Down to Six!

I guess I am getting worse at blog posts lately... It seems I don't have the time or won't take the time and usually when I post I am complaining about something or other.
Anyway my pile of "started but not finished reading" books is down to six. Not including the two books at home, which are at home reading books anyway so they don't count. I just finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It is a great book, and like good jazz doesn't really resolve at the end it just sort of... ends. I liked it anyway.
The rest of the list in order of priority, just in case you were wondering, is: Secrets of the Vine by Bruce Wilkinson (which I have read once but it's an assignment.); Praise Habit by David Crowder; The Voice of Matthew by Lauren F. Winner; Desiring God by John Piper; Sacred Play by Wenda Sheros; and Preaching That Changes Lives by Michael Fabarez. It's a lot of reading I know but I think it's helpful. I also wanted to stop reading books that make me want to sit in my office, like I am doing now, and just think about myself and what's wrong with me and what I should act like and think like, it's just not helpful.
The two books at home are Effective Pastoring and Eat to Live. For some reason diet and exercise books are really easy and enjoyable to read but not to put into practice...

Masi Ohka with "The News"

I agree with Regis "Masi Ohka with... The News!" is fun to say...

Sorry, we had a snow day and the tv was on, I didn't have a choice!
So anyway, Monday was a snow day. It was kinda nice, Pastor Frank called the house about 7.30 am and said that he was closing the office for the day. We got about 8 inches of snow overnight and it continued to snow all day, so we got the day off! I spent most of the day with the boys and Mario... :) It was really quite relaxing and I must say the timing was perfect. I have been missing "home" for quite a while now but the good news is that Sammy's birthday is in another week or two and some folks might be coming over for the party. YAY!
I am speaking at the Christian School Chapel service today so I guess I had better prepare... See I am still a Youth Pastor at heart!

Sunday's Sermon Notes

The Bad News and the Good News

John 3:1-18
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son."

Sometimes I think God has been given a bad rap. He doesn’t deserve it but he gets it anyway. He is a pretty big target. The Church gets a bad rap all the time and to an extent we’ve earned it. Historically we have been prone to making bad decisions from time to time. I’ve heard it said that the world doesn’t have a problem with Jesus, the world doesn’t like the Church but the world for the most part likes Jesus. Most of the world doesn’t have any real idea about what Jesus believed or what he stood for, but most of the time that doesn’t matter to the world it only matters whether or not you are cool. Don Miller from his book Blue Like Jazz says:
“I was wondering the other day, why is it that we turn pop figures into idols? I have a theory, of course. I think we have this need to be cool, that there is this undercurrent in society that says some people are cool and some people aren’t. And it is very, very important to be cool. So, when we find somebody who is cool on television or on the radio, we associate ourselves with this person to feel valid ourselves. And the problem I have with this is that we rarely know what the person believes whom we are associating ourselves with. The problem with this is that it indicates there is less value in what people believe, what they stand for; it only matters that they are cool. In other words, who cares what I believe about life, I only care that I am cool. Because in the end, the undercurrent running through culture is not giving people value based upon what they believe and what they are doing to aid society, the undercurrent is deciding their value based upon whether or not they are cool.”

In John 3 we find Jesus, clearly at this point a pop figure. He had just made a big splash clearing the temple and a lot of people were associating themselves with him. Nicodemus, one of the Pharisees wasn’t ready to associate himself with Jesus quite yet, he wanted to find out what Jesus really believed. So in John chapter three there is a really great dialog between Jesus and Nicodemus. I call it a dialog even though Jesus did most of the talking and all Nicodemus did was ask a few, kind of, dumb questions. Either way, it gives Nicodemus and us a snapshot of what Jesus truly believed.
So Nicodemus came to Jesus after hours to find out what he truly believed but I think he got a lot more than he bargained for, because associating with Jesus would turn his whole life upside down. Now we don’t know if Nicodemus came to Jesus at night because that was when he got off work or if he didn’t want his Pharisee buddies to catch him having an honest dialog with this crackpot that was stirring everybody up. But nevertheless, Nicodemus came to Jesus and said:
Jn 3:2 “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

I like to try to imagine what kind of response he was trying to get. Maybe something like: “Umm…Thanks.”
Instead Jesus uses the opportunity to turn Nick’s world on its ear. In classic Jesus fashion he replies to Nicodemus in a way that made absolutely no sense to him at all:

Jn 3:3 In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
Can you see Nicodemus’ face right here? *trying to figure out how that would work* Being an honest fellow he says:

Jn 3:4 “How can a man be born when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
Right now Nicodemus is probably wondering if his Pharisee buddies weren’t right all along…
Jn 3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
Jn 3:6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
Jn 3:7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’
Jn 3:8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
What exactly was Jesus saying here? Our mothers gave birth to us – that is the flesh gave birth to flesh or being born of water but what about being born of the Spirit? Nicodemus asked the same question:
Jn 3:9 “How can this be?”

Nicodemus clearly wasn’t getting at it and to his credit he was at least honest about it. His understanding up until now was that if Jews were circumcised and lived according to the Law of Moses as God’s chosen people they would enter the kingdom of God. But here comes Jesus talking about having to be born all over again by the Spirit in order to enter God’s Kingdom.

At this point Jesus gives air to his frustration with the Pharisees and with the funny looks he must have been getting from Nicodemus.

Jn 3:10 “You are Israel’s teacher, and do you not understand these things?
Jn 3:11 I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
Jn 3:12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
Jn 3:13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.
Jn 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
Jn 3:15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Are you familiar with the story that Jesus is referring to about Moses and the snake? I don’t want to leave you wondering. Turn to Numbers 21.

The Bronze Snake
Nu 21:4 [The Israelites] traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way;
Nu 21:5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
Nu 21:6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.
Nu 21:7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
Nu 21:8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”
Nu 21:9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

Jn 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
Jn 3:15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
Cool, huh? Jesus was talking about his crucifixion and its significance long before it took place. Nicodemus got to hear exactly what Jesus believed and what he stood for.
And it gets really interesting…

Jn 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Jn 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Jn 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

This is at the core of what Jesus was all about! That’s the good news! The Gospel – it literally means “good news.”

Friends, I have good news and bad news.
The bad news is there can’t be good news without bad news. Good news without bad news is not good news it’s just… news.
The good news is there is bad news that makes the good news really good news!

So what’s the bad news?

Look at the other side of John 3:16.
Jn 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
If you don’t believe in Jesus you don’t get eternal life, you get to perish! That’s not cool.
We’re not talking about the just the perishing or the death of the body, but eternal death, eternal separation from God. That is bad news!

Look at verse 17: God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world.
*No condemnation – good news*
Jesus did come to save the world.
*Getting saved – good news*
So what’s the bad news?

The bad news is that the world needs saving!
Jesus saying that he came to save the world means that the world is in peril and someone needs to save it!
Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn it because it was condemned already because of sin, and apart from belief in Jesus it still stands condemned because of sin.

The reason God gets a bad rap is because people don’t like what He does, people think Jesus is cool because they don’t really know what he did and they don’t like the Church because they think all we do is point out what they do.
Who do you think is going to straighten all that out?

Friends, in order for the Church to survive in this culture we need to know what we believe and why we believe what we believe.

Don Miller has a friend he refers to as Andrew the Protester who taught him:
“What I believe is not what I say I believe but what I do.”

This is our motivation to tell others the Good News. We introduce people to Jesus because if we do not tell others about him we don’t really believe that he is an important person.

What does your life say that you believe?
Miller says: “If Andrew the Protester is right, if I live what I believe, then I don’t believe very many noble things. My life testifies that the first thing I believe is that I am the most important person in the world. My life testifies to this because I care more about my food and shelter and happiness than about anybody else.”

That sounds like bad news…
Don Miller is not the only one with that problem is he?

Here is what the Word says in Romans chapter 3 verse 10:

No One Is Righteous
Ro 3:10 “There is no one righteous, not even one;
Ro 3:11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
Ro 3:12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Ro 3:13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
Ro 3:14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
Ro 3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Ro 3:16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
Ro 3:17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
Ro 3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Ro 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
Ro 3:20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

I want to stop and unpack that a little bit. How do we become conscious of sin through the Law?
Let’s try it out; can you recite the Ten Commandments in order? Can you recite the Ten Commandments at all?
This is the standard by which we are going to be judged. Have you ever told a lie? What does that make you? Have you ever stolen anything, even something small? What does that make you?
That is how the Law is intended to work. This place is full of liars and thieves and now, using the Law, we all know it!
*And that was just two of the Ten Commandments!*

We are conscious of our sin now and it says in Romans 6:23 that the wages of that sin is death! Perishing! Condemnation! That’s really bad news!

But that’s what makes the Good News so good!

Ro 3:21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
Ro 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
Ro 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Ro 3:24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

The Good News is that right standing with God is available to us through faith in Jesus Christ.
The good news is:
Ro 10:9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Ro 10:10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Do you believe you need to do that today? Don’t just say you need to do it, do it!

Nicodemus believed Jesus, he didn’t just say he believed him he showed he really believed by defending him before the other Pharisees in John 7 and in John 19 he even helped take Jesus down from the cross and carry him to the tomb.
Remember, what you believe is not just what you say you believe, but what you do.

Daddy, I want you...

These are the words I hear most often from my son Andrew. These words might seem cute to you and they were to me the first few times, even the first hundred times. The trouble with his statement for me was that it stopped there. Our conversations go something like this:
"Daddy, I want you."
"What do you want?"
"I want you."
"I'm right here, what do you need?"
"Daddy, I want you."
If you're anything like me this type of conversation gets old after awhile. My response to him every time this starts has always been the same, I ask a question he has already answered. I ask him what he wants when he has already told me. He is not asking me a question, he is making a statement.Until today I hadn't figured out just what he was saying when he said "I want you." He wanted ME! Why was this so hard to figure out? The Lord revealed to me today why there is blood in my veins pumped by my heart to all my limbs and organs. Because God wants me. My response to Him has always been the same. God says "Heath, I want you." I say, "Ok Lord, what do you want me to do?" and then I make up some thing in my mind that I think the Lord wants me to do and I go try and do it, either that or I get frustrated because I don't know what He's talking about and quit talking to Him.
Too often we get wrapped up in the action, "If we are the body, why aren't His arms reaching?" that sort of thing. Why often misinterpret the statement God is making to us. "I want you." in our minds becomes "I want you... to do this or that." When God simply starts and ends the conversation with "I want you." Not like Uncle Sam with his striped top hat pointing fingers in our faces but with a still small voice calling us to commune with Him.
My son wants me to know that he loves me and wants to know that I love him too. He wants to be with me and enjoy my company, that is what God wants too. God wants us to completely accept His love, His love that is without condition. If we could just get over ourselves and accept the fact that God truly loves us and wants to be with us regardless of what we have done or how bad we have screwed up, we could truly respond to him and say, "I'm right here. I love you and I want you too."

My First Monthly Ministry Report

Yahweh Elohim, I Am that is greater than space, time and number is holy, may His kingdom be established in our midst, may His will be accomplished in and through us as He provides for us what we need for each day. May the depth and breadth of our willingness to forgive be a reflection of His forgiveness of us and if we are unwilling to forgive may He withhold His forgiveness in the same way. Our deliverance from temptation and sin can only come from Him for He is our deliverer. All of our influence, power and praise belong to Him both now and forever. Amen

In the past reports for me have consisted of list of accomplishments, average attendances and plans for future events… This is about to change. Instead I would like to share some of the passion that the Lord has given me. That passion can be summed up as “Joining with God in building a healthy Church.” This is my utmost desire and it is the purpose, I believe, God has called me here for. It has been said both recently and in the past that “living things grow,” with this I whole-heartedly agree. However, I believe that our ideas about growth could use some redefinition even reconstruction. Growth in the past has limited mostly to “wide” growth and wide growth is good but only when it is a reflection of “deep” growth.
Wide growth is defined as an increase in attendance at services and events. This is exciting! It is thrilling to be able to share the Gospel with more people and to see people coming to Christ; it is wonderful to see our building full and even bursting at the seams. However, as we have seen, this type of growth is not sustainable. All of those people are no longer here, we are no longer bursting at the seams, and our building is no longer full.
On the other side of the coin is deep growth. Deep growth means just that, God’s people are growing deeper in their knowledge and understanding of God’s Word, relationships with their Heavenly Father and with their brothers and sisters in Christ are growing in depth and richness. With the advance of deep growth the term “church” no longer refers to our building, it no longer refers to our services but it refers to the people of God. Deep growth goes beyond semantics, beyond pet names and catch phrases to the foundation of our reality. If we want to be like the wise man who built his house on the rock as Jesus described in Luke 6:48, “when a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built” we need to dig down deep to lay the foundation on the rock.
The benefits of pursuing deep growth are vast but one benefit that is worth noting is wide growth. Just as a tree sends its tap root down deep to the source of water it also sends out roots in a wide circle to collect nutrients and to stabilize the tree keeping it sturdy and upright when the winds and storms come.
So you see, wide growth without deep growth is a house or a tree easily toppled and impossible to sustain but deep growth allows the house to have a firm foundation and a tree to be deeply rooted and able to draw from the source. I believe we need to pursue deep growth as a Church. I believe we need to discover together how to accomplish this goal. As members of Christ’s body, the place to start is with our own lives. We need to doggedly pursue deep growth in Christ and His Word, allowing His Spirit to direct us to the areas that need fixing, the ministries that need updating, and even to the new ideas that none of us has even imagined yet. Let’s discover together what it means to truly be the Church that God had in mind.

i love jelly...

I love jelly. Strawberry, grape, apple. I love it. I could eat fresh peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day forever. I have taught my sons to sing of its goodness. Peanut, peanut butter, and jelly! They sing it over and over, shouting the praises of peanut butter and jelly. But you know what I don't like? When the jelly has been on the bread too long. Like in your pigs in space lunch box at school. It's kind of warm and the jelly has sunk deep into the pores of the bread. What was once good is now spoiled. But what choice do we have? We eat it anyway. We remember what it was when it was new, but it seems there is nothing that we can do now. So we suffer through its dryness as it sticks to the roof of our mouth. We have lost the definition of bread and jelly and peanut butter, they soak together into a dry and difficult to eat substance we hardly recognize. The void between what we once new and what we are now experiencing is so vast it's hard to imagine that they are the same object. I never complained about it when I was a kid. I never said to my Mom, "there has to be a better way to prepare my sandwich so that when it is time for me to eat it it is not in this wretched state." I don't think I would have used the word wretched even if I wanted to make that statement. I am not entirely sure that I would use that word out loud today, but the deed is done. It never occurred to me that there was an alternative to soggy PB&J's, soggy PB&J's are a fact of life, that's how it is, and there is no way around it... But there is. It's simply a matter of whether or not we are willing to think creatively. Would the planet roll off its axis if we were to keep the peanut butter and jelly and bread separate until it was time to eat it? Sure, it would be more work to put the jelly in its own container as well as the peanut butter, not to mention the added expense of the plastic knives and the containers you would most certainly accidentally throw away. But the effort would be worth it and before long no one would even notice the fact that it was extra effort at all. After all, wouldn't it be easier to not prepare lunch at all? But the effort is worth it. It will be extra work, but the results? Everything we always wanted.

Sammy as Bumblebee

The Pic Says It All...

Need I say more?

Optimash Prime

I AM OPTIMASH PRIME!!!
At this moment, the Patriots are winning 35-7; the Red Sox forced a seventh game; and I have a copy of Transformers on DVD waiting for the end of the Patriots game to be viewed. I guess on a scale of 1 to 10 I am Optimash Prime!

Today I am just an ordinary potato

A friend of mine challenged me last week to answer the question "where am I?" every day in a journal. It has been an interesting exercise so far but as with everything I write it always ends up with more of a dark chocolate taste rather than a lighter milk chocolate. Well instead of getting into the rut of blogging my mostly depressing thoughts I thought i would try a little harder and create the "POTATO HEAD SCALE!" Given the extreme diversity of Mr. Potato Head's costumes, I have found that there is a different Mr. Potato Head for just about every mood one could be in. So today I am just an ordinary potato, but if things go south today I might be apt to switch to "Darth Potato."
Kann and I are leaving the kids with her mom today and going to Peabody, Mass to the Eastern Regional Convention, it's gathering of Pastors and representatives from all of the different Advent Christian churches in New England, parts of New York and parts of Canada. I think it's mostly a Berkshire Christian College reunion, but we go anyway. After all going means two nights in a nice hotel with good friends and no kids! The downside is that I usually end up feeling a little bit more like a nameless storm trooper. I guess that's ok, but I hate being reminded that I am an officially non-ordained non-seminary grad college drop-out. Oh well, impressing those guys isn't in my job description. I'm bringing "Lappy" with me so maybe I'll get to post from the convention, maybe even from the hot tub! (where I'll prolly feel a little more like a boiled potato!)

I guess it's time to post...

One of the struggles I have had with blogging is writing too much about too much so I am going to attempt to not do that anymore.

We are working hard to get settled in at our new post and that is going pretty well so far. I am starting to feel like we are getting a little bit of traction here and that is a good thing. I am still missing my friends back in Meredith* (*fighting hard to not write "back home":.\ ) I am, however looking forward to watching the Pats game with my pals back there on Sunday though! A good recovery practice from preaching!

I am preaching this Sunday. My sermon is entitled "Worship - Let's get it right!"
It's mostly about leaving behind our assumptions about worship and looking for the best Biblical example on authentic worship. we'll see how it goes. I started writing what I thought was a real good one until my new mentor Mr. Friedrich showed me how I was just looking to establish a new moral code. We're all about making rules, aren't we?!? The moral codes that God has established are just fine, after all He wrote them!

Anyway, we are working hard to make friends and find our place in our new community. It's more work that I had anticipated but anything worth having is worth working for.

This picture just helps remind me where I am.

Post one...

This is a post, this is only a post...