Random Thoughts on a Tuesday

Today, I am not consumed by one particular thing that is burning for a post, but I do have some random thoughts that I wanted to share with the few of you who are my blogging community.

On Parenting:: After my teaching this past Sunday at The Springs and the prep leading up to it, I am more convinced than ever of our responsibility for the spiritual well-being of our children.  Rhonda and I have been given the greatest privilege of shepherding our two kids in this adventure called life.  I do not want to give away that privilege to anyone.  Now, I might loan it out to some of you from time to time, but it is our responsibility.  Everything we do as parents leads us to our end goal of raising children that have a heart bent toward Father.  Some of this is not up to us, I realize, but we are atmospheric conductors when it comes to our children.  We, as Christ-followers, create atmospheres for our children to experience and know Father.  Our parenting should help our kids see Jesus.  I am not just talking about taking them to church, either.  I want them to see Jesus, the Jesus of the New Testament, not necessarily the "Jesus" at the christian bookstores.  I want them to see the man who befriended the unfriendly and unwanted.  The man whose love covered a multitude of sins.  The man who crossed social boundaries to offer acceptance to the unacceptable.  If our kids are going to see that man, then I cannot be passive in this journey of faith, can I?  Don't they need to see Jesus making a difference in my life as a husband, as a father, as a business person, as a pastor, as a friend, as me?  Don't they need to see that my faith is every bit about Thursday as it is about Sunday?  Don't they need to know that my Bible is a book I read, not just a screen I watch or a book I quote?  Don't they...Don't they...?  I am processing this.

On Baylor Football::  The Sagarin Football Rankings have the Bears ranked #66.  We are the highest ranked team with 7 losses.  Now some of you even laugh that I looked for that or see something positive in that, but I do.  We have lost to six top 25 teams this year, and we lost a close game to Nebraska at their place who is ranked above us.  This simply means that we beat teams we were "supposed" to beat and lost to the teams we were supposed to lose to.  Eventually, we will have to do better than that and beat some teams we are not supposed to beat.  However, in the Big XII South, only Texas Tech and Oklahoma State can say that they have done it this year.  Oklahoma was "supposed to beat" Texas and didn't.  Texas was "supposed to beat" Tech and didn't.  A&M was "supposed to beat" Arkansas State, but didn't.  This is a big plus for Baylor football, and when you've been as bad as we have for as long as we have, we find silver lining where we can - and we just might have the best Freshman quarterback in the conference and maybe the country.  The future looks bright at Floyd Casey Stadium and it's been a long time since we can say that!

On Neighborhood Life:: Most of you know that we are committed to building our church through neighborhood life, rather than the traditional come-and-see model of church.  In doing so, we place a lot of emphasis on our Neighborhood Tables, which are simply dinner groups designed to help people connect with other Christ-followers in their neighborhoods.  I am extremely excited about the future of my current group.  We have a great mix of people in our group and we are all coming to our group with an eye toward our neighborhoods in the future.  When I talk about the group, I tend to talk about the positives so much that no one thinks I have negative issues - unless you are in my "inner circle" where I complain often!  Sunday night was one of those nights that could have been a negative.  Rhonda had made a huge pot of Chicken Fajita Soup for our group, but in the end no one was able to come and we sat down at the table alone, just the four of us.  Garin even said, "Man mom, you made all this for nothing," to which Rhonda replied, "Not for nothing."  You see, if the point of the night is to have a bible study, then it would have been a wasted night because no one showed up, but because the point of our Table is to share a meal with people we love, it couldn't be a waste...whether we had 15 people or just 4.  We love that about what we do!  Now, don't misunderstand me, I wish we would have had a full house, but the disappointment was not discouragement.  

Okay, I hope that your days are filled with love and laughter.  If something I wrote triggered something in you, let us know.  If not, I'll keep posting as long as you keep reading and I'll get you some other day!

By the way, did any of you see Jack Bauer on Leno last night?

West Texas "Starbucks"

Five days in Snyder, Texas and I finally find my oasis in the desert.  I have located the small cup-o-joe establishment called "The Manhattan."  I love this place.  It's got art on the walls, it's on the town square, it's got a front porch with cable-spool tables and yard chairs, great music and great coffee-drinks.  It's got a local flair about it, but it could be in the arts district of Houston or the family-friendly downtown of Fort Worth.

I'm sitting and working a little and lo and behold a friend walks in and sits down and we share a conversation for about 30 minutes.  She leaves and I think to myself, "What a great third place!"  

"Third Places" are those middle-ground, neutral locations (not work and not home) where people have traditional gathered to converse and share thoughts and ideas about life, family, work and even spirituality.  They seem to be more available in larger populated areas, rather than rural communities.  I guess that is because they may not sustain the customer volume that is needed to maintain the business end.  For instance, i've been here working for almost 2 hours now and I have only seen about 10 people come into the shop.  At home, I see 10 people in Starbucks every 8 minutes.  It's just a volume issue.

I actually think I like the Manhattan better than Starbucks though.  It's a community place.  It's a neighborhood place, run by neighborhood people.  I feel at home with the urban feel when I'm inside, but I loved sitting on the porch gazing at the courthouse and seeing the 4x4 trucks pass by, as well as the painted store windows supporting the local Snyder Tiger football team.  Oh, how fresh.

IKE UPDATE:  I am going to be in Snyder for another 4 days, it looks like.  Not because I can't get into my house, but because I can't fly back to Houston with Graysen yet.  Rhonda and Garin are at my parents' home about an hour away from us.  We apparently have a little bit of shingle damage on our house, but that's it.  Our electricity is back on.  Rhonda is planning to go walk-through the house to see how it made it on the inside, but all indications are that we came through unscathed.  We may all be separated, but we are all safe.  Thanks to all of you who have texted or called to check on us.  We are blessed to have friends like you.

Hurricanes and Neighborhoods

Man, I love living on the coast.  This is just plain crazy.  The girls have evacuated north to the Woodlands and Graysen and I are in Snyder, Texas.  I am working with a church here as they transition to neighborhood small groups.  It's crazy.

The senior pastor at FBC, Snyder had a new baby this week and so he asked me to go ahead and preach Sunday morning.  It should be fun.  This is the same church I did Family Camp for last month.  It also happens to be the church I spent my high school years attending.  I owe the church a lot.

I spoke a little to a group last night about my journey to neighborhood.  Today was a great day because I got to hang out with their senior staff and talk about neighborhood.  I talked more than I probably needed to, but they got me going!  I love this journey that they are on.  I am extremely curious as to how the model of neighborhood is going to play out in a rural town.  It's really interesting that in rural communities don't want to be known so much and in urban/suburban communities people long to be known.  One of the things we have done is attempted to capture some of the rural community feel of connection and implant it into the suburban context of our church.  Our implementation isn't always the way we want it to be, but the we are striving to be more connected to those around us.  I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

Anyway, the rest of the weekend is sort of crazy, so I may not post again until next week. By then, Ike will have passed over our home and hopefully left it in tact.  After a day like today and a night like last night, I can't wait to get back to my neighborhood though!

TK Chapter 17 :: Loving Without Strings

"We think God tells us to serve in order to get people to respect us or like us so that they'll accept our God.  The real essence of biblical blessing is that it's done with no strings attached.  Hopes, desires, fervent prayer, yes - but no strings at all attached." (p143)

How can we reach out and into our world around us without having certain "strings" attached.  When we talk about neighborhood life, we are not talking about Springs small groups functioning so more people can come to the Springs.  We are not reaching out to our neighbors, so they will come to church with us.  We talk about reaching out and into our world for no other reason than loving our neighbors.  Period.

Living the life of Jesus in our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, ball fields, gyms, courses and malls, has everything to do with being for the sake of being because God called us to be.  All of us can sniff out someone who is being friendly to us with an agenda - at least most of the time.  We can tell something just isn't right when we are getting snowed.  

Jesus said love.  Jesus was the perfect embodiment of love.  Not some weak-kneed, everything is all good, kind of love, but a love that put the interests of others in front.  A love that told the unimportant that they were important.  A love that lifted up the ones who were pushed down.  A love that allowed someone to shout, when everyone was telling them to be quiet.  A love that accepted when others judged.  A love that defended when others attacked.  A love that attacked when others defended, too.

How easy is it for you to love without strings?  If you are like me, you are tempted to say easy almost immediately.  But stop and think.  Your words are only as valid as your lifestyle.  I want to say I love without strings, but my life doesn't always demonstrate that to be true.  I love to be loved all too often and when I don't get it back, I stop dishing it out.  That just sux.  I don't want to be that way, and I honestly think God is changing me in this area.  It's getting easier.  I am not looking to abandon my expectations of others, but I am trying to remove the prerequisites I have often imposed.

Table Stays Home

Well, it's been a great day for the 434 Blog. Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

Most of you know that we are part of a church plant where one of our unique thumbprints on our community is the fact that we meet for services only twice a month. We do meet weekly, just not in the corporate gathering like most people expect. Our weekly "church" is our neighborhood groups and ours typically meets on Thursday nights. This week however we are doing something a little different. Our goal this week is to take the night we normally meet and use it to do something with one or more of our neighbors. We are staying home...

It's easy for us to get into a routine and always spending the week doing the same things - even good things. However, for us to change things a bit and give ourselves space in our week is a good thing to stop and focus on relationships that are close enough to walk to. In some ways, you can say we've given our group 2 hours of time by choosing to stay home. Now, I can't wait to hear the stories that come out.

Maybe you've chosen to stop recently and are finding that just slowing down is an incredible opportunity for relational connection that barely gets noticed when we are traveling at Mach4. At our church, we are in the middle of a series called "Life in the Margins" and this week we are specifically talking about Marginal Time, and creating some space in the midst of our crowded schedules. INTAKE is focused solely on preparing for this discussion on Sunday.

I'd love to hear stories about your slowing down and finding life in the spaces of time.

LIFE'S BETTER ON THE PORCH

Today, my office is the Starbucks on 528 at 518. As I work on our new website, I noticed a new Raspberry Mocha advert and I was struck by the key line, LIFE'S BETTER ON THE FRONT PORCH. In recent years, Rhonda and I have been investigating ways to live a simpler life, even as we gain complexity by raising a 6 year old girl and a 6 month old boy - not always easy. Is life really better on the front porch? I believe so and I don't even have a front porch.

We have our intimate areas of home and our business areas of work. Unfortunately, we don't always make a place for median spaces, or third-places. Places where we meet new people. Places where we connect with those around us. In past years, these median spaces included the front porch. In a society where neighborhoods were designed for engagement, people would sit out on their front porches in the evenings and converse with people passing by on their way home from work, or on their way to the store or just strolling through the neighborhood. This was a non-threatening place for neighbors to get to know each other.

I'm writing from what possibly may be the most recognizable third-place in our society - Starbucks. This morning I have seen two elderly women knitting as they discussed life, religion and politics over a cup of iced mocha. I've watched young men meet for business, young women meet for conversation. Mostly in two's or three's. I am the rarity sitting alone in the corner.

I want to live a life where space is made for connection with others. I want to find median spaces where I can engage in meaningful relational connections. My driveway is becoming my front porch.