Archive - May, 2009

Positive Thinking

Sometimes thing get tough for us- it happens to everyone.  There are two ways we can handle it.  The  first way is to get down on ourselves or our situation or we can rise above it and to think positive.

Positive thinking changes our mind and our actions.  If we think positive then we start to believe those thoughts and then we start to live those thoughts.  Below is an email from Lou Tice that really breaks down how this works and how we can apply Positive Thinking to our own lives.

Winner’s Circle Network with Lou Tice – 5/19/09 –

“You Are What You Think”

What is the one thing that determines, more than anything else, the quality of your life?

Some people say, “You are what you eat,” but I say, “You are what you think.” Now, this is not really “new” news. This is one of the great universal truths, handed down over the centuries by poets and philosophers and by almost every great religious leader the world has ever known.

We move toward and become like what we think about, and our present thoughts, more than anything else, determine our future. So it is important to learn to control your thoughts because if you can do that, you’ll be taking control of your life as well.

And how do you control your thoughts? Well, you learn to monitor yourself by listening to the stream of inner messages that precede your emotions. Then, you ask yourself if some of these thoughts are other people’s ideas that may not really be true.

You look for distortions, exaggerations, and other misrepresentations, and you deliberately correct them – on the spot – to a more realistic viewpoint. Finally, you choose to put the best possible slant on every situation, every event, and every occurrence.

I believe that because your present thoughts determine your future, when you consistently expect the best, you tend to get it!

Lou Tice

The Pacific Institute

www.thepacificinstitute.com

Monday Morning Church

Good Monday Morning!
It feels good to be someones personal hero. There are many kinds of hero’s out there both real and fictional.  What kind of hero are you?

I have been thinking about personal hero’s today and what it means to be one to someone, or to think about my personal hero’s.  I believe in some ways we are all personal hero’s to someone weather we know it or not.  But more importantly — who are our personal hero’s?  Who do we look up too in life?

There may be different people that we look up too in different areas of our lives.  For example, I would consider both of my parents personal hero’s especially when it comes to raising my children.  If I can be half the parent that my parents were for me I would be happy.  I have more personal hero’s or people that I look up too when it comes to music, writing, sports ect.

The question I would like to put before you today is who is your spiritual personal hero?  It might be easy to say Jesus – of course we would like to look to Jesus as our model for our Christian faith, but the reality is that no matter how much we might “try” to formulate our faith life like Jesus we will always fall short.  My question is, who can you go up too and say to someone “you are my spiritual personal hero” -  Who might we look toward to help us in our faith journey?

This question might be hard for some of us, including myself.  I have never really thought of a spiritual or faith journey personal hero but it might help me in my journey.  It might help me focus more on my faith and look at my faith in ways I never did before.

That is my challenge to you this week and my prayer for you this week.  To think about your faith in ways that you have not before, to in some ways find a personal hero for your faith life, your spiritual side and to let the personal hero’s in your life know that they are special in your life.

Prayer
Lord God, you are more of a hero to us than we could ever imagine.  Help us Lord to get to know the other hero’s here on Earth.  Guide us in our faith journey that we can find the spiritual hero’s among us.  Lead us in the directions that we need to go in.  Open our eyes to the world around us that we can see clearly the places that you are calling us too.  Amen.

Monday Morning Church

Good Monday Morning!!

Transitions….

I have had transitions on my mind the past few weeks.  This might not be a surprise to many of you – life is full of transitions, we experience them all the time.  Here are some of the transitions in my life right now…..

  1. We are moving this upcoming weekend so once again we will pack up our lives in boxes and move into a new home, but it will be a home we hope   to be at for many, many years.
  2. New ministry partner, as many of you know this upcoming Sunday is Allison Henry’s last Sunday at St. Mark’s.  We will begin a search for a new Minister of Music (a transition).
  3. We have been making the transition for Logan from being a regular kid to becoming a School-Age kid as he beings kindergarten in the fall.

These are only a few of the transitions in my life right now – I am sure that you are experiencing your own transitions in your lives.


God is the master at putting us in different situations that may challenge us and in turn give us little choice but to rely completely upon him.
If we’re seeking God’s face it’s because God is preparing to move us into a situation that is better for us and will leave us in a place to be more effective for him. Still, it can be uncomfortable, scary, and upsetting — but then again it can be exciting, interesting, and satisfying.  We may even have all these feelings at one time!  We do not know what God’s plan is for us, all we can do is rely on God to see us through the ups and downs in our lives and trust in the one who gave his son for us, the one who loves us unconditionally.

This becomes more clear in the letter from 1 Corinthians 2:7-10 (The Message)
“God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text:

No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this,
Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—
What God has arranged for those who love him.
But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.”


God promises us that the Holy Spirit is with us.  God knows the very heart of our lives and through all the transitions, from the least to the greatest God is there guiding things, even when that might be hard to see.  As we face the transitions in our lives, I pray that we are able to keep our eyes on God, the great director of our life.

Prayer

Gentle Shepherd, lead us as we walk with one another in times of transition in our lives.  Flood the eyes of our hearts, so we can know your will.  Holy Spirit, keep us humble and full of thanksgiving, Direct our path.  Give us wisdom and unity.  Thank You, Jesus, for the many blessings You’ve already showered down upon us.  Bless us, Lord, as we give You the glory. We will go, Lord, where You lead us. Amen

Being Lutheran

I have been Lutheran my whole life.  Growing up I went to a Lutheran church and a Lutheran Bible Camp.  I attended three years at an ELCA Lutheran College.  Then I worked full time at a Lutheran Bible camp (same camp that I went to as a kid).  I have worked at Lutheran churches as a youth director and I went to a Lutheran seminary and now I am a Lutheran pastor.

Overall, I have been ingrained with Lutheran Theology and that is a major part of who I am….

Sure there have been times that I questioned my beliefs.  My faith journey has not always been easy.  But I must admit that when it comes down too it, I do love Lutheran Theology.  Knowing that  we are saved wholly by God’s grace, through faith is an awesome thing.  I love the fact that we as Lutherans can believe with our hearts as well as think about why we believe what we do with our heads (more about that in another post).

But above all of that, I love how we can poke fun at ourselves. I have heard joke after joke about the traditional stereotype Lutheran and I love it.  I would like to share with you today a list of typical Lutheran type things — a list  that I received in a recent email.  Enjoy!

The following list was compiled by a 20th century Lutheran who, observing other Lutherans, wrote down exactly what he saw or heard:

1. Lutherans believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.

2. Lutherans like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

3. Lutherans believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don’t notify them that they are there.

4. Lutherans usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.

5. Lutherans believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.

6. Lutherans feel that applauding for their children’s choirs would make the kids too proud and conceited.

7. Lutherans think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle.

8. Lutherans drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.

9. Some Lutherans still believe that an ELCA bride and an LCMS groom make for a mixed marriage.

10. Lutherans feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.

11. Lutherans are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church.

12. Lutherans think that Garrison Keillor stories are totally factual.

13. Lutherans still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole adds too much color.

14. Lutherans believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.

15.  You know you’re a Lutheran when you hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can!

16.  When donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.

17.  The communion cabinet is open to all, but the coffee cabinet is locked up tight.

18.  All your relatives graduated from a school named Concordia.

19.  When you watch a “Star Wars” movie and they say, “May the Force be with you,” you respond, “And also with you”.

20.  You actually understand those folks from Lake Wobegon , MN.

21.  And finally….you know you’re a Lutheran when it’s 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.

Social Networking Round 1: Facebook vs. Myspace

Unless you live under a rock you know that social networking is the latest thing.  There are people 13-103 are signing up for facebook, twitter, and everything in between. It is about time for me to weigh-in on the latest and greatest of social networking. I will let you know the winners and losers of the different sites out there. I will also evaluate them based on the usefulness of ministry. There are some sites that over lap with one another so I will first compare and then give my summary.

The first round is Facebook vs. Myspace

Myspace

I just went to myspace to see if I can still log into it. Let’s just say I was not successful on my first try. The last comment made on my page is from September 2008. I really do not have any use for this site and I hardly go on it anymore. For awhile myspace was the best thing out there. Now when I go on it the ads are very intrusive and they seem to get in the way when I try and navigate the site.  One of the positives that that the pages is editable, however I personally think that some of the designs are more distracting than anything else.

I have not seen any way that I can take advantage of this site in my ministry.  First there are not as many people using the site as in the past.  Second I don’t know how I would use it if I could, there are not many opportunities to use it.

Evaluation: Not very useful

Ministry opportunity: None

Facebook

This is probably my favorite social networking site out there. This is where all aspects of my life (home, college, camp, seminary, family, ministry) come together. I think I really enjoy facebook because of the number of people I can interact with on a daily basis. I always have some sort of friend on so if I need to talk with someone they are there. I can also keep up with the daily activities of my friends. Some people say that sites like facebook lessens the face to face interaction that people have with one another, and that might be true to a certain point. However for someone who works full time in ministry, has a family and personal enjoyment activities — I am not sure how much time I would have to keep up with my friends on a daily basis anyway!  I think the extravert in me loves to be able to interact with my friends when I want too and I have even made new friends through facebook.

For ministry facebook can be a great thing, over the years I have connected with the kids in my youth group on facebook. As a pastor I have set up a “fan” page for my church so the different members can become fans and I can update these fan pages with description of different events that are happening within the church.  It is a great way to connect with people and it is a great way to get information out there that the members of my church want/need to know.

Evaluation: Very important in personal life

Ministry Opportunity: Very useful

The winner between these two sites is Facebook, by a knockout in the first round.

Next up –  Microblogging (Twitter) vs Macroblogging (Other blogging sites)