Let me tell you where we are going.

Over the past several weeks (months really), I have been watching the different candidates posture for nomination of the Republican presidential candidacy. I don't know who I am rooting for. Every time I start to think I have a guy in the race his campaign falls apart. I guess I should keep being a kid's pastor and not worry about being a political prognosticator. I look at stuff in my own life and ministry right now and I keep thinking the person that wins has to be the person that best communicates his or her vision for our country. Leadership has to begin with vision casting.

In my family, if I effectively communicate to my wife or kids what I want to do and how they will benefit from it then they are more likely to jump on board and be a part. I can tell my kids all day long hey go clean your room. They will go to their rooms and work and get distracted and piddle and my wife and I will get frustrated and a simple chore will become a pain in the butt situation for all of us. If I say, "Hey, a clean room gets you out to do something exciting like a trip to the toy store or a friend coming over". Then my kids are more likely to get it done in a timely manner. They need to catch the vision for cleaning the house quicker.

In my job as Pastor, I need to promote and sell a change or where we are going as a ministry to both kids and leaders to get them excited about what is going to happen. The more buy in for each event that I get on the front in, the more success an event will have. It is my job to promote cast a vision to kids and leaders in such a way, they don't want to miss out. One time, I had this idea for an event at my church, it was a multi church kids rally. We were going to have games and a service followed by pizza and several churches bought into the idea. The night came for the event just one other church showed up and only 5 kids from my group came. Evidently, I didn't cast the vision for the event in a way that was appealing. I got no buy in from volunteers or kids for the event. I had to change the way I promoted to kids and leaders. For kids, I realized that I needed to sell events to parents. Kids want to come to everything. Everything is an opportunity to hang out with friends and have fun. Parents needed to understand the logistics of an event and what they got out of it. I needed to show my leaders that each event they were needed for success. It was a tough lesson to really understand the greatest things we do are because other people are involved. It just showed me that vision casting is effective depending on not just what you are casting but to whom you are casting.

The Bible has all kinds of stories of people casting vision. Moses talking to the nation of Israel about leaving Egypt. Jesus getting the disciples to follow him. Paul leading Timothy through being a young minister. I can name off tons of others. Casting vision is the place where leadership begins. It is the place where you get people excited. It is the gun going off at the beginning of the race. It neither maintains nor finishes. But just like the old baseball saying goes, "You can't win the game in the first inning but you sure can lose it."

Draw the line

I went running yesterday out at a park by the place Scout takes Ballet (Stone Oak Park). I like running there because it is one of those places in the middle of the city that you wouldn't know you were in the city while you were there. I haven't run there since last spring until yesterday. I was going to go a few weeks ago but the day I was headed over there they actually had a fire that ran throughout the park. So honestly, I not only wanted to run there for its secludedness but I wanted to check out what the fire did. I parked, stretched, and took off. As I started to run, you could smell the burnt. I was surprised by this. I really expected to see more at first. The trailhead was in tact and the trees by the running trail seemed to be unharmed by the fire. I could see some places as I drove in that the fire touched but the first part of the trail I came across wasn't bad at all. In fact, I started to think, "what is the big deal?" I kept running and eventually about a half mile into the park I started seeing burnt trees to my right. The rocks were different. The cactus was bright yellow, at least what was left. I did notice these big tire ruts almost the size of ditches along the left side of the running trail. It was pretty obvious that this is where the fire fighters set up a line. The trees on one side of the trail were seemingly not touched by the fire. Even though less than 20 feet away entire sections of this park that were filled with brush, trees, cacti, and wildlife were barren with just ash and dirt. It was crazy to be running along this line of ash and burnt on one side and the park I was familiar with on the other.

I thought about this as I ran, How often do we need to make a line in the lives of our family. I thought about the story of Eli in the book of 1 Samuel. Eli had sons that he let run amuck using there father's position to cause all kinds of havoc in God's name. Eli never made the proverbial line in the sand. He waited on God to deal with his kids. At what point do we tell them, "okay you have to stop." So many times things will grow and grow and we don't want to dig our heals in. It is hard digging in, as I examined these ruts the fireman left they were huge. I know parents hate that time when kids are mad or pitching a fit and the easiest thing to do is give in. I tell you this dig in. If the firemen had not dug in there at the trail I was running on then an entire park could have been lost. Even worse, houses and lives could have been lost. We all have times in our lives that we have to stop and dig in. Eli never did this, it cost him his family. I pray that God gives you the strength to dig in.

Mazel Tov

This past weekend, my family attended Samuel Grossman's Bar mitzvah. Sam's mom works with my wife Margaret. It was a beautiful ceremony in a beautiful synagogue. We were excited to see what this was all about because neither of us had ever been invited to such a thing. It cracked me up as I walked in, the little guy working as an usher was wearing a white suit and had a shiny golden head cover with a bright sash looking thing on his shoulders. Then, to top off the whole look he had an eye patch. I whispered to Margaret that he looked like a villain from a James Bond movie. I was given a head covering, kippa, or beanie before we walked in the sanctuary area. This was to show respect to God. We went to our seats and was amazed as the people at the front were standing facing the back of the room chanting a language that my kids were completely clueless about. I kind of chalked it up to some kind of Jewish music. As, I read through the bulletin thing, I got cracked up because I just talked earlier in the summer about the Hebrew people leaving letters out of the word G_d out of respect to his name, and there it was a G_d right in the bulletin. It continued and they began the Bar mitzvah part of the service. I had a few observations that I wanted to share with others.

First, the peoples love for God's word knocked me down. They keep their holy scriptures in an ark at the front of the room. It was special just opening up the ark to get out the scriptures. Everyone stood. Sam carried the scriptures through the room and people moved to the isle as he walked by. It looked like they were all reaching out and kissing these scrolls as they walked by. How often do we just disregard the scriptures given to us? I mean, we carry are Bibles on our phones. We don't think about bringing them with us to church because the words will be up on the screen. I understand the book itself is not Holy. The anointing the holiness comes from the things that are written. As a kid's pastor though, am I doing justice the appreciation of the scriptures? As a parent, do my kids understand the things that are written in there are not just any words on a page? I teach on reading your Bible probably several times a year, I do nightly devotions with my kids but am I really getting across that this Book is something that is life changing. I was challenged by the Holy Spirit to do a better job with this.

As I was sitting there, I kept thinking about what we have that equates to this? Sam thanked his Hebrew school teachers several times. He spoke from the Hebrew scriptures in Hebrew. He thanked his sister for her excitement about Judaism. It was a very cool thing to see. His parents and grandparents were both there and showed his families Jewish heritage. It was something that this family had prepared for months to make happen. You could see a family pride not just in the family but also in their Jewish family there at the synagogue. The effort put into this was valued by many. This passage into adulthood was a big deal. Where do we stand on this? We have crownings and gold medals of achievement given out. I have been able to see several of the kids here at first get those in the last year. How do we make these things more important not just to the kids to finish but to the families? Is the Mpact girls and Rangers clubs even the place where we need to be moving forward with this? I don't know. I know that we need something that families come around their kids and pass the heritage of their faith. It is important for kids to understand this. The question is: what does this need to look like?

Knocking On Doors

Last week, we had our annual "Staff Retreat" also known as 3 days of fishing on the coast and making sure everyone on our team truly understands humility. Pastor brought an old missionary friend, Ralph Hyatt, to do devotions with us each morning. Ralph is 79 years old and has touched thousands of people through his life. He began sharing with us on Thursday morning about the work he did in Argentina as a missionary. When he got to Argentina, he found parts of the country that had never been touched with the Gospel. He talked about going on a boat from island to island, village to village, house to house just telling people who Jesus was. People were saved and Ralph took it as a responsibility to disciple those people and start a church for those people. He told stories about driving a boat and loading it up with people to go to church. He told us of a time he carried 44 people on a medium size boat because he didn't want anyone to miss out on the opportunity to come to church. I immediately felt convicted by his stories.

All to often I find myself stressing over petty things in my church, job, or family. Someone says something about the nursery policies or someone is upset because someone else wrote something on facebook that may or may not have had anything to do with them. It is almost always something small and petty. I still have to be careful because it is those things that keep me from going from island to island, village to village, and hut to hut.

I know I am not called to some country that is full of unsaved people... but I am called to that. I am called to tell as many people as I possibly can that Jesus is alive. I mean think about it. How many people are missing the point of being a Christ follower? How many people do we come in contact with that have no church or even concept of what being a Christian really is? Jesus sent out his 12 and his 72 was that all that was supposed to go? Is that a calling for all of us. I do know this. As a pastor, I have to be very careful that the people in my life aren't all "church" people. I have to be careful that all my friends aren't just Christians. I have to understand that it is my job to knock on doors and tell people that Jesus is coming. It may be while I am at my son's baseball game or at my daughter's ballet class. It may be while I am in the grocery store or sitting at starbucks. It may even be while I am out riding my bike on a Saturday morning. I hope that as I go out of my house, that God sends people to me. So, I can share him.

Blessings

Each day we are given blessings. Some days they are obvious. Some days, we completely miss the blessings that are out there. We catch the obvious ones but by the way I see it, the ones we miss are so much more important. I have been blessed in obvious ways (I realize that may sound a tad conceited). I remember when my wife was pregnant with Scout, our first child and a family in our church walked up and blessed us with a couple hundred dollars in small unmarked bills. I remember when Cooper was sick as an infant, we were blessed to have great doctors and a great church family that ministered to us during that tough time. I can honestly say I have had some major blessings in my life.
I just want to make sure that the small blessings, the ones that tend to pass us by. I want to make sure I appreciate those too. The word of encouragement that someone gives in passing. The idea the random worker gives me. The friend that is willing to listen to me vent. The family member that is praying for me daily. I want to be appreciative of those little things just as much as the blessings that to everyone else are huge.
So, I hope all of you are blessed and you remember the people that have blessed you.

Teamwork

Last night, I was honored to speak at our youth service because our youth pastor was in Houston for a minister's meeting. His planned speaker was out of town for the week leading up to the service so he was unable to prepare. It left Derek without a speaker for the night. He asked me on Tuesday morning if I could do it. I ribbed him for a little bit about it. I always knew that if it needed to be done I would step up and get it done. That is part of being on a team. Doing stuff like that is part of being a pastor.

Teamwork is a part of life. As a kid, you play sports and learn this. You learn phrases like, their is no I in the word team. You are told the chain is only as strong as the weakest link. In school, they give you projects to work on with other kid's in your classes. You are expected to play well with others. I see a problem with many people today though in ministry and in other fields, teamwork is hard to achieve.

One, people have self esteem issues. People will either think to highly of themselves to stop what they are doing and reach out to others. They get to big and to busy to let worry about others. Some people have self esteem issues the other way and they worry so much that others will hate their ideas. They worry that being compared to someone else they will look bad. People also forget about teamwork because of business. Everyone gets so busy doing their own thing that stopping and combining ideas and effort is almost impossible for many. It is sad because so much more stuff can be accomplished when we work together.

I can honestly tell you the things that have been most rewarding in my job life or ministry have been things that I have been able to work on with friends as a team. Working on overnighters with other kid's pastors, Upward basketball in Cleburne, finishing a room with our youth pastor, and countless other things that I can not take credit for as this was Darrell's thing. I know many of those things would never have happened if others had not said, "hey, I want to be a part". It is silly to take off and try to do anything on your own because you are limited by yourself. When you work as a team, your capacity to do more grows by leaps and bounds.

Today, take a few moments and look at the things in life you want to accomplish. Are you so worried about doing them by yourself that you are going to miss out on being successful? Or are you in a spot that you can ask a friend or be a friend and help? If you help someone or become a part of a team then you will always do so much more.

What Happened?

Yesterday, I went to Barnes & Noble on my day off. I walked around looking at random books in christian inspiration, biographies, history, and leadership. I love reading people who are in business or other fields about leadership and then trying to apply them to our life in the church. I enjoy history and biographies because I think there is so much we can learn from choices made by leaders. So, as I am going through I run across a book by Deepak Chopra called "Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment". Knowing a little bit about Chopra, I was curious as to what he was saying about Jesus because it isn't like he is a Christian. He has been know for his new age beliefs for years. This book he wrote was Chopra's take on what happened to Jesus from the years of 12 to 30. I think it is interesting how many people have come with different theories about those years in Jesus life.

Christopher Moore wrote a very funny, very irreverent book about those years in Jesus life. It had Jesus going all over the world doing different things and learning things in order to prepare himself for the ministry. But yet again, another author that would probably not describe himself as a Christian writing about the "untold years" of Jesus life.

I find it interesting, people that don't consider themselves Christ followers pondering the life of Jesus. As a kid's pastor, I know I have wondered what Jesus was like as a child and a teen. All we really have from the Bible is, "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." from Luke 2:52. Okay, but what kind of sense of humor did Jesus have? Did Jesus play practical jokes? How was Jesus at in school? Did Jesus ever sleep in after a night of studying? Was he ever late for synagogue school? What kid like stuff did Jesus do that gets pinned only on "bad" kids? I think it is fun to consider what Jesus was like. I also think it is important that we think about Jesus as a kid. I think it is important because we spend time thinking about Jesus and it makes it easier to apply it to our lives. I just think it is good to think about Jesus. Read about who he was as an adult and consider the people that influenced him as a youth.

Spend some time considering Jesus. Spend some time considering who he was and how that should shape your decisions in life.