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Leadership & Calling

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Have you ever had one of those lines that you use all the time?  It may be a quick one liner, or it might just be a quick catch phrase.  For example back in the 90’s that little taco bell dog got everybody saying, Yo Quiero Taco Bell.  I need to admit something.  I have a phrase that I use all the time.  It originates from my days working with a crew of stone masons.  I find myself using it in any different number of applications.  I will say it to other people, I will say it to inanimate objects, I will even say it to myself from time to time.  It’s quite possible that I have even said it to you.

Here it is.  

“Talk to me Goose” 

Name the movie that this line comes from! 

So, I’ve been thinking… Every time I stand up in front of an audience, wether it is before the Youth Group or even before the church body as a whole, in my mind I hear them saying, Talk to me Goose…  Or more appropriately, communicate to me.  But no matter what you do… Communicate well.

Here is a fictional letter that I might recieve… 

Dear Junior Pastor,

         I see that you are a youth pastor!  Congratulations on being in training to becoming a real pastor.  Is that like some sort of apprenticeship or something?  I have been in church a few times, and I have seen you around.  You seem to be going all over the place…  Um… I wanted to write to you though because I am kind of confused.  I am wondering… when you were up there on the stage, I was really confused by a couple things you said.  

          One time you said that I needed to be born again…  That sounds yucky, and I am not sure that is even possible.  But, I was wondering if you could explain that to me?  Oh and the other thing you said was you kept telling me that I needed to  have devotions.  I mean, I’m pretty devoted.  I work out, I am on a traveling soccer team, I play paintball on a competitive team, and I play classical recorder.  I’m a pretty devoted guy.  It kind of made me upset for you to assume that I’m not a devoted person.  

          Oh, here’s the one that really lost me…  Were you even speaking english the whole time?  I don’t know…  I guess I might come back… I mean everyone else around me was shaking their head in agreement with every bulleted point that came up on the TV screens.  But I didn’t get it.  Could you talk a little more like a normal person next time?  Then I might be able to really get what you are trying to say…  Thanks man…  Oh, by the way, sweet mic.  You look just like Justin Timberlake!  

From,

     The guy who had the confused look on his face most of the time…

~Peter

Los got two of these letters too… check it out here and here.

 

Last night at The Refinery (our Sr. High Ministry) we had an incredible service.  It was awesome.  Throughout the past 5 weeks we have been talking about what it means to be the body of Christ.  This has been a good series overall I thought.  We called it “Our Ipods are Different”.  Last night it was great to see what God was doing in our group.

We had a great time in worship before my lesson, and then we opened the Word and looked at the idea of “What do we do now?”  We have walked through 1 Corinthians 12 & 13.  We ended this series looking at Acts 2.  The Apostle Peter just got done preaching a sermon in which 3000 people believed what he was saying about who Jesus was.  The church added 3000 people in one day.  I wondered, what did they do next?  They did four things.  Probably those four things would apply to us too huh?  I think so anyway…

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.  This is what we need to be doing!  This is the next step for our ministry!  To devote ourselves to each other.

That was my message in brief summary.  The response that we had was overwhelming.  What occured in the next 15 minutes literally brought tears of joy to my eyes.  I looked around, and I watched as you guys took communion with one another, prayed with each other, and then I watched as students began to put their arms around one another and sing in unison.  We were singing of how good God has been to us.  How God’s blood has washed us white as snow.  Thank you God for working in our midst.

It was times like this that make times like this worth it.  It was times like this that make ministry the most amazing thing that I could dedicate my life to.

“To God be the glory for the great things He has done”

~Peter

So, after reading los’ blog and checking out this post of his, I decided to record my day in time lapse mode.  I was really interested to see what I look like when I work.  It’s pretty funny actually.  I didn’t realize how funny looking I really am.  So, here is my day in 2 minutes.  Enjoy!  

~Peter 

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ie7v6PANalU]

If you enjoyed that, check out what Pete Wilson did the other day of his Sunday!  It’s great.  Click here.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.  Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”  Proverbs 31:8-9

I got an email from Anthony recently and he wanted to point out something that he found over at Los’ blog; RagamuffinSoul.  This is really cool, and Anthony is right, the more people that we can get to know about this, the better it will be.  The site is called The Hunger Site.

 {Yes it seems to be legit.  You can check it out at Snopes, click here to read about it.}  So, anyhow, the concept is simple.  You go to the website and click on this image and the sites sponsors will donate food to the hungry people around the world.  

What a simple way to make a difference.  Just by clicking.  What if you did this everyday…  What if you even just did it right now?  You would be making a huge difference in the life of someone.  Pretty cool.  I thought you should know about it.

~Peter

Happy Father’s Day!  This morning we woke up got ready for church and went out to breakfast.  We had a great breakfast.  Here’s a shot of Grace and I at breakfast this morning.  Pancakes were in order for all of us.  We had a great day today celebrating father’s day.  

We also had a great service today at church.  Today we had one service and it was great being together as a large group.  We were celebrating three different events.  Today was the ingathering day for our Talent Offering, it was also the celebration of the focus on your family covenant day, and of course it was fathers day.  

First things first: The ingathering of our talent offering.  Applying the principles found in the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:14-30, our church gave out a little over $20k on Palm Sunday.  The congregation was told to go and try and invest it, or make more with the seed money that we were given.  Today alone we received $76k.  How awesome is that?  That is great!  We are trying to eliminate a $600k debt for our building.  So, we are moving forward!  This is incredible.  

Secondly, a few months ago we as a church went through a six week long campaign focusing on the family.  It was called, “Focus on Your Family”.  This was a great 6 weeks.  Today after much thought and training we were able to acknowledge many families as they made a covenant to help their family grow closer together and closer to God.  Praise God for all of those families in our church who have taken this very important step.

Third!  Father’s Day!!! Check out this sweet present that my kids gave me today! (well, really that Tiffany made for me!)  

I got two canvas’ each one made by one of my children.  They are going to hang in my office!  I am so excited to hang them.  Here’s a close up of each.

Noah’s:

Grace’s:

I grew up watching my Dad love his family, and his wife with all that he has.  My Dad has influenced my life is so many great ways.  He has taught me how to love people, love God, and love my family.  Thanks Dad!  I have the greatest memories of my Dad when I was growing up.  I remember playing whiffle ball in the driveway, throwing frisbee, bike rides, water rockets, fishing, sailing, working on my car, laughing, talking, and enjoying a good Hot Dog at Jimmy Johns.  I can only hope to be half of the man that my Dad is.  I am grateful for my Dad.  Thanks Dad for being the greatest dad I could ever ask for!  I love you.  

Tonight a student asked me if it is fun being a dad.  What do you think I said?  I love being a dad to Noah and Grace.  I have huge shoes to fill.  I’m gonna keep on trying!  

Happy Father’s Day to all you dad’s out there.  

~Peter 

So, the other day we had a fundraising luncheon at church to help support our student center upgrades and renovation project.  We decided to have Soup, Salad and a bread bar.  This was a great plan so I thought.  The week before we only had 30 people signed up.  We decided to go ahead and prepare food for 200.  Well… Let me tell you what that is like.  Tons of fun… We made 10 gallons of soup, grilled 20 pounds of chicken, washed/sliced about 30 pounds of lettuce, and made 3 gallons of dressing.  It was awesome.  Well we had some good friends the Chester’s come over and help us cut, peel, dice, and slice all of the many ingredients.  Here are a couple pictures.  After all of this, Tiffany and I took 3 days off to be by ourselves.  Pictures will follow for that too! But first the 10 pounds of carrots!

 

After all was said and done, and the dust cleared on Sunday we raised over 800 dollars, which is being matched by someone!  We raised $1600!  I need to thank Bryan Rhoads, and Matt Thompson in particular for giving up so much time and helping do tons of work!  Also, to all of the students who served, cut, cleaned, washed, setup, tore down, moved, plated, cupped, poured, and helped on sunday, we are so thankful for each of you!  You guys rock!

~Peter

At our church right now, we are right on the tail end of a campaign called Focus on Your Family.  It is put together by you guessed it, Focus on the Family.  Research shows that up to 80% of students leave the church within 12 months of graduating.  Some have called this the great “Graduation Evacuation”.  Their generation is being called the Bridgers, following up after their parents who were either Boomers or Busters.  Our bridger generation is comprised of aproximately 3 million evangelicals.  Which is merely 4%.  That is down 4.9 million from their parents generation which were at least 16% evangelicals. 

Where have all the college students gone?  Some of you may remember the old Paula Cole song, “Where have all the cowboys gone?”  Very simple question being asked.  Where have the cowboys gone?  Well, I suppose the church world is reeling with a similarly simple question.   Where have all the college students gone? 

I was sitting at lunch today with a guy who is in college and who happens to also serve in the Youth Ministry here at church and we were talking about just this thing.  Not so much where are they, but how can we do a better job of keeping them in the church.  We began to talk about well, what is the church really?  Knowing that the church isn’t bricks and mortar.  The church is flesh and blood.  It is you and I, the Bride of Christ.  Interesting…

What do you see the church as?

Is your church: a building, a Pastor, a Youth Leader, a facility?

Next question: If that is the case, then what happens when the Pastor leaves, or the facility gets run down, or not as flashy as it used to be?  If that is how you would define what Church is then do you in essence loose your church when one of those things is lost? 

{Caution: I am thinking and writing at the same time.  Scary I know…}

But, what if we believed that we truly were the bride of Christ, and we were the church even outside of our pretty walls, projection screens, and dynamically lit worship centers.  What if we truly believed and practiced what it meant to be the church.  Things such as “devoted to the apostles teachings, devoted to fellowship, devoted to the breaking of bread, and devoted to prayer.” {Acts:2:42}  Or what about a few chapters later in Acts chapter 4 where we find the early church taking care of the needs of others.  {Acts 4:32-37}  Or what about in chapter 6 when ministry of the church begins to explode and they need more workers!  Feeding people.  The original meals on wheels program, or love in action, or whatever you flavor of food  service is called.  Here we see the disciples were helping to take care of widows, making sure that they had food, and such things.  These are the things that make us the church! We see them being devoted to one another, not devoted to a figure head, a building, or church bus.  

We are no more “the church” which God intended us to be because we can unify behind a building fund and through faith commit thousands and sometimes millions of dollars to build some structure that we in this present day and age have considered to be a religious looking building.  This does not solidify us as the church.  We will not win and keep our college age students because of these things!  We need to have a great understanding of what the body of Christ truly is.  

I was speaking with a parent of a youth group student the other day, and they said that they desired for their child to be more in love with the bridegroom than the bride of Christ.  I thought that was very thought provoking.  Are you and I falling more in love with the bride of Christ?  Meaning flashy programs and slick presentations?  Or are we truly falling more in love and growing deeply devoted to the bridegroom? 

Maybe it would help if we had a better understanding of what the church truly is, and what it really isn’t.  Just thinking…

~Peter

 

As I was reading this morning, I came across something that both challenged me and encouraged me.  You know its a good thought if it can do both of those things.  It was the kind of statement that said to me, yeah keep going, keep pushing.  Yet at the same time it said, go harder, push with added strength. 

What is this statement you say?  I will tell you.  It is found in the book of Ecclesiastes.  A very interesting book I must add.  Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon.  Here is a pretty wise thought for the day. 

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.  I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake these all.  Moreover, man does not know his time; like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare, so the sons of men are ensnared in an evil time when it suddenly falls on them.”  Ecclesiastes 9:10-12

Sounds good huh?  Whatever your hands find to do, I love that phrase.  Basically do everything with all your strength.  Keep pushing hard, going strong, and with great diligence.  Very interesting.  Do you ever run out of steam?  Do you ever want to just throw your hands in the air and say, take a break for a while… I’ve worked hard?

Well even though there are times when I will be the first person to say I am so exhausted and I should just take this one easy, or go light on it, Solomon in all his wisdom reminds us that is not a wise thing to do.  He writes in verse 12 that Man does not know his time.  He compares us to like fish caught in a net, or birds who have been trapped in a snare.  We are here on this earth for a short time, and we have these days and hours to make a difference for our God. 

So, today whatever your hands find for you to do, wether it be sports, school work, your job, your friends, whatever it may be, do it with all your might. 

~Peter