A little bit of news about this blog. It is going to be down starting late Sunday/early Monday until probably Wednesday. Lots of changes will be taking place during that time. If all goes to plan there will be a whole new look to this blog. Nothing should change with your RSS feeds, so look for a post on Wednesday.
Rose and I are extremely grateful for all the gracious feedback we received from my post on Thursday. We received a lot of Facebook messages, phone calls, blog comments, and emails. Thank you friends.
Blogs
- 10 suggestions for blogging pastors.
- A plea to quit worshiping the worshipers.
- God is suffering with those who are suffering (as opposed to what Mr. Robertson would say).
- My social media friend Aaron Ivey was on CNN earlier this week to talk about Haiti, orphans, and adoption (he has children that were adopted and are in the process of adoption from Haiti).
- The Gospel for Portland.
- Don Miller’s response to Pat Robertson’s comments about Haiti earlier this week.
News
- Billboard fail.
- Why a Republican is leading the charge behind gay marriage in California.
- You too could be on the great show Glee. They’re using social media to add to their group.
- 7 traits of highly successful bloggers.
- Famous atheist, Christopher Hitchens, recently came to Portland to do a debate on atheism and Christianity (great stuff here, but I have to complain that the person debating him was a Unitarian minister who hardly even understood Christian doctrines).
Grace and peace.
Last year in one of my spiritual formation classes my prof had us take a small note pad with the goal of writing down “God sightings” during our day. Essentially it was the things that happened during our daily experiences that helped us experience God in that moment. My sightings went from the obvious “sunset” to the surprising “the homeless man begging for money by the MAX station.”
So you get the point. The hardest part of the assignment were the times when I found it more difficult to see God in my day. In the end the assignment became more about the reality of my heart at the time.
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Ever since high school Rose has struggled with medical depression (chemical imbalance). She has taken medication for it off and on since then. The past two months have been some of the worst for her, ever. And they have definitely been the worst since we’ve been married. The previous two to three years have actually gone very well for her. But right now, every day is a battle for her. It breaks my heart to be able to do so little to help her while seeing her go through this.
I’ve wrote on here a couple times about how the past few months have been a big struggle for us. Sure we’ve had a few curve balls thrown our way on top of moving and me starting a new job, but the biggest struggle has been navigating Rose’s latest struggle with depression.
If you were around Rose you probably wouldn’t notice much different. She is pretty good at faking it. Most days she is still able to work. Some days are worse than others. I am glad she is able to be herself at home with me but sometimes that is hard to see.
I don’t blog about myself much. And I’ve definitely never blogged about this. Partly to protect Rose, but partly because this is the part of our life that isn’t fun to share. We aren’t perfect…our lives aren’t perfect. We’re praying for God’s grace in our lives as much as possible.
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I can always tell how Rose is doing when I ask her to smile. She has the obvious (to me) fake smile, and then her real smile.
Seeing her smile these days is a special thing. A rare thing actually.
Last weekend I had a major God sighting. It was during our time away at the coast.
It was seeing my wife, Rose.
It was seeing her smile. A real, joyful smile.
(Some have asked, yes I did get permission from Rose to post this.)
Over the past week there have been 2 notable earthquakes. One hardly anyone knows about, it was in northern California…the other everyone knows about, in Haiti.
Northern California, with obvious exceptions, is able to handle strong earthquakes because they are somewhat typical. Haiti, on the other hand, is a third world country with no building codes or any ability to withstand a major earthquake.
The second I got a twitter update to my phone about the earthquake yesterday in Haiti I emailed my great friend Adam to make sure he was safe on the east end of the Dominican Republic. Hundreds of miles away he felt the quake but was safe. He did report to me the massive loss of life being reported there.
I’m a fairly tough guy, at least I like to think so…but what I’ve seen completely breaks my heart. For those of you who can stomach it I’d encourage you to go HERE and HERE to look at some pictures and a video of the damage.
I certainly can’t make you care about helping the Haitians that have been deeply affected by this. But if you do I want to encourage you to reach to these people by giving.
I am fairly sure you find yourself far away from Haiti, unable to do much other than watch this on tv. But it is certainly within our power to reach out to them in some way.
Here are four ways that you can give to these people in need:
I think almost anyone could lead an effective ministry in the short term, but few can lead one over a long haul.
I have noticed many times since I started working at a church two and a half years ago, that I have felt unmotivated to give my job its full attention. I wouldn’t call it burnout, more just a lack of energy and passion for church ministry.
When I fully examined the why, often I had given God little time or space to work within my life in those previous days or weeks. To say I’ve already learned the lesson that I need to give God time and space in my life would be a lie.
I have no doubt that it will be a lesson I will be continually learning as life goes on.
There will be ebbs and flows as with any relationship, but I have a strong desire to learn more of what it means to give God the time and space so he might be my portion and lead me to be an effective leader of the ministry God has placed me in.
Christian ministry is a lifetime calling on each of us, not a short term sprint.
Scott McClellan is the editor of Collide Magazine, an online magazine that focuses on technology and Christian faith. Last week he wrote an article for the magazine titled “How to Fail at Social Media.” A pretty catchy title if you ask me.
I’ve been called out for being a “social media cop” plenty of times before so I promise not to go there. And though I do believe it is possible to have a good pulse of what works in social media, I thought the list that McClellan provided was quite interesting. Here are some of the points he made that stuck out to me on failing at social media:
- Write a sub par article on social media.
- Try to be something you’re not.
- Try to grab an audience before you add value or content.
- Only talk about yourself.
- Be erratic.
- Forget to tell a story.
I basically agree with his points, but one stuck out to me, his last point: forget to tell a story. Here is how he explained that point:
Story is the language of the human heart. Facts inform, stories invite. Donald Miller says that stories—character, objective, conflict, resolution—are the way God changes us. That’s a big deal, right? And if our churches and ministries are producing stories of life change, don’t we bear some responsibility to share those stories? I think so, and social media is a wonderful tool to help us in that effort.
Certainly the “experts” on social media have largely missed this. We have learned that social media is all about content and we have learned that you have to add value to be useful in social media.
But if we aren’t sharing our story and the stories going on around us, I think we may have missed the social part of social media. In many ways I have missed this.
Sometimes in blogging the allure of writing something controversial is greater than sharing a meaningful story. And sometimes I give in to that allure.
Rose and I are about to head home from a short trip to the northern Oregon coast. We were there for about a day and a half. The weather was awful but it was a lot of fun to watch the storms roll in and out with a great view for it. We aren’t able to get out of town by ourselves too often (only a few times since we got married) so this was a real treat.
I went on a run on the beach Friday morning (I love running on the beach but it sure is hard to figure out how far you’ve gone) and I found THIS on my run. Don’t ask me how I picked it out from all the other shells on the beach. I got lucky.
Blogs
- Rick Warren asked his church to help cover a close to $1 million budget shortfall. The church responded with well over $2 million. Wow.
- Another great rapture theory (sarcasm alert)….
- This reflected my thoughts from the past few weeks quite well.
- Emotions online.
- Bob Hyatt shared 5 things he loved about the “emerging church.”
News
- Bono shares 10 things for the next 10 years. Typical Bono…with some solid insight.
- 3 reasons not to drink diet Coke or Pepsi.
- Survivor’s cast for “Heroes vs. Villains” has been released. It is going to be AMAZING.
- Is there a correlation between record breaking skyscrapers being built and economic depression?
Have a great weekend.
