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Adventures in Portland

November 21, 2009 in Church Planting, Daily Musings, Travel, Videos with 2 Comments

Portland_skyline Last week I took a little trip to Portland to connect with a church planter from Vancouver and to take in an ARC 'Church Planter's Round Table' – one of the steps in their assessment process. It was a great trip. Not only is Portland probably the 'coolest' city I've ever been to, but it is home to my beloved Rogue (which I made sure to tour while I was there) and the surrounding area is just as beautiful as everyone says it is. While I was there I also had the opportunity to hang with my buddy Jon and spend an evening with my brother Josh, making for one stellar trip.

For anyone interested in potentially planting or partnering with ARC, let me just say this: this organization is the REAL DEAL. It's no coincidence that prolific leaders like Craig Groeschel and Mark Batterson have chosen to get on board with ARC even though it isn't "their baby," or that the fastest growing churches in the country the last two years were the first two churches planted by ARC. It's not by ARC chance that 92% of ARC's church plants succeed, compared to the national average of less than 20%.  These guys are legit.

And more than just knowing what they're doing, just as importantly, they are exceptionally wonderful people. There was no aura of "we're right and everyone else is wrong," but rather, they graciously gave props to other great church planting orgs (which was very refreshing). When it comes down to it, it seems that they just love Jesus and people and as a result, want to help church planters plant great churches. The entire experience was gracious, personal and genuine. I left thinking, "These are the kinds of people I want to be associated with." I can't recommend ARC high enough to anyone personally considering planting a church and to existing churches looking to get involved in church planting.

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Predestined to be a Scientologist

April 17, 2009 in Daily Musings, L.A., Mosaic, Religion, Travel with 3 Comments

Scientology2 This past week me and the protege crew spent a morning touring a Scientology center in, of all places, Hollywood. This has been on our "to-do" list for some time now and it was great to finally get to do it. Part of our reason for going had to do with our discussion about tribes, but the main goal was to experience what it felt like to be on the other side of high pressure evangelism. Unfortunately, they knew we were a group of Christians before we got there so I think we got the non-fat version.

Aside from a hilarious South Park episode (which they cited as an obnoxious headache), I really didn't know much about Scientology prior to my experience the other day. After our rather vague tour that primarily centered around what an amazingly swell guy L. Ron Hubbard was, I still feel there is a lot I don't know. The thing we were a part of
was more like a introductory 'first experience' type thing. Although we asked a lot of
questions, the answers we got were pretty vague and some actually contradicted things we had heard from those with friends deep into Scientology. It felt more like a PR session catered just for us, but I still learned some interesting things I thought I'd share.

Though you'd never guess it with their horrendous sci fi looking book covers, they
are really good at marketing. They know how to draw people in, connect with them, and get 'em 'hooked' without ever having to address the truth behind the truth.
And at least on the front end, I can totally see why Scientology has the kind of following it does. They boast about it being the
one major world religion started in the 20th century (a rather odd thing to boast about, if you ask me), and frankly, it is
exactly the type of religion you would expect to be birthed out of the
20th century. The things they champion are generally good: keeping
street drugs out of the hands of kids; helping people become better
leaders, better communicators, better human beings; encouraging personal health and success; making families
stronger and homes healthier environments for kids to be raised in. These are all good things that most of us can agree on.

Scientology3 Their focus is
intellectual and rational, they celebrate knowledge as progression (think "modern"), and interact a lot with popular psychology. They also
acknowledge that God exists (something the vast majority of people are willing to
agree with) and they will even go as far as to say that "if we miss God, we miss
everything." Interestingly, their worship services look just like a church. They have a pulpit, the attenders sit
in rows, they baptize babies, do weddings, worship
together, even have a leather bound bible (though not called that) written by L. Ron
Hubbard himself, filled with sermons for all different kinds of occasions.

They proudly admit to sampling from
every major religion and then, perhaps most importantly, they affirm people's personal beliefs while
giving themselves and everyone else permission to agree to disagree on
most everything spiritual. We hung out with a woman who is an ordained
minister and she outright said, "God is the most important thing there
is. And there is only one God. There is not a god of the Jews, and a god of the
Muslims, a god of the Mormons, etc. There is only one God…" (alright,
sounds good, I am tracking with this lady so far…then she
says,) "But what God is for me is probably very different than what God
is for you."

Bam. There it is. They have essentially taken the
things we can all affirm as 'good', championed those things and
invested their resources in helping people with them, and then
subtracted the one thing that every disillusioned Christian,
atheist, apostate, and postmodern thinker has a problem with: the idea that one belief is 'right' and
other beliefs are wrong. They have essentially created a community that both empowers personal development and acknowledges spirituality, without ever having to articulate what that spirituality is, allowing each person to define it for him or herself. From our brief introduction to Scientology last week, it almost seems to be the perfect man-made religion.

Flakey Bloggers Unite

January 12, 2009 in Current Affairs, Daily Musings, Photo Blogs, Travel with 0 Comments

**Has it really been 9 weeks since my last post?! Something tells me that isn't too good for one's readership (my statcounter, for one). My apologies. These last couple months of silence have been busy and have involved a lot of inner turmoil. I have been wrestling with expectations, confronting some of my own shortcomings, questioning whether or not I desire to be in vocational ministry again someday, (and just in case the answer to that question turns out to be "no") playing with some other possibilities, trying to figure out how to be a better husband, and engaging the age old practice of having fun. But all that to say that I think I have finally come out the other end – in a much better place than where I started – and ready to get back in the blogging saddle again.**

And just what would a triumphant re-entry into bloggerdome be without some snapshots of my last couple months? If you answered "lame", you'd be exactly right. So here goes…

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In mid November we headed back to Lincoln for my brother Jake's wedding. The first order of business was the bachelor party. We rented a limo, dressed up in our finest pirate garb and headed out on the town for a night of pillaging and rock'n roll. For anyone looking for bachelor party ideas, I highly recommend this one. From the impromptu sidewalk sword fights, to the epic limo gun battles, to the autographs and stares at Yia Yia's downtown, this was one for the ages. (I am not liable for expletive gestures.)

N500811008_1335128_8594 The next night was the night of the rehearsal dinner. We didn't really have any ideas for an after party. Then we found out that the State Theater was at our disposal, if we wanted it. After a quick brainstorming session, we ran out and got a dozen assorted nerf guns and headed to the theater for an epic nerf battle. No would could have guessed this night would turn out to be even better than the previous one. Perhaps it was the drunk pub patrons pasionately cheering us on through the windows, the incredible layout of twisted hallways and bases, or the opportunity for all of us to be 12 again, but whatever the case, most of us agree it was one of the funnest nights of our lives.

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The following day was the big one. It was a beautiful wedding filled with both moving and hilarious moments (the hilarious ones I can't really share on here, so you'll have to use your imagination). 

Wedding2

After the ceremony, the wedding party hopped on a party bus to celebrate before rejoining everyone at the Lodge at Wilderness Ridge for the dance party to end all dance parties. We figuratively and literally tore the dance floor up!

Wedding 

It was a fitting way to celebrate Jake & Allie's new marriage and
it wrapped up what was easily one of the funnest three days stretches
of my life.

Plgive_ptloma1I spent most of the last week of November at beautiful Point Loma in San Diego for Strengths Coach training with Gallup. All I gotta say is that it is a good thing I didn't visit this school while I was in high school because it just might have inspired me to become a Nazarene. It also turned out that my good buddy Derick was in town celebrating his birthday, so I got to crash with him in a suite at the Hard Rock Hotel (easily the coolest hotel I've ever stayed at) and hang with some of his fellow firefighters (great guys) in SD's gas lamp district (which absolutely shames downtown L.A.) The training? Oh yea, that was good too. Really.

KimballLast month I had the wonderful opportunity of spending some time with Dan Kimball while he was in town. He and his lead pastor, Josh (great guy!), met with us to talk about the protege program. (For anyone interested, they will be launching their own protege program at Vintage Faith in Santa Cruz this fall!) Dan has been an instrumental and influential voice of clarity in the emerging church movement for some time now. His Emerging Worship was one of my favorite resources for ideas and discussion when I served as a worship pastor. I have to say that I was so impressed and encouraged by Dan's kind and humble spirit, his hunger for understanding, and his interest in little people (like myself). Although he is a bonafide rock star in many circles, he still comes off as someone who is genuinely accessible and endlessly loyal. Spending time with him was truly an honor.

Xmas 

Since Megan is relatively new to her job and we just took time off for the wedding in November, we spent Christmas here in L.A. with my sister-in-law's family. It was a really good time and very relaxing. (Notice picture of me toting the video camera like a good dad.) Also, just in case you were wondering, Amy Grant was right: Christmas in L.A. does make for a warm holiday.

Newyears

We had roughly a dozen people staying in our apartment for New Year's. It was filled with much dancing, rocking out, cranium (guy's won), and shouting at the church group camping underneath our balcony. The next morning we got up, watched the Rose Bowl Parade from our balcony (very cool), and then cheered on our Husker's as they beat out Clemson in the Gator Bowl! It was a great way to ring in the new year!!

Alright, I think I am finally caught up! Now, lets move on to some substance…