what sense does that make? If the North surrendered in the Civil War, the South would automatically have won. If the Gators are ahead by 7 and surrender in the fourth quarter, they still lose. We realized it makes no sense to us to give up, as a means of winning. But then we remembered that this is exactly what Jesus did. He surrendered his desire to not be killed, to the will of His Father. In loosing His life, we were saved. The world says you win in life one way, Jesus shows us we win life a different way. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. But we decided there are two types. There is self-control, emphasis on self doing the work. Then there is what we called Spirit-control. Now I haven't looked at the original greek here (and I don't plan on it, this semester had enough greek!) This is a type of control over our lives that does not try to fight our way on our own. Spirit self-control means we surrender in the midst of the battle. We give up our way, and seek God's way.  We all agreed that is tough. As guys we want to show our strength. But what is real strength in the Kingdom of God? Is it the person who tries to do everything theirself, or the one who admits he/she is powerless and deeply in need of God's strength?

Voices of Christmas

Some photos from the Christmas Drama/Musical Melanie directed at our church, Trinity United Methodist, in Orlando. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

We have become illiterate...and I love it!

I was driving home from the library last night about 9:30pm. I was reminded of an article I read and blogged about back in June 2007.  "In the 1790's, a book was equivalent to one month's salary, so people didn't have books. And they didn't have literature in their homes. So pamphlets and tracts were the cutting edge hardware of the 18th century. Literally, a book is one month's salary." This is from Leonard Sweet in a Relevant online artical.  He recommend that we take the concept into the current century by standing on street corners handing out free palm pilots. Presumably preloaded with some content. Perhaps an electronic Bible, sermons, teachings, etc. My thoughts came back to this last night on the 408 Expressway. Would people in our generation even take time to read the things loaded into the "free palm pilots?" I don't think so (and I don't see myself pouring over a 3.5 inch screen for hours either). That's when I realized that we seem to be shifting back to ancient forms of information gathering. While I don't know much about ancient people and societies, I do know most people were illiterate and relied on speakers, teachers, and others to instruct, entertain, and inform. Is there much difference today? Sure, the majority of the U.S. is literate. However, we (myself included) often give up on reading for audio and visual inputs.  Some examples:

• Newspaper and magazine readership dwindles in favor of televised "talking heads" telling the news (which, if you live in Orlando, is all bad, all the time!)
• More people are subscribing instead to podcasts (audio messages) and videocasts that can be downloaded and watched.
• Even the web is shifting. Melanie came across a site last night that was primarily text. We remarked how old it looked. The new strategy for web-marketing is heavy images with little text. The messages online are to be conveyed through images. My own seminary has recently published a new webpage. In the discussions of the "look," I remember hearing that we needed less text and more images of student life. Not many people go to web-pages to read blocks of text anymore.

It seems that we are shifting from a printed society to an audio visual society. I am not saying this is bad. I think if anything, it forces people to be more creative. It is one thing to write a 1,000 word summary on something. Its quite another to create or capture an image that portrays all 1,000 words. I think that we still use text, but it has to be be concise and direct. 

Of course, since I am interested in the Church and its interaction with society, I want to consider the implications of the above post. One thing I look forward to in ministry work is allowing mine and others creativity to influence how we do things in the church. Here are some of my thoughts:

• I think that a well-thought out drama performance can speak more than a hour-long sermon at times.  
  
• Podcasts (audio and video) are easy and free ways to share a message with people at times other than the 11:00 hour on Sunday. I listen to several podcasts during the work week on a variety of subjects. I especially enjoy the dialogue that can be created. What if instead of a weekly newsletter that is mailed out (which can be pricey), they produced a 15-30 minute podcast that covered the usual bulletin material and maybe even included an interview, devotion, and/or teaching? I would listen to that in my car ride to work one day each week! 
• My friend Troy recently filmed a series of videos in Israel and surrounding areas. Instead of writing yet another book about the holy land, Troy takes his audience to the places of the Bible and elaborates about the stories, events, etc. that took place. Personally, I would purchase the videos quicker than the book. (No offense Troy if you do write a book about your travels!) I am guessing this is part of the rational of the film project.
• One way I find to keep my own creative pastoral juices flowing is to visit other churches to see how they are doing church in different or unique manners.  
• What about the Bible? You can't not read it! That is true, I think there are two parts to this. First, we must present scripture in effective creative ways in all we do. (Many are doing this already). Second, we can't escapse the ability of scripture to transform us as we read it. So keep reading :)

One final thought. I don't get real excited about churches who broadcast their services and televangelists (and I worked for one in college! Though it was in the maintenance department in my defense).  My main hangup is the failure to engage the audience watching from home. Effective communication must engage the audience in a meaningful way. I think TV news programs do this better. You are not just looking down on something happening in a church far away. Instead, newscasters are focused on you, the viewer, even if they are not sure who "you" are. There are a handful of Christian shows that make an effort to engage the TV audience. Kudos to them! As a pastor wanna-be I hope to keep this in mind. I don't want to spend every Sunday presenting a lecture to a somewhat captive audience. I would like to have dialogue, feedback, talkback, from time to time. In preaching, I beleive we are presenting a message from God to His people. My questions becomes, how can I present the message to really connect us to God?

What are your thoughts or ideas? What do you do that is creative to present the message of Jesus? Do you agree that we are literate, but choose not to read in favor of other communication inputs? Do you think I am way off base and should focus on driving rather than contemplating current culture on the expressway at 9:30?

Discuss in the comments sections.

Summer in December!

I often have to stop and remind myself what time of year it is. The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing ever so softly, and it is 80 perfect degrees outside. Tomorrow it will be a high of 85. This past Saturday Brian and I actually got a sunburn while watching the TV filming of the Disney Christmas parade at the Magic Kingdom.

I just came back from the gym, which I walk to and with no distractions of Christmas decorations, I completely lost sight of the fact that it is December. Reality of course hit once I entered the house and saw the Christmas tree.I love Florida! I can't understand why anyone would ever want to live anywhere else. No snow shoveling, no waiting for your car to heat up, no ice scraping off the windshield, and no bundling up with layer after layer. Have I mentioned that I haven't had so much as a cold or sinus infection since we moved here six months ago! (Other than the brief one I got well visiting KY in September, go figure.)Sinus infections, runny noses, and being sick went along monthly with the cold weather for me! I guess I am just a Florida girl, born here and one day will die here. I am so lucky to have married a guy that loves it and the warm weather so much too! Hope all you Northerners are enjoying your weather, and when you get tired of all the disadvantages of the cold, move on down to FL! We would love to see you...

Christmas Decorations

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Thanksgiving Pics

My Aunt Donna and Uncle Bill rented a house at Sandbridge in Virginia Beach, VA. Melanie and I joined my parents, Michelle, my 2 uncles, and my great Aunt Mickey.
Click the Slideshow to see the pictures bigger.