DISCLAIMER #1 – this is a prep-post for another post that i’ll make tomorrow. i figure no one will read this but writing this for me.
btw, these posts are going to include several disclaimers.
DISCLAIMER #2 – i am an excellent old-time baptist but not a very good modern baptist.
here’s what i mean.
when baptist thought was originally formed in the early 1600s it was center around 4 beliefs. these are:
a theology of believer’s baptism – only those who are capable of believing in JESUS (age-wise) should be baptized.
a theology of salvation through faith alone – we don’t earn forgiveness through our own actions or anything else (i.e. sacramentalism)
scripture alone as the rule for faith and practice – pretty much self-explanatory
the autonomy of the local church - each church has power over itself rather than a denominational body being in control
many early baptist churches added to these four core beliefs a belief in separation of church and state. while i definitely hold to this believe it wasn’t universal so i won’t claim it as distinctly baptist.
old time baptist were a ragtag group of people who agreed on those 4 beliefs and not much else. they were a combination of english separatist (presbyterians) and anabaptists (mennonites), two groups that had VERY different beliefs on how to live out CHRISTian faith. baptists have deep roots in the radical reformation with slight roots in the magisterial reformation. you probably don’t care about the distinct reformations within the protestant reformation so i will just share this saying to convey the point i want to make in saying that baptist have radical reformation roots. a church history professor taught me “in the reformation catholics hated protestants, and protestants hated catholics, BUT EVERYONE HATED THE RADICALS.” old-time baptists were the losers that got beat up on by everyone in power. we weren’t influential in the circles of power. the underdogs flocked to baptist churches. i like that kind of faith. i.e. i’m a good old-time baptist.
but i stink as a modern baptist. why? because over the past 50 years southern baptists have become powerful and influential within a large part of u.s. culture. we aren’t the underdogs anymore – even if we often claim to be. we have huge, gorgeous churches that the movers and shakers of society come to and pay homage to in order to get elected or move up in our society. we have lots of politics within our churches and denomination because we are more concerned with power than we are with the downcast of the land. we used to care desperately about society’s losers because WE WERE SOCIETY’S LOSERS. now with our respect, education, and influence we barely notice the downtrodden. i’m not a good modern baptist because this stuff kills me.
i love tilt & shift photography and this video is amazing. you should do yourself a favor and spend 5 minutes on it. i love the miniature look you can create with tilt & shift. even thought is it real life it looks like something you can hold in your hand. ht jason kottke.
I LOVE THE COMMUNITY OF FAITH THAT I AM A PART OF! tapestry is simply the greatest and i love getting to be a part of it. there are so many things that i could say about this but today i’ll just mention two reasons i love tapestry and both of them are personal because they relate to my experiences as pastor. so here are two reason i love tap.
tap is a verbally safe family. we are not a quite group. it’s safe to talk and express doubts and triumphs. people participate in what is said during the message. in fact, one recent sunday that i felt like was a quite night pam pointed out that there had been more interaction during it than at any other church we had ever been. i’ve just grown to expect even more. i love the fact that while i am the primary one preaching i am by no means the only person in the room that people expect to hear GOD’s voice through. yes, we still have sermons and i do 85-90% of the talking but the 10-15% that comes from everyone else is huge. i love it. i love the questions. i love the doubts. i love the corrections. i love the additions. i love the personal examples. the tapestry sermon really comes from the community AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET BETTER AS WE CONTINUE TO MATURE (hint – my ultimate goal is to have an open weekly meeting for discussion and contribution to each week’s message). the above photo would never describe the thoughts of the threads.
tap is a loving group. plain and simple the threads love each other and it shows. i could explain more but i figure this one is pretty easy for you to imagine. the people of tapestry love each other, want to be around each other, and love on others in such a way that they are made a part of the group. it’s a loving community.
there are plenty of other reasons that i could talk about but those are the two that i was most thankful for two.
tuesday i finished dan kimball’s book “they like JESUS but not the church: insights from emerging generations." this is not a new book. it’s not old either but it’s not brand new (written in 2007). i bought it a couple of years ago and it has sat on a book case waiting for me to read it. i wish i had picked it up earlier because it was an excellent read.
no, it’s not a book of statistical research. it is based on his conversations with people who like JESUS but not the church that he met in public and became friends with. these conversations form the “data” that he analyses through out the book.
yes, you could dismiss “they like JESUS but not the church” because of the fact that it is not based on statistical information. you could say to yourself that since it isn’t statistically based it doesn’t fit your situation. i think you would be wrong to do so.
for me kimball’s book is more meaningful because the points of the book came out of kimball’s discussion with friends he had made. i think that was really the point of the book … CHRISTians, especially ministers, desperately need to get out of our buildings and subculture and make friends with non-JESUS followers. kimball lived this out in the manner that he wrote the book and in the manner that he ministers. he lived it out by having people who like JESUS but not the church over to his home for supper, going over to their home for supper, spending time with people where they are rather than expecting them to come to some religious building, and most importantly LISTENING to people who like JESUS but not the church.
years ago the terrell household started a birthday tradition of quizzing the birthday kid. pam and i figured that there are some important things that a kid should learn during any given year of life. therefore, on each child’s birthday that child is quizzed to determined whether he know these things or not. if the child doesn’t pass the quiz then he is relegated to live the previous year over again in hopes that he will learn the right things.
today is adam’s birthday and therefore during supper pam and i started the birthday quiz. the questions revolve around things that we believe are important to being a terrell and a human. the questions vary but here are a few that occur every year.
they’re simple questions but they are things that we believe are important to being a terrell guy of a certain age.
i’m proud to announce that adam has passed his 16th test and is now officially a 16 year old. he’ll be taking another test for the state of wisconsin concerning whether they trust him to drive or not next week. i’m sure he will pass that too.
i saw a lady in our neighborhood pushing one of these down our street today. that’s right she had placed her cat in a caged off stroller for the purpose of taking the cat on a walk around the block (as a dog owner ethics i will not link to the awful device). while i usually would applaud anything that encourages a person to exercise i simply cannot encourage this. THIS IS WRONG!
the potential of pamela using one of these is scary to me. pam has told me before that one of her goals is to eventually become to “crazy, old, cat lady.” if i pass away too soon she might actually use one of these to walk our two cats around the neighborhood. this cannot be allowed to happen.
yet another reason that i run … to prevent pam from becoming that lady.
yesterday i posted about a discussion that pamela was having with some pastors’ spouses and a tweet that pete wilson had made. today google reader showed that pete wilson had blogged about the article he tweeted concerning. so here’s a link to wilson’s post and the article can be found here.
SIDE NOTE – at the moment i am on break from a 4 hour seminar on notifying someone when a loved one has died. this is part of chaplain training for the stevens point police department. after an hour of stories this is going to be a hard day.
i don’t entirely remember how but someone introduced me to the twitter feed of my friend joe causey’s pastor, pete wilson. from twitter i went to his blog which turned out to be a fun read because it has a great variety of depth, randomness, humor, and bragging about his family. this is a combination that i enjoy.
a couple of days ago wilson posted the following on his twitter feed:
i’m not sure where he read this but i have unfortunately heard similar stats. on top of this pamela has also recently been a part of a discussion with a group of pastors’ wives concerning whether or not pastors and their spouses can be friends with church members. unfortunately the majority of the wives in that group believe that pastors and their spouses shouldn’t be friends with church members because they think that ministers and their spouses are supposed to maintain “professional distance” from their church members (just in case you are wondering both pam and i hold the opposite view). i know that wilson’s tweet and pam’s discussion are not about the exact same thing but i think the core issue is the same – many ministers don’t know how to have real relationships and therefore some live very lonely lives.
this kills me for two reasons:
as a proud 30%er who can name lots of friends that i trust very deeply i hurt for the many ministers who for some reason equate being on mission with GOD with requiring loneliness. while, i do believe that GOD’s call sometimes will lead a believer into difficult situations, i can find very few instances in the bible where the GOD of love has called HIS followers into overwhelming loneliness. it’s just not HIS typical M.O.
since i believe that the core of CHRISTianity is relational (relationship with GOD and others = 1a & 1b greatest commandments) i believe that we fail to disciple our people when we don’t live out and have good strong relationships. therefore, by not having any real friendships i think many ministers are actually failing as shepherds. it’s a sad irony but i believe that many ministers in the name of “professional distance” are actually failing to truly minister because they don’t have any friends.
i love my friends and i am so thankful for them. i am a better person, spouse, father, and minister because of many of my friends. they have taught me many amazing things and GOD continually uses them to encourage me to do the things HE wants. i hope and prayer that more of the 70%ers find such friends, both for themselves and for the churches they shepherd. please GOD send true friends to some of my fellow pastors and give those pastors the wisdom to hold tight to them.
i ran the 2010 point bock run today. it was a fun day in which i was able to see quite a few “threads.” i have three things i want to post.
first, on a whim i decided to do something i have never done … i ran in costume. one of the things that pamela and i love about about the marathons and half-marathons that i have run is the costumed people that run the races. some people come to the races ready to party and they make it fun for everyone else. for example, when i ran the chicago marathon in 09 i ran against a guy dressed as the pope – funny hat, staff, and all. there were also three guys that had rigged a chinese dragon to harnesses so that it floated above the crowd of runners. it was very cool. i love the creativity and fun that the costumed people bring to the race. therefore, i decided to be one of those people for the bock run. actually i was one of 4 costumed people out of 2,000 people who ran the race. the other costumed people were a a guy who wore a green afro, a guy who made a spiked mohawk with his hair, and a guy who had pinned a dust ruffle around his neck as a cape. we were the costumed aspect of the bock run.
this was the first i have ever done this but it won’t be the last. it was a lot of fun running through the race hearing people shout “RUN ELVIS!” i was asked a couple of times during the run if i had run the las vegas marathon yet because they the running elvi begin the race there. kids shouted, adults smiled, and everyone seemed to enjoy the costume. a couple of friends of mine were behind me and when they saw me after the race they told me about all the people talking about elvis passing them during the run. while i’m not sure that i would want to do this on any of the other races i run during the year, i do plan on regularly doing this in the point bock run. it would be even more fun if i could get a few people to costume up with me. who knows we might could turn the bock into a primarily costumed run. that would definitely be fun.
second, i was apparently destined to run today as someone other than my normal self. the race administration made a mistake in entering my registration information because i was labeled as “chris terrell” instead of my real name of “robert adam terrell.” this was pretty easy to correct because our family is the only terrell family in the point area – remember we are surrounded by german and polish people, there aren’t many english names around here. whether i was dressed as elvis or not wasn’t going to matter. i wasn’t going to be running as “robert” today.
third, i love the general vibe of support that is a part of a road race. people genuinely want others to do well in the race. people shout for each other and stay to cheer for the people who are finishing after them. i can’t tell you how many times i have heard someone encourage another racer that they were being passed by or who they were passing. it doesn’t matter if you are fast or slow everyone just wants you to do your best. if you are a slow runner nobody expects you to run with the fastest. you are just expected to try your hardest, improve, and enjoy the experience. it’s a pretty good example of what community is supposed to be like. the fast as well as the slow are expected to run their best and everyone is supposed to “enjoy the ride.” if you do that then the people at the race will celebrate with you. i think that is what the church should do – encourage both the slow and the fast to run their best and party big time.
." this is not a new book. it’s not old either but it’s not brand new (written in 2007). i bought it a couple of years ago and it has sat on a book case waiting for me to read it. i wish i had picked it up earlier because it was an excellent read. 
