BST's Blog

OK--I ranted a bit about Corporate Church yesterday and then had an amazing experience last night. As I have said, I love this place. I love the diversity. I love the freedom. I love the expressions that are so genuine and unique. I am a blessed man to be on staff with people passionate about the Lord. I am blessed to serve under an eldership who hungers for God. MAN! Seriously!! I am so blessed.

So, last night, at the emergent type service we have on Wednesdays, Scott talked about fruit. He encouraged us to think about the fruit we were producing for the Master. The stations included one where you take a seed and consider whether our seed is good or bad and then plant it in a pot of dirt essentially putting to death all that is not holy in us.

There was another station that was covered in fruit. We were invited to take some fruit and eat as we wrote down on a card what kinds of fruit we wanted more of in our lives. What kinds of fruit do you desire more of? I know it was an easy thing for me to write. There are a couple I long to have in more abundance.

The other station was an encouragement station where we were invited to write encouragement notes to people and leave them in a bucket to be mailed.

There were also Shepherds there to pray over people if they desired. I never made it that far, but always love that.

It was nice to sit an meditate for a while. It was even strangely nice to hear a college student struggle through leading a couple of songs at the beginning. As hard as it was to listen to, it was certainly authentic. One of our college students, Amanda Henry, read a passage from the Psalms. It was wonderful! Sonya Colvert and her husband Bobby sang and played guitar for the final worship set and it was the perfect way to end.

Speaking of scripture reading, Adam and Donna Hester did a class on drama in worship services at the conference last weekend. They talked about scripture reading at one point. My mom was telling me some about their comments. I wish I could have all of our public readers listen to the CD of their class. It's so important as we read scripture aloud to read with understanding, inflection, and passion. I cannot stand it when people get up to read scripture and sound like they are reading an obituary (and poorly, I might add). Many times as we have congregational readings I will stop mid sentence and have everyone begin again and "this time, let's read it like we really mean what we're saying". It's not that people don't mean it, it's just that sometimes we worship leaders have to help people think about what we do in corporate assemblies so as to not just trudge through. I am not saying we have to read everything with a dramatic flare--that could even be worse. I'm just saying how important it is for us to take everything we're doing in that context and make it the most real, genuine, heartfelt offering we can.

Good comments on McLarin. Clearly, he has some great ideas. We must be able to translate and, as someone said, do the harder job of allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us boldly as we forge new ground and honor God. Isn't it ironic..as Phil mentioned that "new ground" isn't really new at all. It might mean just a return to the Great Commission. While missional churches might be redundant, it's a sad truth that many of our churches have to begin to think differently and adopt redundant terminology in order to wake us from our long term, navel gazing daydream.

In other news, while we grapple with "churchy- churchikin" stuff, many of our families in our churches are walking difficult roads. We cannot lose sight of those hurting in our midst. While we had an amazing testimony Sunday by Maria Creech about Julia who has been cleared of Cystic Fibrosis (PRAISE THE LORD!!!!), I looked out into faces of others who were literally waiting on life or death test results to come in, a divorce to finalize, a parent to breathe their last breath, or waiting for the moment to finally confess and lay down addictions. My heart is heavy this week for Jennifer Goodman. Please be praying for her. Her husband, Randy, is the president of Lyric Street Records (Rascal Flats, etc) and they have two small kids. Jennifer found out a few weeks ago that she has breast cancer. They also found it in 17 lymph nodes. She got great news this week that her bone scan and organ scan came back clear, however she is in surgery right now. Please lift this family up. They are very special to all of us at Otter Creek. Jennifer is one of our Ministry Coordinators (what we call our deacons).

Father, for all those hurting, we ask your hand of grace and healing. For all those searching, we ask that we find YOU over systems and methods. For all those discouraged, give us your eyes. For all those ready to give up, please remind us that you have not left us as orphans. For all those in in leadership, give us soft and moldable hearts. You are so good to us.