Blog Archive

The first week of class has come and gone and it feels good and strange at the same time to think that I’ve started my last year of seminary. I promising job opportunity surfaced near the end of last week so there may be some news forthcoming on that subject soon.

I got to practice some more tonight for youth worship at J-town Baptist. One of the youth plays drums and we got to play some tonight. He joined right in and it looks like he will be a great addition to the violin/guitar sounds we’ve got right now. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to add a bass guitar soon and female vocal. I’ll try to take my video camera up to church one Wed night and post a clip of us leading worship on my website. I won’t be leading worship this week because the youth group is going to see the “Power Team” at a local high school. Don’t worry I’ll have my camera and bring a full report on that event! Until next time…

Tonight was my first Wed night leading worship for the youth at Jeffersontown Baptist Church. Things seems to go really well. It seems like the youth group is a really great group of students. They seemed like they were excited about our worship time. I played my guitar and the youth minister’s wife Erica played violin. I thought the violin/guitar together sounded great and there are several youth that are musically talented so I’m hoping we can add drums and some vocals and maybe a bass guitar. Its nice to be excited about going to church again.

Well classes are about to start again. Its amazing how fast the summer has flown by. Two weeks ago I was in Northern VA working at a sports camp for Infinity Sports. There are a couple pictures on the front page of the website. I ended up doing video because we didn’t have enough kids to do volleyball. Maybe I’ll post one of the videos I made in case anybody wants to see it.

Last week I got to go back to Suffolk and see my family. That was good since i hadn’t been back there since the beginning of the summer. It was good to see them all and the food was good but I ate too much. Its hard to believe I’m about to start my final year of school. Like I’ve said a few times, I’m ready to be done with school. And it’s exciting to think that hopefully I’ll be talking to some churches in the next 6-8 months for initial contacts and hopefully in less than a year I’ll find a church to pastor.

I’m going to try to be better about updating since school’s about to start again and I’ll be in more of a normal schedule than i have been the last two weeks.

Once again its been far too long since my last post. But I have added a couple extras to the site recently. The front page now has a section for music at the bottom of the sidebar. Clicking on the links in that takes you to the iTunes Music Store if you have iTunes installed on your computer and lets you preview the song for 30 seconds and then you can buy it for $1 if you want to.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not also mention the new Mr. T video. Its a clip form the pilot episode of the A-Team TV show from 1983. I may be the only one that thinks its this funny but I roll in the floor laughing every time I watch it. Especially when he talks about beating on peoples’ heads and the dumb big fat stupid stinking bandit. Maybe I’ll come across some more clips soon.

Well I just finished studying and taking a test for one of my classes so there is a lot of stress done with. Next week I’m playing in a tennis tournament here in Louisville. Its on indoor courts, so I’m hoping I can serve well and the courts will be pretty fast and I think that’ll be an advantage for me.

It amazing how fast the summer is flying by. Its less than a month now until classes start back for us. I’ve still got some work I need to do for 2 of my summer classes. 2 of them I’ve gotten everything done with already.

I’m still going to try soon to write some more about my Thailand trip, I’ve gotten some questions through e-mail and I’ll try and answer some of those and give some more details now that I’ve had some time to reflect. Thats all for now. Watch out for those alley-cat sized sewer rats.

Well its been far too long since I’ve written. I promised some updates, and I’ll give several, but here is one to get started with. I got back Sunday night about 7:00 and since then I’ve been trying to get over a head cold and adjust back to the time difference. The combination of those two things at the same time is frustrating. Last night was my most normal schedule yet, I went to bed about 3 in the afternoon and got up about 5 this morning. I’m hoping today I’ll be able to stay up to a reasonable time. We’ll see.

I guess one of the first things I can say about my trip was that it was really good to see how God brought together the theme of the week and all the activities with the sermons I had prepared. We had three full worship services and two shorter ones. I was a little worried that my voice wasn’t going to last since I was singing for leading worship and then preaching right after that, but it turns out i didn’t lose my voice until the way home (connected with the cold I now have), which was definitely the best time to lose it if I was going to.

The first sermon was on the holiness of God and how the word “holy” often just becomes religious terminology that has little true meaning for us. I talked about what it really means when the Bible calls God holy and why that should matter to us from Isaiah 5:16-17. The second service I talked about how we have been made holy through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross from Hebrews 10:14. The aim of this message was to show that our sanctification is a work of God, not something was can take credit for. So the theme of that message was sanctification already completed and the theme of the last message was sanctification not yet completed. In the last service we talked about Philippians 3 and how Paul said he pressed on and strained ahead toward being made holy.

I tried to put all three messages together so that they gave a very full picture of what it means to be sanctified (sanctified was the theme for the week). Several of the youth commented that the way the messages came together in the end was really neat and I also got some comments that the individual messages really spoke to some of the students. So that was very encouraging.

As far as music went, we had some really good times as well. Its always good to lead worship for a group that comes prepared and excited to worship. And I really can’t say enough about the group of youth that we had. I think i wrote about this some in my last blog, but the group was such a fun group to be with because they really knew how to have a good time and also when it was time to be a little more serious.

Well I hope you check out the pictures and videos I’ve posted on some of the other pages. If you click on Thailand Photos (2nd from the top in the site menu), it’ll take you to the first page of photos and from there you can get to 3 more pages of photos and one page that has two short video clips on it. I’ll write back again soon with some more details from my trip.

In about 4 hours, I’ll be back on airplanes until I’m on the opposite side of the world, back in Louisville. I should get back around 6:00 on Sunday. The trip has been so much fun. The MKs (missionary kids) that we worked with were an incredible group of youth. Some of the most mature teenagers, both socially and spiritually, that I’ve ever been around and also some of the most fun. We didn’t have to worry about watching them every second and they were happy and content with anything we did. There’s probably never been a week of my life where I’ve heard so little complaining as this past week.

I’ve got tons of pictures from the week and I’ll post those when I get back to the US and have a good internet connection. I’ll also write a few more blog entries soon about different aspects of the trip: the week with the youth, the night market in Chiang Mai, the elephant camp I visited and some other things. Its been a really good week, like I said. I think I’m ready to come back home to a culture I’m a little more used to also. More to come…

Well here I sit in the Tokyo airport. 13 hours is way too long to have to ride in a cramped airplane. It really wasn’t too bad. They fed us it felt like every 30 minutes and the food wasn’t bad. The airport here in Tokyo has everything in English on the signs too so its not really like being in a foreign country yet. I met a group from North Carolina thats going to help with the missionary conference. We’re on the same flights so its been cool to talk to them a little bit. I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time today, and this is my first time in another country. Strange it should be Japan and not Canada or Mexico or something closer. Thats all the news for now.

There’s some good news to report in the search for a new church. I talked to a youth minister tonight who is looking for some help with music for his youth ministry. I’m visiting tomorrow morning to see what the church is like. I really enjoyed my talk with this youth pastor and I can tell we have similar ideas of what youth ministry should look like and integrate with the rest of church life.

I’m really looking for a place I can really plug in and help out at for this next year until I graduate this coming May. I think leading worship for youth would be an ideal place for it.

Of course I’ll visit tomorrow and then be gone to Thailand for a couple weeks so I’m not expecting anything to be firmed up for a little while now, but I’m pretty excited about the news so I figured I’d let everyone know.

The third lesson I’ve learned from my time at my last church is that people that don’t agree with a pastor’s decisions are not to be feared. In this and other churches I’ve been a part of, pastors have been quick to brush aside and marginalize those who question their judgment.

Now I realize that there are some people out there that will never be satisfied with a particular pastor, no matter what happens. These ungodly church makers continually sow disunity and gossip, and we know how hard-to-get-along-with these people can be. I’m sure these people exist. I’ve heard stories. I just haven’t met very many of them. Maybe thats just because I’m not a pastor yet and I’ll be singing a different song in a year or two. But right now, I remain convinced that most people that disagree with the leadership of a church really have the best interest of the church in mind.

So what should happen when a pastor has a significant part of his congregation that disagrees with the direction he wants to go with a church? In my thinking he has two primary options.

First, he can meet with those who disagree and spend more time trying to convince them his direction is best. This includes listening to the concerns of the dissenters and convincing them their concerns will be addressed sufficiently. In this, the pastor brings on board those who were perviously opposed to his leadership.

Second, if this group cannot be convinced their concerns will be addressed sufficiently, the pastor has left the option of revising his original plan and compromising with those who disagree with him. This also has the effect of unifying the church behind a common vision.

I do not see pushing an agenda through a church as an option. Maintaining unity in purpose and action is one of the jobs of a pastor. Even if, in the end, there is still a small (5-15%) group that disagrees with the direction, that group should be respected and not marginalized because they have honest disagreements. Thats my 3 cents anyways.

Continuing my series on lessons learned from my last church, lesson #2 would have to be: Church leadership is much more important than church government.

When I wrote my 34 Theses for the Contemporary American Church (available here) about 3 years ago, I had a couple of entries on issues of church government. I said that I thought the most effective way govern a church was to have several elders as the spiritual leaders of a church. I still stand by that. I think that is the best way to set up the way a church operates.

However, I’ve just been through a 6-month battle over a church constitution that was driven mainly by a desire to install elders in a church. The battle was waged by men who may have known how to govern a church, but fell far short of knowing how to lead one. Feelings were hurt, members were alienated, disunity reigned during this battle. Something of a church split has occurred as a result.

One thing I learned from this whole episode is that I’d take a church well-led but poorly-governed any day over a church thats well-governed but poorly-led.

What has this taught me as I look forward to he pastorate? I’ll likely be called to a church that is not led by a group of elders. And thats ok. That fact may not change while I am a pastor. And thats ok. Its not that big of a deal. Leading a church well is at the top of my priority list. Reforming church government is not.