Yesterday at church, there was plenty of behind the scenes issues with technical difficulties.  Our computer in our Kids room is an older system and takes the right sequence of button pushings, etc to get it running smoothly.  I usually turn it on and do all those button pushings, but since I’ll be away for vacation in a few weeks, I wanted to make sure the team knows all those goodie steps. (In the midst of that, the computer in the main sanctuary went down a couple days earlier and the team was rustling to put it back together still on Sunday morning.)

To make a long story short, eventually during the song worship aspect of Kids church the iTunes also was not responding.  So what did they do?

Well, to summarize, the Student song leaders lead the kids into songs and dance with no music!  Everyone experienced worship through song in it’s rawest form.  Singing and dancing went on just like it did for thousands of years before loud speakers were invented.  The Kids and adults were forced to know the words (the essence of what worship is about) and as it turns out, they really enjoyed themselves.

Thanks kids for teaching us a little something through this experience. Psalm 8:2  “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.” Take that computer!

The idea behind forgetting is one of those things that make you think.  Why is it that we forget almost everything the moment we walk away from it? Seriously.

Certainly in some instances, it’s a clear God-given gift.  In other places, it would be wonderful to have the ability to just remember what you just learned or read or saw so you can build off of that.  It’s like when you wake up from sleep, you’re dumb again.

Anyways, I even forgot why I wanted to write a post on forgetting. Oh well, maybe I’ll remember later. That’s weird.

I have about 5 blogs that I read.  I like the ones that write short posts.  The point of writing, for me, is that it forces me to think before speaking.  You read it in 39 seconds, it takes me longer to write, backspace, write, start over, change the title, stare into the screen to capture just the right sentence structure. Sometimes, blogging or writing in a journal really helps the writer discover truth by being able to think about it enough to put it into words.

I honestly can’t read that much before my brain explodes.  I read slow and I read a lot of different things before I finish.  I read those 5 or so blogs, I read the bible (I’m on a read through the bible in two years plan), I have about 6 books on my desk that I’ve started and 2 on my iPod.  Not to mention all the facebook and twitter updates that I’m already missing.  To be honest, the bible is the only book I read on a consistent level.  The others ones I read depending on my mood and time.

The writer of Psalm 119 talks about how he “meditates” on God’s word and the benefit he gleans by thinking over and over and over about what God says.  That’s where I want to get.  Read some, Think more.

My point is that I’ve learned that there are a lot of books I would like to read and there is a lot of wisdom to gain from these (and even a lot of Bible that I could just blaze through), but at some point I have to build in time to process what I’ve read and maybe find ways to put it into practice in order to truly gain the wisdom that the writer communicates, who, outside of God, has spent 40 times the amount it takes than for you and I to read it.

From this same passage that I talked about yesterday, are some pretty practical “how to’s” to be a good shining light in this world.  Most of the time, we want to think about the good that we can do to be shining lights, the activities that we can be involved in, etc.  Those are good, but Philippians 2 goes to the heart of the matter again. Our attitude needs to be that of Jesus Christ: selflessness.

One verse right in the middle of all this attitude talk is “do everything without grumbling or arguing” (v. 14).  This is where attitude comes alive!  To be honest, I am the KING of grumbling/murmuring/complaining and arguing/giving my opinion/doubting/over questioning.  Sometimes, this is called the gift of analyzing to the maximum.  Really, it is sin that stems in some sinful, unholy, un-biblical, humanistic-thinking beliefs.

No longer do I try to “work out my salvation with fear and trembling” (v. 12) as though God is at work in me and the world (v. 13).  I minimize God and look only at people and their shortcomings.  I compare people with people and complain that this so and so will never be as good as so and so and that shouldn’t be so.  I become judgmental! The bad kind! Judging in the sense of discernment is good, but this not the kind of judging that grumbling and arguing creates.

As the master of this sin, I tell you that no good will ever increase until you are able to captivate your thoughts, seek to find any truth/falseness of those thoughts with God and Scripture, look only at the “beam of wood” in your own eye, confess the sin, and begin again with the attitude of selflessness for the bigger purpose of bringing God glory to the world, strive to live in that passion, and when failure, repeat steps.

Yesterday, our pastor, Marty Holman spoke a message about Honor.  It’s quite a good one and starts at the end of the issue when it comes to honor: selflessness.  There was this concept in this message from Philippians 2 that made good discussion in our Student Ministry small group.

“so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without blemish though you live in a crooked and perverse society, in which you shine as lights in the world” (v. 15).

The question is: how do you see your light? as a shooting star? a firecracker? a single star? or one among many covering the sky causing people to be awed by the grandeur of the expanse?

At different times, we are like each of those.  Some situations cause us to be a shooting star, saying “yo yo over here, LOOK UP!!” and then the opportunity is gone.  Other times we have to be ready to shine in all our majesty as God created us when people are staring, watching, waiting to see what happens when we explode.  Other times we have to continue shining bright when it seems that none of the other stars around us are ready to shine.  Other times we need to not try to be the brightest and biggest star and allow the people of the world to be simply awed at the huge “oneness” the stars can create together.

Shining Lights.  That’s what we are created to be.  How did you shine today?

I’ve been reading “Holy Discontent” by Bill Hybels.  It’s a thought provoking subject and he gives good advice in finding that one deep purpose, that motivation in life that gets you cranked to give whatever time, energy and resources it takes to get it done.  For some, it’s feeding the poor or clothing the homeless or bringing awareness to international crime, or taking care of the elderly neighbor.  Whatever it is, there is something that when you look at it, are around it, you just can’t stand it any longer!

I’m thinking that mine has to do something with the local church and also with the bible.  I find the bible a very relevant and practical book that needs to be read by every person.  And especially those who called themselves Christ-followers, they should live and breathe to know more about God through it.  I love reading the bible and talking about it with others.

Also when it comes to the church, I can be extremely frustrated to see followers of Christ blow off meeting together as though it doesn’t make a difference to their lives.  I get extremely frustrated to see followers of Christ just show up on a Sunday and left seemingly unaffected by or to another person.

I mean Jesus Christ himself said He was going to start this thing called the Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.  This Church is the body of believers, the gatherings of those who call themselves disciples of Jesus, Christians!  Where two or more are gathered together, God is with them.  God, the Holy Spirit, currently resides in every believer. So why would we neglect or brush off the thing that Jesus Christ started and in which God designed to energize us as we live in this broken world, full of broken people sinning against us?  We say life is tough, our weeks are stressed, and so we skip out on the local church or our small group or even just connecting with another believer and talk things out like friends do.

It amazes me that Paul in Hebrews admonished the people not to forget about getting together only some 30 years after Christ started it (Hebrews 10:25).  The temptation is real and it’s so easy to do, but we must fight against it and fall in love with Christ and His Church, all the more as we see the Judgment Day approaching.

Proverbs 17:17  “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

This verse is the oddest verse in Proverbs 17.  It just doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the context.  Before and after this statement are verses describing a fool in their lifestyle, character, and dealings with money and other people.

This verse is so commonly to mean that a friend will love at all times and family is born to help in time of need.  Kinda like a “blood is thicker than water” statement.  In fact, the New English Translation puts a note at the bottom stating: “…is born for adversity.” This is not referring to sibling rivalry but to the loyalty a brother shows during times of calamity. This is not to say that a brother only shows loyalty when there is trouble, nor that he always does in these times.”

However, I tend to think that given the context of Proverbs 17 and even reading the history of families in Genesis that it isn’t too far reaching to suggest the verse means “a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born so you can have someone to fight with.”

Growing up with a twin brother (we fought when we were young a lot but always had a great relationship) and hearing of all the family issues that every family deals with, the application and understanding of the verse this way is somewhat reassuring.  And you can’t but laugh a little inside knowing that Solomon understood family feuds.  They were in every family since Adam and Eve. And if we didn’t have family to fight with, we would fight with our friends, but then we wouldn’t have any friends. Praise God for families.

This past weekend, July 4th fell on a Sunday.  Our church, Fellowship Church, holds an outdoor service the first Sunday of July for the past 7 years.  So last November, we put on the calendar to have a Family Experience as our outdoor service. Our Family Experience is a time where the kids and the adults get together for a shared worship experience, full of drama, dancing, music and comedy.  The message of the experience centers around one virtue, in which the kids will be or have already just learned for the month. This July 4th, we combined the virtue of Responsibility (done in June) and Service (to be done in July).

Months of preparation go into a FmExp.  The dance team leader, Carie Holman, gets with me about 2 1/2 months out and we hash out the theme and some song selection.  She then gets the team of dancers together (there were 13 dancers this time) and with the help of some other dance coordinators create dance moves for the 2-3 new songs (we do 4 or 5 total).  The dance team practices every week for a couple of hours for the next two months on these moves and songs.

During this time, I’ve reviewed all the available scripts (they are a part of our kids curriculum and I would recommend it to any church) and picked the best “Credible/Comic Intro Sketch,” “Main Drama Skit,” and “Main Bible Storytelling” Skits.  Then I sent out a call to some actors/actresses and hand out parts according to the needs.  I usually play the part of Credible Host and main bible storyteller.  For the next month, I’m practicing lines, coordinating schedule practices, finding props, working on sound effects and music transitions, creating visuals and video intros, etc.  Then during the week of the event, I’m getting the set put together, and making sure the visuals are ready for the production team.  We do one big dress rehearsal that week with everyone together and then it comes “show-time!”

For the 4th, we kept it shorter because of the heat and all.  Normally it is around 65 minutes, this one was 40 minutes.  Being outside of course has it own issues like sound microphone issues. Probably wouldn’t need microphones, but we were also recording the show on camera and wanted the best quality for that as well, especially as we use this for our online viewing and will use the video during our kids court booth at this years Holden Days.

All in all, the crowd tells me it was just great and we always have a great time doing it too.  And here are a few pics of the FmExp.

It doesn’t take long to find research that shows that Christianity is on the decline since the 1990′s and that the fastest growing religions in the United States are Deism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.  Christianity (and I suppose we should really define what makes a Christian, but I won’t here) is supposedly the number one religion in America, but the percentages are in slow decline .  Christianity in the world is on the rise though. So what’s the deal?

I believe that America could find itself like England or parts of Europe that once were the headquarters for Christianity, but now find themselves as destinations for missionaries. Often times, prosperity turns people from seeing the need of a god and this has often been the case in these countries too, along with religious/political corruption that other religious people eventually stood up to fight against.

Not trying to sound gloom, but just trying to provoke a stirring in those who call Christ their Savior and God to become fully devoted followers of Him and not allow comfortability and selfishness creep in unaware. Hunger and thirst for that relationship with God as you once did when you first believed.

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 “You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth,”