So we were driving home from his school the other day and he had a toy in his hand, i think it was his “trumpet”. He dropped it and the following conversation ensued:
“Daddy pick it up”
“I can’t babe, I’m driving, it’s not safe”
“Daddy, I told you to pick it up” (short pause) “If you don’t pick it up you will be in time out.” (longer pause, than in his best imp voice)
“…and that would be fuuunnn…. time out is fuuuunnnnnnn.”
I had no response to that.
I have never put an open ended question on my blog before, but i thought it would be a fun experiment. I am about to begin a sermon series on The Gospel at my church and I am beginning to realize how big that phrase is. So I would like to ask y’all to finish this sentence: The Gospel is…
And lets not give text book answers here, but personal ones. What is the gospel to you? Like if you were going to say, as Paul does, i gave you “my gospel”, what would that be?
Another way of asking it is this, what is the good news that Christianity has to offer?
Lately I have realized that there are (at least) two ways that I have been trying to be something that I am not.
Number 1. I am not Mark Driscoll — so I shouldn’t try to preach like him. Some of you might not know this but Mark was my first pastor, and for better or worse, I love the guy (I don’t love everything he says, but I still love him). And he was a very formative presence in my life. My first preacher, first person to recognize my call, etc. And i think because of that I have tried to model my preaching (the thing Mark is famous for) after him.
But here’s the problem — I am no Mark Driscoll. I don’t have his talent, his sense of humor, or his style. I don’t prepare in the same way he does and most importantly, I don’t share with him the theology of the Bible that propels him to preach the way he does. So why do i keep trying to model what i do after him? Don’t know, but I’m gunna try to stop.
Number 2. My church is never gunna be like every other church, so why am i worried about it? All too often, I find myself thinking “I don’t want us to be like every other church” as if that’s the goal. It’s not. We’re never going to be like every other church — no matter how hard we try, we’re just not. So let’s just be as faithful as we can in who we are. Regardless if that is the same or different from anyone else.
I made a series of leadership pledges to myself the other day and one of the pledges was, “I will stop trying to be what I am not, and stop trying to make our church be something that it is not”.
OK, so I think this is awesome.
Go to www.goodsearch.com. There you can pick any charity that hey have listed. (For those of you that are familiar with Kupenda, yes its on their, for those of you who are not, check it out.)
After you pick a charity, I suggest you download the toolbar. Now, here’s the cool part, every time you use there search engine a percentage of the ad. revenue goes to the charity of your choice. I mean, don’t get me wrong, its like a penny per search, but given that Google generates a couple hundred million searches per day, obviously there is a lot of potential.
I would be thrilled if you would pick Kupenda, that way we could earn more money together.