Archives for April 2008

I just read an interesting article about homeless shelters and it brought to mind a humorous story from when I used to pastor a church down in MD.  We had a guy who gave his life to Christ after having lived a very rough life, including having lived on the streets at various times in his life.  He was/is a great guy and was passionate that we start a homeless ministry in our church.  The problem was the town we were in only had a population of a few hundred and definitely didn’t have any homeless people.  He was adamant though that we spend a lot of time and money equipping the church for this ministry. 

The lesson of course is you have to know your area and reach out in the way that will make the biggest impact.  Now yo might say, “But Gilbert what if you could have reached even just one homeless person?  Wouldn’t that have made it all worth it?”  The answer is two-fold…yes, everyone matters to God, but at the same time we’d have to ask “How many people did we fail to reach because we spent all of our time and money on something that had a minimal impact?” 

This is called the “Cost of Opportunity Lost” and it applies well to our current series where were looking at how to have margin in our lives.  For every thing you say yes to with your time or money, you are by default saying no to hundreds of other things, some of which would have been a much better use of your limited resources.  So before you jump at the next thing that sounds like a good idea, stop and ask yourself, “Is this a God idea?”

As I mentioned the other day I went to a Catholic Church and a lot of it was very confusing because I didn’t know the customs, rituals or language. Let me give you an example that will illustrate it for you and be fun for me and a few others. Each of the following words or phrases are stink’in hilarious to me and one other person for each one…to you it will appear confusing and you’ll feel left out…that’s intentional…I want you to feel that emotion and realize that when we interact with non-Christians in the community or in our church they often times feel the exact same way because of our insider language. So here we go…13 phrases that 9 people will get at least 1 of them and laugh out loud.   In the coming days I’ll reveal the identities. 

• “Schmoopie.”
• “That’s awesome.”
• “Oh carp.”
• Another one for the same person…”I’ve upped my standards…”
• “Say hello to Carlos, or Juan, or Jose’ or whatever his name was.”
• “How long is the line?  Very good.”
• This is for two people…”Sheetz is hiring.”
• For siblings…”Peace in the middle east…Word to your mother.”
• “Thank you Jesus that no one was injured during this job.”
• “Hello loser.”
• “Use dynamite…save time.”
• “I said all that to say this.”
• “GDT#3 don’t mess with me.”

• Friday I found out the flat tire was not defective but rather I had run over something.  Paul took care of it…again I highly recommend him if you need any auto work done.
• I also attended a funeral on Friday in a Catholic Church.  It was a great reminder to me that people feel very uncomfortable coming into a church for the first time.  They did a lot of things that while I’m sure was very meaningful to them, made me very uncomfortable because I didn’t know when to stand or sit, what to say or sing, etc.
• The above is one reason you hear me say a lot of the same things over and over again each week…yes to you it may seem repetitive, but for the first timer coming in, I want to make sure they understand what is going on and what is expected of them. 
• I’m also evaluating some other things to make sure we’re not assuming knowledge in areas where maybe we shouldn’t be.
• I then got my haircut…wow I hate when my hair gets long…hey no bald jokes…I’ve still got plenty on the sides.
• Saturday with a quick small groups meeting in the morning.  Many thanks to Dan Krull for taking the lead on these along with Jodi Zeis and running with this. 
• If you are not yet a part of a small group, you need to be…stop by the small groups table in the main lobby to meet Dan and find a group that’s right for you.
• Saturday afternoon Lisa and I drove west on Rt. 30 all the way to McConnellsburg , enjoying the beautiful day, the scenery and hoping to find a nice restaurant along the way….uhhh…we’re still waiting.  Anyone have a suggestion?  I was even willing to eat at the bar at the top of the mountain, but wow was it smoky…my asthma wouldn’t have handled that too well.
• Saturday night we chilled out…big props to Dennis Koontz for making this possible.
• You already know what happened Sunday morning.
• Sunday night was by far the best lesson in our current series in CAYA. 
• And then afterwards we had our Wii Bowling Tournament. 
• Each team had to come up with a team name.  Carrie Schofield was on my team and we named ourselves, “The Predestined Winners”. 
• Now if this is the part where you think I eat humble pie because we were way to confidient, you would be…..wrong.  We crushed the competition.
• Yeah, that’s how I roll!   :)

Have you ever played one of those games where you see a picture from up close of an object and you have to guess what it is?  Well look at this picture that I posted and see if not only you can determine what it is, but also why I took it.  Scroll down to see the answer.

If you guessed it’s a tire you’re correct.  If you’re guessing that the big hole in the middle of it is not a good thing you’d be doubly correct.  Today for the first time ever I got a flat tire.  What’s funny is that the tire is only 1 day old with about 30 miles on it…I don’t care who you are…that works out to be a pretty expensive tire.

Gene came outside to help me and let’s just say that the NASCAR guys should feel pretty secure in their jobs.  Oh well, we got to enjoy about 20 minutes of the beautiful day.  Thank you God for flat tires!?