Gentleman,
I got your back. Check out these relationship saving tips....just in time for Valentines Day!
This Sunday. Make reservations today. Call the Restaurant/Pre-order the flowers now.
Helping a brother out,
Vic
Pastor Vic Morris :: Blog
2 years 16 weeks ago
Our local paper carried this piece this morning - check out the link. (then come back and read the rest of this post!)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_re_us/us_the_speed_of_mercy
Well? What did you think? It's an interesting cultural reality of ours - the fact that information moves at instantaneous speed - but people don't. I have experienced this in two contexts with the Fire Dept. and the Military. Now I am wondering about the application of this to the Church.
FIRE - buddy sees the fire, grabs his cell phone, dials 911, is connected with the Dispatch Centre, who radios the full time staff immediately, and who sends a message via pagers complete with address, details of the Fire etc to the auxillaries. Total time for this information to travel measured in seconds. Total time for the incredible people of the Fire service to gear up and respond measured in seconds. Time to drive to the Fire...minutes. Perception for the family watching their home burn....hours. The information passed instantaneously. The Trucks do not move at the same speed. Guys like me, listening to the pager in one hand, rushing to grab my gear while phoning my wife to tell her I won't be home for a while, clarifying the address on the GPS, and trying (TRYING) not to break any laws while responding the fire scene, heart pounding, praying, going over drills in my head, anticipating my job when I arrive....It takes time. And more than once I have heard comments about how long it took to respond...
MILITARY - IED (Improvised explosive device) in Afghanistan. Within seconds someone on the Radio announces "Contact IED". Soldiers commence Immediate Action Drills...."Immediate"....Commander on the ground radios SITREP (situation report) to Command back at base; "We've got casaulties!...", info is relayed to Canada, Chaplain is given a warning order "prepare to move to location for possible NOK (next of Kin) notification. Total time for information to be passed from half a world away to Canada - minutes. Time to change into Dress Uniform, pack clothes, call my wife to tell her where I am, have the Admin Ass't at church cancel, redirect appointments, meetings, etc. Liase with Commanding Officer, continually get updates on situation, drive to Kelowna/Vernon/Kamloops/other etc... Time is measured in hours. All the while some news service is applying pressure to break the story (which they have been waiting for hours to do, and which they will do Instantaneously via Twitter, text, Facebook etc. once the Communcation lockdown is lifted....that's right, all communication (from the time of the incident) back to Canada ceases for this exact reason - because anyone can convey information instantaneously - so email, phone, internet - it's all shutdown.
Information moves instantly. People don't. Preparing, mobilizing, travelling, responding, assessing....there is no "instant" here.
CHURCH - Since I read this article this morning I have been wrestling with how this cultural reality applies to the Church. I sense frustration (and find myself often frustrated) at the speed with which things move in an organization. I experience this a lot with the organizational side of Church. I experience this often in the formative/discipleship aspect of our life together. But maybe this technological conditioning helps explain where some of that is coming from (other than I am impatient about things I care about) .
See, I can tweet that a worship service is starting, I can load the MP3 of the message, email it, post it on this blog, or my Facebook account. I can tell people via our Website that something is happening. We can convey information at incredible speed with incredible tools. But the responding part takes time. The reacting, preparing, mobilizing, assessing takes time. The changing and being changed part takes time.
Isaiah wrote:
11so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it
(Isaiah 55:11)
I don't see the word "instantly" in that verse anywhere....Perhaps there is a lesson here for that. Thoughts?
2 years 17 weeks ago
Remember this guy in the Fountain Tire commercial? He is on the plane all decked out for Hawaii - and discovers that he is "going to Winnipeg"...
We are not moving to Winnipeg. But the possibility was there last month.
Over the Christmas season I announced to the congregation at Concordia that "I had a call to another church in Winnipeg". There were a few puzzled looks, a lot of questions. I thought I would take a minute to chat about what that was all about.
Concordia Lutheran Church is part of something bigger, we voluntarily "walk together" with other congregations who teach, preach and confess what we believe in the Bible. These congregations together make up a larger entity called Lutheran Church -Canada. (LCC) There are about 350 congregations that have come together as LCC. We have a national office for this in Winnipeg, and three regional offices in western, central and eastern Canada. By coming together we are able to do things that a congregation on its own might not be able to. Examples would be running a University, operating Seminaries for training Pastors and Workers, and sending/supporting missionaries in Canada and abroad.
When a congregation does not have a pastor, one of the places they can find one is to look at the pastors currently serving other congregations within LCC. This is what happened for us. The people of the congregation in Winnipeg had their pastor retire after many years, and they contacted other pastors to see if they would come to serve there. The church wording we use for this is "to issue them a call". This is what I received.
So from the pastors perspective - you now have two calls. One to the congregation you are serving, and one to the congregation that wants you to serve them. How do you figure out what to do?
As I have talked with friends and colleagues, no two pastors approach this the exact same way - but there are a lot of similarities. One of the most helpful pieces of information is the Call Documents. These are pre-fab forms that a congregation fills out with information regarding the makeup of the congregation and community, the challenges and desires for mission/ministry at that location, compensation for the worker, etc. All of this is helpful.
For myself - I also factor in the external things like the welfare of my family, commitments outside of the congregation, potential ministry opportunities in the future etc. But at some point for me - it comes down to laying these two calls beside each other, and praying for God to lead us to where He wants us to be.
In the end, for this call - I felt no peace about leaving where we are at. I will write more about those reasons in another blog post.
Love to hear any questions you have on this - it's not something that happens all the time (thank God), and to be honest to quote a friend of mine "calls are both wonderful and miserable things" at the same time. It is a bit of a interruption to life - but a good one for assessing where we/I/church is at.
So we are staying. And it did not have much to do with the -75 degree weather in Winnipeg....much.
2 years 21 weeks ago
The other day I saw an interesting little phrase on my starbucks grande-chai-tea-latte-without-water. It basically said “well done you. By buying this coffee today you helped the environment, saved three children in Africa and assisted in the movement towards world peace...". Well not exactly, but it did say a portion of my little cup of luxury went towards good things – so I was not just buying coffee, but doing so much more. It felt good. (Some marketer somewhere is high fiving a colleague right now – mission accomplished.)
I was thinking that maybe we should copy that idea at our church – have something written on the coffee cups. At Concordia each week, when we have our coffee time in between services, people are encouraged to throw in a loonie or twoonie into the basket. Most people probably think it is to cover the cost of their coffee – which is partly correct. What might not be known is that there is a bigger purpose those dollars go towards – our Christmas food and toy hampers for families. These were put together last Sunday, and delivered to some very grateful families, 18 to be exact. 61 people. $3000.00 of loonies and twoonies over the course of the year made that happen.
This is where you get to high five someone – go ahead – high five the person closest to you (tell them why after!), and next Sunday as we start all over again for next year – imagine this is written on your cup: “Well done you. By buying your coffee you got to show people that God is faithful and He provides – even through us."
That’s cool.
Other Recent Posts
Valentines Day Relationship Tips...
2 years 14 weeks ago
Information at the speed of light, responding at the speed of slow
2 years 16 weeks ago
Going to Winnipeg?.....
2 years 17 weeks ago
Older Posts
Valentines Day Relationship Tips...
2 years 14 weeks ago
Information at the speed of light, responding at the speed of slow
2 years 16 weeks ago
Going to Winnipeg?.....
2 years 17 weeks ago
Well done, you
2 years 21 weeks ago
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