I’m now running the site straight from my domain: tapdraw.net.

Make sure to update your bookmarks, links and feed readers (both of you.)

Go there for all the old links…

Ran across this on Raffi’s blog by accident.  With all due respect, I think these are interesting numbers to take a look at:

At the Orchard, we thought we would add another voice to the Presidential Debate that is coming to town on Sept. 26th.  That’s why we are going to be involved in a series called “Change We Can Count On” during all next month.  It will be a great opportunity for us to really dissect issues like Hope, Change, Leadership, Patriotism and Government in general.

I don’t really know of anyone who watches politics as closely as I do.  The funny thing is that the longer and longer this Presidential Race goes on, the less and less I feel like I am learning about the two men who are running.  In fact, I think that this race says a lot more about the 300 million other Americans who aren’t running, but who are desperately being wooed by running mate selection, sold-out stadium speeches, flip-flopping, attack ads, etc..  Who have we become?  What do we want?  

This is going to be an interesting month.

Please note: no candidates will be endorsed or harmed during the preaching of this series.

Thanks to Ellen Cantwell for the poster.

BTW, we totally ripped off the layout from Granger.

Classic

A full email exchange between “Blue Like Jazz” Author Donald Miller and Presidential candidate Barack Obama has been posted on Miller’s new blog.  It’s great.  Here’s an excerpt.

Mr. Obama,

Wow. I’m shocked. How did you get my e-mail address? I signed up on a clip board a cute hippie handed me, did you get my address from her? Do you know her? Can you ask her to call me? Anyway, no biggie, just cool that you wrote.

I wanted to talk to you after the rally but the guy with the curly earphones said you were busy. As for your e-mail, I don’t remember saying “the time has come to get beyond the same old tactics that divide and distract us,” but that’s exactly how I feel. I say a lot of things I don’t remember. My roommate Jordan said I said he could eat my leftover calzone from Pizzicatta but I don’t remember saying that and I know I was planning on having it for breakfast the next day.

Anyway, I hear you are going to Europe. I was thinking about trying to get over there myself but the exchange rate is nuts. My friend Karl said he pad nine bucks for a pint. That’s out of my league. Are you backpacking? Staying in hostels? Watch out in Amsterdam, that place is crazy. Write back about that hippie girl.

I gotta go.

Don

Read the rest here.

Here Miller’s prayer at the DNC on the youtubes:

I wondered at first why he didn’t bow his head and close his eyes, but then I realized that he was reading off of a teleprompter.  Lots to remember.  I thought he did a good job.  What do you think?

In case you were wondering about the part that the audio was lost for, click here to read it.

Quick video from the back of the room.  It was great to have everybody back together again.

Reasons and Disclaimer

One thing that we have been blessed with at The Orchard Oxford is a plethora of college students.  They add a great deal of excitement, passion and volume to our church.  From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to be a church in Oxford where everyone, including students could find their place.

There is an often-quoted statistic that says that nearly 80% of high school seniors will walk away from the church and their faith by the time they graduate from college.  This should keep us awake at night out of concern not only for their lives, but for the future of the church as well.  At the Orchard, this has driven us to include “investing in the church of future generations” as a part of our overall mission.  We feel like this is especially important in the shadow of the number 2 party school in the country.

What have I learned about reaching out to college students over the past 2 years?:

• Speak the truth.  They want AND need it.
• Ask them about how the church can serve and include them.  Then listen.
• Create space for questions and doubts.  Reference them and then address them at time in your preaching.
• As a Pastor: DON’T TRY TO BE DONALD MILLER.  No matter how cool your glasses are, you can never be that smooth.  Be yourself.  Be an authentically loving shepherd/father/husband/person before them and they’ll respect you for it.
• Connect them to your Mission.  That’s what they are looking for.
• Create places for them to serve and connect with the full Body at your church.

I get a lot of questions about computer/website/technical solutions that our church uses.  Here are some answers:

Computer:

We use Macs.  You can find page after page after page on the internet about why they are better than PCs and I’ll have to agree.  For church planting, Macs are great because they allow for easy use of media (music, video editing, podcasting) and they work with a nifty program called ProPresenter (see below).  Other than that, they just work, plain and simple.  And now, Mac iWork 08 Software is nearly 100% compatible with any PC program or file, so you don’t have to worry about problems when communicating with people who don’t use them.

I’m currently using a new MacBook with Leopard and iLife ‘08.  I did have a MacBook Pro until a few weeks ago when death did us part after a sad car tire incident.  Just because it looks like metal doesn’t mean it can support a Corolla’s weight.  When it was time to buy a replacement, we realized that the MacBook could do everything that we needed the Pro to do…and it was cheaper.

Website:

I do it all seamlessly on iLife 08’s version of iWeb.  It’s so freaking easy.  Here’s how.

-First, we got a domain name (theorchardoxford.net) at a domain hosting site (we use godaddy.com and have had no problems).

-Then we got a .Mac account for $99/year.  .Mac is now called MobileMe, but it works the same way.  This is a great bargain for churches to have because not only can you use it to host your website, but also to sync contacts, calendars and other information across multiple Macs.

Note: The .Mac/MobileMe transition had been glitchy on Apple’s end, but we haven’t had any problems with our web hosting at all.   Hopefully, they will solve all of their problems soon.

-Next, we pointed our godaddy domain to our MobileMe account like this.  We had to be patient, sometimes it take a few hours for changes to take effect when working with domain settings

-Finally, we set up iWeb to publish to our MobileMe account.

After that, we could use iWeb’s easy design to import text, pictures, audio and even video onto our site.

Podcast:

We record straight from the sound board into iLife 08’s GarageBand via USB interface like this one.  We then upload it into an iWeb podcast page and people can listen to it streaming.  Blake did some internetz magic and made it appear in iTunes too.  I’ll update when I figure out how he did it.

Worship Service Support:

As I mentioned, we use a program called ProPresenter on Sundays.  It’s very easy to use and easy to train volunteers to use.  Looks nice too.

Communication:

I run all of the church’s communication from my GMail account.  We also use Google Apps along with our domain (it’s free) so everyone can have an email address with firstname@theorchardoxford.net.

Information:

37signals.com

Besides keeping contact information in my gmail account, we also use HighRise.  This way I can keep track of people and sync information with other staff people at the church.  HighRise has a lot of other great features and is very helpful for churches.

We also use BackPack for collaborative projects.

Both of these products are both affordable and slick.

For other ideas: check out pastorhacks.net

Reasons and Disclaimer

One other thing that I’ve learned about preaching is the value of preaching larger sections of scripture at a time.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. People learn more about the context of the story and it ensures that I don’t bend the Word around my own agenda for the day.  Instead I am forced to let the Story speak for itself.
2. It gets the listeners more interested in reading the Bible.  As you preach through larger sections of the book, more and more loose ends begin to connect.  This brings people to a place where they want to read more to see what else can get tied up in there.
3. It challenges me to deal with verses that are hard to talk about or that I don’t understand, like to think about or that I haven’t made room for in my heart yet.  Here’s a good example:

Two weeks ago, I talked about feet in the Bible.  It’s weird, I know, but there’s a lot about feet in the Bible – you should check it out sometime.

My main passage was from John 13, when Jesus washes His disciples feet.  I was talking about servanthood and humility and everything is pretty cut and dry until you get a little exchange that Jesus and Peter have in verses 8-10:

Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”

Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean.

To me, this is an odd statement that Jesus has made.  I figured it had something to do with the ceremonial washing that the Jewish people did in that day, so I consulted my stack of commentaries**.  Turns out, many scholars believe that Jesus is referencing the fact that when we are baptized, we put to death the sins that we have committed up to that point in our life.  From then on, to find forgiveness and cleansing, we don’t have to be re-baptized and ask for forgiveness for all our sins again.  For those of us who have come to new life in Christ, we just have to ask God for forgiveness of the sins that we committed since the last time we repented and asked.  That’s why the Priests of the Old Testaement were only commanded to wash their feet before they went into the temple (as opposed to their whole bodies).  That’s also why Jesus teaches his disciples to pray for forgiveness of their trespasses every time they pray.

This point really didn’t fit in with my humility theme, but I talked about it anyway because it was a part of the entire passage.  It helped the story to fit together and it forced us all to stop and think about the Grace of God that surrounds us on every side and our need to ask for forgiveness daily.

**FYI.  Here are some commentaries I love:

• Jewish New Testament Commentary
• Compact Bible Commentary
• Barclay’s Daily Bible Study Series.

And some web resources I use:

• Bible Gateway (of course)
• Blue Letter Bible
• Greek Bible Study

Reasons and Disclaimer

One area that I feel like I’ve learned/grown the most in is teaching and preaching.

I was very blessed to serve at the Orchard in Tupelo under Reverend Doctor Bryan D. Collier, who is not only an incredible preacher, but who also kicked me out on a stage in front of way too many people and encouraged me to give it my best shot.  

I also credit preaching at my dad’s funeral for quickly getting me over any fear of public speaking I had.  I figured that if I could make it through that, I could make it through anything.

I had the opportunity to preach at Orchard Tupelo occasionally, but nothing prepared me for the rigors of preaching every Sunday like, well, preaching every Sunday.

I read a passage from Paul’s letter to Timothy the other day that made me realize just how much I had grown in my understanding of preaching AND it helped me to refocus the time that I spend in front of my church on the essentials.

 

2 Timothy 2:11-13 

This is a trustworthy saying:

   If we die with him,
      we will also live with him.
 If we endure hardship,
      we will reign with him.
   If we deny him,
      he will deny us.
 If we are unfaithful,
      he remains faithful,
      for he cannot deny who he is.

 

Paul is quoting a hymn for his young friend.  And it is his next line that shows the importance of those words:

Remind everyone about these things, and command them in God’s presence to stop fighting over words. Such arguments are useless, and they can ruin those who hear them.

Paul encourages TImothy to help the people remember these important, timeless truths about God and his kingdom.  They were to be a regular part of his teaching because they displayed the core tenets of the faith he was calling people to.  If he was not grounding his teaching in these things, then he was just creating more useless argument and speculation.

Click for more…

Here’s a few lines at a time.  See what they reveal:

If we die with him,
      we will also live with him.

The Gospel we preach is a gospel of new life, but it happens as a result of death.  Through Jesus’ death, he offers us real life in Him and real death to ourselves.  Sometimes we love the “new life” part so much that we fail to preach “death”.  Sometimes we love Easter so much that we forget about what made Good Friday so good.

My friend Tim told me a parable about a church who excitedly proclaimed “We Preach Christ Crucified” by writing it on the front of their building.  Over time, however, their excitement waned and the church cooled.  Soon, the vines began growing on the front of the building, covering up “crucified”, so that soon the church’s motto was “We Preach Christ”.  This was fitting because, like I mentioned before, this church loved the resurrected Jesus so much that they no longer taught the difficult, jarring message of a Savior who was willingly humiliated, humbled and executed like a criminal.  After time, the vines grew more and soon the motto was “We Preach”. This was fitting too, because the church no longer even promoted Christ as the only way to true life.  They still said a lot, it just didn’t matter.  A little later on, all that was seen of their old motto was “We”.  The church had lost it’s heart so much that it became just a social club for the few people still hanging around.  The story ends with the sign totally hidden.  No church.  No preaching.  No Resurrection.  No Death.  Nothing.

It’s a freaking depressing story, but I rarely write a sermon without thinking about it.  

The news we have isn’t always easy, but it is always Good.

Great preachers preach death in a way that gives life. And they preach life in a way that brings death to all the parts of our soul that are already dying.

On to the next section:

If we endure hardship,
      we will reign with him.

We have to preach perseverance and let people know that the Christian walk is not always easy.  We have to use the Story to remind them that just like Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, we are never far for God, even in the hottest fire.  We also get to remind them that just like those early believers, we were designed to lean on each other as well.

We also have to preach the beautiful reality that is the Kingdom of God.  We have to let people know that it is both right now and to come and we have to celebrate it together.

If we deny him,
      he will deny us.

There are choices to be made.  And there are consequences.

 If we are unfaithful,
      he remains faithful,
      for he cannot deny who he is.

No matter how hard we tried to make it so, the Story of God isn’t the story of an unfaithful human race.  It IS the Good News about a Creator who went to every length necessary to keep His promises to us and to make a way for us.  His faithfulness has never wavered, and it is that faithfulness that we need to send people out the door with every week.

Over the last 2 years, I have become convinced that preaching’s highest level of effectiveness happens within the boundaries of the local church.  Sometimes hard words need to be said in order to bring light into the darkness.  These are words that can only be spoken AND heard in the context of a church who is passionately loving and serving and interacting with a community that surrounds it.

I’ve also come to be thankful for the spiritual gift of preaching that God has given me.  Although preparing a sermon every week is sometimes a burden, I have been blessed to be able to proclaim a message that has been proclaimed a million different ways once more and then see the Holy Spirit take those words and weave the truths into people’s lives.  It is not a more honorable gift than all of those that my brothers and sisters at the Orchard Oxford bring to the table (1 Cor. 12), but it is mine.  And I’m grateful.

I’m taking the weekend off from my 2nd Anniversary writing, It’ll resume on Monday.

In honor of the Olympic Closing Ceremonies, I would like to honor those who didn’t make it to the games: