FaithEngineer

This is what happens when we cancel church services! The youth ended up at our house and had some fun on Sunday. Add in hot chocolate, fresh homemade cookies, and snow cream, and you can tell we had a great time. Thanks to Ben for taping and editing the video.  I didn’t make the video, but when you’re my size, you gain some serious speed and get some serious air over the bumps. I’m still feeling it.

Just wanted to share some random thoughts tonight.

• I enjoyed spending the day with my family in Christiansburg and Blacksburg today. Emma was able to go with us since school was canceled due to a power outage.  It’s always great going to Hokie country, and I’m slowly getting my kids used to the campus. It’s such a great town.
• I unplugged completely from church activities today. I need to do that more often since our weekends are so crazy. Honoring the Sabbath is not a suggestion, but a command, and I need at least one day a week where I can rest and enjoy my time with God and family.
• Speaking of a crazy weekend, Cornerstone was awesome this week. We had a great leadership retreat on Friday and Saturday, planning and dreaming with our elder team and administrative team. I’m excited about the direction we are going and the unity we are building in our group. God is blessing us with talented and gifted people who are in love with Jesus. I’ll be sharing more about some of the exciting new things that are in store for this year.
• Sunday was incredible as well. We had the highest weekend attendance ever this week and I saw many new faces in both of our services. You don’t hear me talk about numbers very often, but I want to share with our Cornerstone family that we had 330 people in attendance this week. For a small church in a small town, that is exciting! And I think we’re just seeing the start of what could be. I have heard so many people talking in the community about how God is moving and working at Cornerstone. Keep investing and inviting.
• I’m really enjoying our series on 20/20 vision. This past week we talked about discovering and following your Holy Discontent.  For those of you wanting to find out more about what that could mean for your life, check out the book Holy Discontent: Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision by Bill Hybels. It goes into far more depth about some of the things we talked about this weekend.
• And finally, I’ve been spending a little time on facebook recently.  Why can’t young people spell? I’m not sure what the root of the problem is. I don’t think it’s texting, because most of the misspelled words are longer than the correct spelling. You can’t blame it on public schools either, because I see the same thing in many of the homeschoolers.  I’m thinking we are seeing the results of a generation raised on Hooked on Phonics and spell check. Just sound it out and it’s close enough. Are there any teachers out there who know why there is such a decline in basic spelling skills?

In case you haven’t heard, the FTC is cracking down on blogs.  As of December 1st, bloggers must now reveal when they receive compensation or free products for review purposes.  I am part of several blogger review programs which provide free books, so I wanted to let you know where I stand.  Although I may receive and review free books from time to time, I am in no way required to provide a positive review.  I have the freedom to post my true thoughts, and I will always do just that.

I also am part of several affiliate link programs.  When you click on a product link or a site advertisement and then make a purchase, I receive a small commission.  So far, this has not really provided any income.  My expenses to run the site still far outweigh any income I have received from the affiliate programs.  If the site traffic increases, I hope to use this income to simply cover my costs.

I have a little trouble believing that this is such a huge problem for the government.  They are threatening fines up to $11,000 for bloggers who do not disclose these free products or marketing relationships.  As a follower of Christ, I want to be above reproach in everything I do, online and in the real world.  I want you to know that I will always be straight with you.  You will only receive honest and truthful opinions when I talk about a book or product. I have also created a page here on the blog with my full disclosure policy.  So thanks for hanging around and reading this post. It’s not my most interesting one, so thanks for being a loyal reader!

I have been hesitant to blog about this, but the thoughts simply won’t go away.  At the Catalyst Conference I saw yet again something that has been bothering me about the church world.  When you step back and look around, all the pastors of contemporary churches look the same.  And all the worship leaders leaders looked the part as well.  It was a very homogenous group of 30 and 40 somethings all trying to look cool.  You could tell many of the pastors made a run on Buckle and picked up their wardrobe before dropping by the salon to get highlights in their hair.   And don’t even get me started on the tight skinny jeans and low-cut v-necks that many worship guys were wearing.

You may ask why does it matter?  Let me give you a couple of thoughts to think about.  And let me just say that I am in no way judging others.  In some ways, I very much lump myself in with the pastor crowd.

• Some may say that we dress that way to be culturally relevant.  I’m okay with that if the culture you live in actually dresses that way.  I don’t want to be cynical, but in most cases, the way we dress doesn’t actually match up with the people we are called to reach.
• Some may say that we are rebelling against the pretentious suits and ties of the previous generation.  But  is there any difference between wearing a $500 suit and a $500 outfit from a hip store?  How many people in your congregation can actually afford the clothes that you are stylin?  It’s a honest question that we must wrestle with.
• Why are worship leaders afraid to wear masculine clothing? It looks like a bunch of 40 year olds dressing like the Jonas Brothers.  That may sound harsh, but I really struggle with the styled long hair, manscara, and skinny women’s jeans they are wearing.

Let’s remember who we are to imitate.  I would argue that there is nothing inherently wrong about styles, as long as they are modest and appropriate.  I know those are subjective terms, but the bigger issue is one of our hearts.  WHY do we all look the same? Is there an unspoken pressure to conform to the music world? Why can’t we be normal?

I don’t have the answers, but I don’t think there is a valid reason that everyone looks the same.  I want to see the uniqueness and beauty of the world we live in reflected in the leaders of our churches.  Drop me a comment and help me understand.  Keep it civil, and remember that I live in a small rural town in the mountains of Virginia.  I’m just a little backward

I wanted to share a couple of memorable moments from Catalyst. One was crazy and the other was powerful.

Professor Splash set a new world record high dive. He dove from a tower over 35 feet high into a pool with only 12 inches of water. Check out the video below. It’s another crazy world record from the Catalyst Conference.

Professor Splash Breaks World Record! from Catalyst on Vimeo.

The second video literally brought me to tears. It was a powerful moment when Jimmy Wambua met Mark, his Compassion Sponsor of 19 years, for the 1st time. Our family has sponsored a little girl in Indonesia for the last three years through Compassion and I hope that it makes the same kind of impact in her life. The video is a little long, but it is definitely worth it. Skip to about the 9 minute mark if you just want to see his reaction when he finds out that the man who had sponsored him was there to meet him.

Catalyst 2009 Compassion Moment from Catalyst on Vimeo.

Last week, I noticed that one of my friends on facebook had a couple of extra tickets to the U2 concert in Charlottesville.  It worked out for Jennifer and I to go, so we decided to go on a big date.  The tickets were general admission for the field and were sold during the presale for members of the fan club.  In other words, the tickets were great and inexpensive.   If you’re not familiar with the 360 tour, I’ll share a little about the stage.  You can see a picture above, but it is hard to comprehend how large and incredible it really is.  The 40 million dollar stage is 164 feet tall and takes over 100 tractor and trailers to transport. Simply amazing. You can find more info about the concert and stage from wikipedia.

The round high-tech stage was surrounded by an outer circular walkway that connected by an overhead moving bridge.  Jennifer and I were able to get in the inner ring, and we were constantly surrounded by the band as they moved around the stage.  Bono was literally inches away from us as he walked across the bridge.  The Edge was perfect as always and we were close enough to see all the guitar magic.  They played a good mix of old and new music and they were able to really engage the crowd.  U2 puts on an incredible show, and Muse was a great opener as well.  As a technology junkie, I was amazed at the stage and video and production of it all.  My only big regret was that I didn’t take a better camera. The tickets said no cameras allowed except cell phones, but they didn’t check for them and it seemed like everyone brought nice cameras in.  We were on our feet for almost 6 straight hours and we had to walk a mile and a half each way, but it was worth it.

The best part — I was able to enjoy the entire experience with Jennifer.  Simply Awesome.  Here are a few pictures from my phone for you to enjoy.

I was honored today to officiate a wedding for a former student.  It’s something that I really enjoy doing and today was no exception.  It’s great seeing old friends and seeing them take a huge step of faith.  Since Jennifer and I have been married for 14 years now, I also feel like I can share some advice on what it takes to have a great marriage.

I think all marriages should be celebrations and I could tell everyone had a good time this evening. Two funny things stood out.  First, the best man acted like he couldn’t find the ring.  He asked the next groomsman and it went all the way down the line until the last guy pulled it out of his pocket.  I knew they were going to do something, but you should have seen the look on the faces of all the parents and the bridesmaids. The second thing that I am still laughing about is a conversation I had with the groom before the wedding.  I had given him a copy of Joe Sangl’s book, I Was Broke, Now I’m Not, so I asked him if he had read through it yet.  He was excited about it and told me that he was taking it on his honeymoon for his bride to read as well.   He couldn’t wait to share what he had learned about budgeting and financial responsibility.  It struck me funny that he was taking it on his honeymoon.  I know Joe’s book is good, but it must be seriously awesome to take on the honeymoon.

Congrats to the newly married Brian and Meghan Norris.   May God Bless your marriage. In honor of your wedding today, I present to you three of my favorite youtube wedding moments.  Be sure to watch all three videos in the youtube playlist below.

Here’s a little humor for your Friday afternoon from the Skit Guys. At Cornerstone, we’re currently in a sermon series about fear. It seems like in our society, one of the greatest fears is the fear of not having enough. Everyone wants to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need. And then when they end up broke, they want a bailout. Watch and enjoy

Even though I live in the mountains, I really love South Carolina low-country cuisine.  One of my favorite dishes is She-Crab soup.  Unfortunately, you can’t find it too many places up here in the mountains (although Goobers52 does have it in Mt. Airy)

So for our soup and salad luncheon after church Sunday, I fixed a huge pot of it.   I had so many requests for the recipe that I thought I would share it here.  It is a artery-busting, calorie-popping delight.  I did leave out the Sherry, because it’s a little hard to go shopping for wine if you’re a pastor in a small town   And we couldn’t find fish stock, so I substituted vegetable broth with the juice from some cans of crab meat.   I went by this recipe from Allrecipes.com

Enjoy!!

I’ve seen this on several different blogs lately, and it definitely gives you a good laugh at the expense of the current church culture. Unfortunately, I thought of several youth pastors that I have heard speak.  Youth Ministry is so much more than just being cool and relevant.  It is all about building meaningful relationships with students as we teach and model the truth of the Bible.   It’s all about Jesus, and we must get out of the way so that Jesus can be seen.

from the creators of this video: This is a video we produced for a free event for youth ministers. It was conceived as a satire for what I consider to be an unhealthy “rock star” culture that has been growing inside Christendom, as well as an encouragement for the unheralded heroes on the front lines of ministry.

Ignatius from travis hawkins on Vimeo.

I look forward to seeing the videos every year from the National Youth Ministry Conference. The guys at Saddleback put some cool videos together.  If you’re a youth worker, you want to check out this video. The announcment videos were stupid funny as well.  Check them out here and here.

thanks to Josh for sharing

If you are confused by the current lending and credit crisis, then watch this 10 minute video. It does a great job of describing what has happened. In a nutshell, the banks let people borrow more than they could afford, and when too many people defaulted, the banks got into big trouble.

Psalm 37:21 (NLT) – The wicked borrow and never repay,but the godly are generous givers.
Romans 13:8 (NLT) Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another.

As Christians, we should put ourselves into position to financially help those in need. And we should model and teach financial responsibility. If you are struggling with debt, then please start taking the steps to get out of debt as soon as possible. Check out Joe Sangl’s website where he has some excellent info about what to do next.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Okay, after all the comments at church Sunday, I’m not sure what to do.  What do you think?

Just wanted to share a cool football video for everyone. Crazy Stuff

I always enjoy the super bowl commercials. This year the game was as good as the commercials! Here are all the commercials. My favorites were G.I. Joe, Laughing my Butt off, Land of the Lost, Mean Troy, Monster-Need a new job, Sprint-Roadies, and E-trade – talking babies. Memorable commercials are humorous and they relate to your life. They remind you of past experiences and create in you a desire to find out more.

Our message of the Gospel is so much more important than these commercials, so why do most churches make it the most boring hour of the week? Our focus is telling the story of Christ through the truth of God’s word, but we should do everything short of sin to convey that message in a powerful way.

and yes, all these commercials aren’t Christ-honoring, but I trust you have good judgment and discernment.