Tag: change (Page 3 of 4)

Eternal Pendulum

July 19, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Living in Central Ohio something most parents will do at least once in their children’s younger years is go to COSI. COSI stands for Center of Science and Industry. It’s one of those cool hands on museums for children (children of all ages)! When you walk into the main entry of COSI, you’re met by a huge pendulum. Well at least you used to be, admittedly I haven’t been there for years but it used to be there.

The pendulum was a super cool focal point when you first enter the facility. The pendulum from my understanding swings continually and never stops. This is due in large part to the length of the cable, weight and symmetry of the bob at the end of the cable, and an electromagnet near the top of the cable. The pendulum will swing back and forth continuously day and night. The really cool part is that when the earth rotates around its axis, the pendulum stays swinging in the same plane. So while it looks like the pendulum is rotating, really the earth is rotating under the pendulum.

At any rate, the pendulum is smooth in its transition back and forth. The cycle is unbroken. Forward, backward, forward, backward. The rhythm is soothing and somehow comforting in its stability and predictability.

Now I want you to try to imagine your life kind of like that pendulum. Imagine for a minute the cycles that your life goes through. There are cycles in our lives that repeat themselves over and over again. These cycles can be called a lot of different things and they apply to just about every scenario in which we find ourselves. There are work – rest cycles, or peace – chaos cycles, health – illness, energy – exhaustion cycles. Each of these will run back and forth on the pendulum of life.

The challenge for us as we swing through these cycles, aside from not getting sick from the back and forth, is to cherish each position along the swing of the pendulum. There are generally four things that happen along this pendulum. We go from rest to change to growth to great productivity. The more we fight this naturally swinging pendulum the shorter the gap between our work and our rest. The more we fight living out our calling as followers of Christ in our given stations in life, the more we’ll settle for mindless work that simply drains us.

The more we fight our times of rest, the less restful they become. The more we just do busy work because we feel we should be doing something, the less fulfilling it is and the more tired it makes us. The sweet spot in life is when we can rest while we’re working. We’ve narrowed the view of rest to the point that it becomes impossible to anything other than sit with our butt in the sand at the beach or curled up to a good book on a rainy day.

But when we truly find the pendulum balance in life, we quickly realize that rest can actually be found in doing the work we were called to do. We can work through our rest and rest in our work. There will be times when we need to pull away and rest and times when we need to sink ourselves into a task to accomplish it. But the majority of the time we can maintain a perfect swing through life finding rest in the purposeful work we’ve been created to do.

So cherish the swing. Be like a kid again and swing from rest to work making stops at change and growth along the way. Change is good. Growth is good but neither are easy. We need to be diligent in our working and intentional about our resting to get the most out of the change and growth portions of our swinging pendulum.

Enjoy swinging my friends. It’s the only way to live.

Where Do You Focus Your Efforts?

June 30, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Confetti Cannon Rental for Events and Parties | BYB Event Services

Have you ever been at a party where they had a confetti cannon? Those things make a mess! The bits of paper and glittery items go everywhere. It makes a mess and gets on literally everything. Sometimes I think we live our lives kind of like confetti cannons. We just kind of throw our efforts in just about any direction possible and see what sticks. We disburse our efforts in a manner that, if we’re honest, has very little impact.

We do a lot of things in an ok manner and do nothing really well. If you’ve ever heard the phrase Jack of all trades, master of none or I know just enough to be dangerous. These are statements that indicate we have a confetti gun approach to life. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with knowing a little about a lot of things, it does keep us from making a deep and lasting impact.

At a conference years ago a speaker said something that just kind of stuck with me. He said, Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. That phrase is branded in my mind. There are so many people that we want to help. So many groups we want to support. So many hobbies we want to learn. But what if we sink some intentional time into one or two things and do them for the long haul?

The problem with trying to help everyone or do everything is that we either make no real impact when we try to do it all or we get so overwhelmed that we end up dropping everything and doing nothing. But if we can focus on just one or two things and do them well, helping one or two people/groups intentionally for a longer duration of time, then we can make a bigger impact in the long run.

So the challenge is to determine what to stop doing, what to start doing, and what to keep doing. That’s a task we can’t cover in a blog post. There are some questions and some exercises you can do to figure out where you should focus your efforts. But to get you started make a list of all the things your confetti cannon is shooting. Estimate the time or effort each one needs. Then rate them honestly by how your skills and interests match up with each of them. That is a good place to start when it comes to narrowing your focus and making a lasting impact.

Contentment: Good or Bad?

June 24, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Blog 24: “CONTENTMENT is the Real HAPPINESS” — Steemit

Contentment is a really good trait but it can also be a very dangerous one. Growing up I was taught to be content with what I had. I wouldn’t have everything everyone else had so I had to be thankful for what I had and not always want more. I was a very blessed child growing up and for that matter still am very blessed. But it’s challenging sometimes to be content. We see something our neighbor has and want one just like it or even bigger. We see the newest release of the iPhone and we line up for hours to get it. There are all sorts of things that are bigger and seemingly better than what we have which makes being content difficult to say the least!

But is there ever a time when being content is a bad thing?

I will go out on a limb and say that yes there are times when contentment is not only not good but actually destructive.

You see contentment can often lead to a slippery slope toward complacency. I’ve seen it more times than I can count in the lives of people around me and in my own life for that matter. We get comfortable in our station or situation so we sit. Then we grow content with how things are. We might see something that could be done better but why fix it if it’s not broken we think. So our comfort has lead to contentment that eventually can breed complacency.

As a leader in a few different areas of life responsible for helping people move forward in commitments and convictions, I will tell you that contentment is a killer for motivation. Until the desire to change becomes greater than the comfort of staying nothing happens. Nothing grows. Nothing has a chance of getting better.

So often the fear of changing provides a breeding ground for a very toxic form of contentment. We fear moving in a new direction afraid of what might be around the corner. We like the whole thing mapped out for us, but what if the journey is more important than the destination.

If we remain content with where we are and let excuses fill our reasons for inaction, then we cannot complain when the problem persists. I have a hard time patiently waiting when there appears to be a clear course of action and the one with the power to decide just drags his/her feet. When we are content to let things stay stagnant for fear of hurting someone or not knowing what’s next, we do a great disservice to those we lead.

You don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t even need to know how it’s fully going to end. But you can’t just sit still. Sitting still to continually mull over new possibilities is just demonstrating your contentment and comfort. You don’t have to cross the pond all in one step but if you don’t make at least one step you will never get across the water.

Lately I’ve been wrestling with a spirit of contentment and a growing sense of what I call holy discontent. It’s that feeling in the pit of my stomach that says We can do more. We should do more. Ok fine I just have to do more. I’m at a point in certain aspects of life where I’m just tired of waiting for that more to fall into my lap. I’ve done the whole God if you want me to move then show me. But I never can really discern if what just happened was God answering or not so I don’t move. We can’t just stand still. More doesn’t happen when we’re sitting on our backsides.

I want to encourage you to start moving. Take a step. Any step really. You don’t have to start running. But one after another take a step. Slowly you’ll see whether the endeavor is going to be worthwhile, fruitful and blessed or if it’s a colossal waist of time. If there is no fruit from your actions then be willing to abandon the forward movement to step in a different direction. If one step naturally leads to another open door, then you just might be onto something. But it all starts with just a little step. A step that ends contentment for adventure, excitement, and possibility.

So the long and short is that contentment is good when it’s kept in its place. Be content with who God made you and with the things you have. But there are areas of our lives that God calls us to live with reckless abandon. Throw caution to the wind. Do something today that could yield dividends tomorrow. Remember it’s not about making an impact on the world. It’s about making an impact on one person and changing their world. And it all starts with a little holy discontent.

I Don’t Want Normal!

April 21, 2021 / / 0 Comments

There are some buzz words from 2020 that are still lingering around almost a year later. I’m going to pick on two of these in a quick series over the next couple of days. We’ve heard words and phrases like: Unprecedented, pandemic, this is how you really love someone, and one of my least favorite New Normal.

What in the world is new normal all about anyway? And why would I want that?

The issue with new normal that drives me nuts is that we are a culture built on comforts. We want the comfort of consistency and predictability. The striving for a new normal really is our way of trying to go back to a time when things went as we wanted. We don’t want a new normal because that invovles change. What we want is the old normal on a new day. Let’s just be honest.

If you’re one of those people who’ve been using this phrase, then I likely offended you a little. And that’s ok it’s not personal. I like things to operate in a consistent pattern as well. I mean I have my own normal that I do everyday. I wake up, get dressed, head to the gym, home to shower, fire up the coffee, consume copious amounts of coffee, eat breakfast… You get the point. We all have a routine and that routine is what we think normal looks like. But routine and normal are not necessarily the same thing.

A routine is all about rhythm while normal is about controlling a situation and wanting your rhythm to be uninterrupted. I work in an industry, ok church isn’t really an industry but I didn’t know a better word. But I work in a field where normal or predictability and stability are really critical. We like our firm foundations and set structures. I mean many of us use systems that have been in place since the 1950s!

Now there’s nothing wrong with tradition but if you’re doing life the same way today that you did 70, 50, 30, heck even 10 years ago then you’re probably missing something really important! Part of my job is to serve as a pastor of a local church in central Ohio. The other part of my job on a very part time basis is to work for the larger organization that supports the local churches. So I get to see both sides of the spectrum. And what I’m seeing a lot of these days is a longing for days of old and calling it a new normal.

So many of our ways of doing things stopped being effective when the massive technology boom hit our culture more than a decade ago. Yet thousands of churches across the country were caught off guard when we had to swiftly pivot and launch some form of an online presence. We have focused so heavily on the in person gatherings that all we want is to get back to normal, but what if that isn’t the point?

Ok so don’t go all panties in a wad on me. Give me a minute. Why do we value in person large gatherings so much anyway? If we’re honest, then we’ll admit that what we measure as effective ministry is boards, budgets and butts. And we can’t do any of those well if we’re not in person in our buildings in large settings. We think that a good ministry is based on how many people are back in worship. Sure that’s a measure but is is the best measure of effectiveness?

The bible doesn’t talk about how many people are in a worship place. They talk about how many go out from that worship changed and live a different kind of life. The bible doesn’t tell us how many listened to Paul in the book of Acts but they do say that over 5000 were added to their numbers that day. Added to their numbers was NOT a phrase that meant church membership as a passive experience. It meant they were changed, transformed. They left that gathering as a totally different kind of person who saw Jesus and the power of the resurrection in all they did.

I firmly believe that for the church to be who we’re called to be we need to start focusing on changes lives and not how do we reopen our doors on Sunday or how good is our live stream. I really don’t think Jesus is going to stand at those pearly gates when we die and ask how well our online worship was or how many people came to church the Sunday after Easter.

So if the leaders want to serve the churches well and if the churches want to serve the people well, we need to all be focusing on what does life change look like. How can we help provide a clear path toward a more Christ centered life? How can we encourage and hold one another accountable to live a different kind of life as someone who gets the resurrection? We need to worry less about larger gatherings in our vastly underused sanctuaries and start focusing on connecting lives across generations and geographic locations.

If we as an Lutheran Church body, an Ohio District or a local congregation want to experience something truly abnormal then we need to be about the things the book of Acts describes. We need to value home gatherings, large and small group assemblies, spiritual growth through the spiritual disciplines. We need to grow deep in our faith and relationships not wide in surface level connections.

I do NOT want a new normal or an old normal on a new day because the Bible calls me to be abnormal. And I’d love to chat more with you about how we can live an abnormal kind of life together wherever you are.

Metamorphosis

February 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

The process of a caterpillar changing to a butterfly is pretty fantastic. We call that process a metamorphosis. It’s the undoing of one thing and the starting of a brand new thing. Well this word is actually used in the bible a few times. The most notable for many is when it is used of Jesus at the time called the transfiguration. But what we call transfiguration is really the word metamorphosis.

This metamorphosis happened at a time when his closest followers didn’t really understand who he was. They had seen him do some cool things. They were there when he was able to manipulate the physical world and walk on water. They even watched sick people completely healed. But they really didn’t get who he was or why he was there.

So he took these close followers with him up a high mountain and changed, transformed – metamorphosed in front of them. It’s like the cracking open of an egg and what’s inside that was hidden behind the shell is exposed. Behind the human exterior of Jesus’ body and clothing, buried inside him was the real and complete presence of God. At the transfiguration, it’s like Jesus’ human shell was cracked open and the Godness burst out of him for a small moment in time.

Take a listen to the following to see how this happened and better yet why it’s important to us today.

A Whale Of A Tale!

January 20, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Today's Article - James Bartley - Quizmaster Trivia: Drink While You Think...

We’re about three weeks into a new year and many of you have kept up with your New Year’s Resolutions. Some of you will be the skinnier you. Others will be the more athletic you. Some will be a braver you or a richer you or a more intentional bible reading version of you or just about anything that enhances who you are. How’s that going?

I personally hate New Year’s Resolutions. I can’t stand them. I don’t make them because I know that sometime during the year I’ll grow so comfortable in the way things are going that I’ll forget about them. Then when I actually remember I’ll feel like a failure. But every year I do take time to become more intentional. I become more intentional in the person I am and the things I do.

When we lose our sense of intentionality we end up going through the motions. We just do what we do because it’s what we’ve always done. How terrible to go through life on autopilot!

This week I want to share with you about a man named Jonah. He pretty much was the perfect illustration of a man on autopilot. He was a prophet who’s job was to tell people about God and encourage them to change their ways. The short version of the story he got caught on autopilot and then flat rebelled against what he was supposed to do. He ended up getting swallowed by a whale then spit out on shore.

Lest you think this whole thing is a little too fishy to believe there was a man named James Bartley who was reportedly swallowed by a sperm whale back in the late 1800s. His story is pretty incredible actually.

But the moral here in the book of Jonah is that whether we get stuck on autopilot or flat out rebel against God, he will bring us back. So take some time today to think about the word intentional. Don’t let your life be a tale of sleep walking through life. Make people look at your life and think that you too lived a bit of a whale of a tale kind of life!

So Many MLK Quotes

January 19, 2021 / / 0 Comments
12 of the most inspiring Martin Luther King Jr. quotes - Business Insider

If your social media feeds were anything like mine, they were filled with quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. Some of those quotes are really powerful and all of them are very true! I love seeing these quotes and would love it even more if we’d live by them instead of using them as mere advertisements.

But I do want to speak to those of you who quoted this man and threw his words all over the internet for one day out of the year. Do you live these words every other day? Do you actually believe the words King spoke? Do you think they are real?

I don’t think many of you do. I’m not trying to be negative or pessimistic or even judgmental. Just look at your feed last week or the week before. Did you fill your status on Facebook with how horrific the people were that went into the capital? Did you tweet about the man in the office on the other side of your political views as the enemy? Did you curse the other side for their violent and disturbing displays while defending those who did the same thing on your side of the aisle?

If you quote Martin Luther King, Jr. one day and throw stones at your neighbor the next you are part of the problem.

Friends we are not given the right to pick and choose what we wnat to believe and when we want to believe it. We need to be consistent. If you believe that Martin Luther King Jr. was a good man then quit spreading the well put together memes and start living the words on those memes. Quit dividing against your neighbor one day, only to shout how love conquers hate the next day.

If you really want to honor the legacy of men and women who have reformed our country into a better version of itself, then stop quoting them and start living how they lived. Be the difference maker don’t just say the words of a previous difference maker.

Look I get it! This isn’t the country you grew up in. There are ideologies around that don’t align with yours. There are people who live differently than you live. People aren’t always fair. Evil wins some days. And some people just flat suck at humanity. But get over yourself! When all you do is condemn the other person then lob these pithy statements from a really great man but don’t change how you see the world then you are the problem.

Stop with the quotes if you’re not going to live what the quote says! Just live the quote you want to display on your page. It will mean more and perhaps someone might actually be impacted because the words on your Facebook page won’t change anyone’s life if they don’t show up in your real life.

Is This Significant?

November 11, 2020 / / 0 Comments
Pisces: misunderstood genius! | Neon signs, Neon words, Neon quotes

What a year 2020 has become! I don’t know if anyone could have predicted the dumpster fire that this year has turned out to be. It sure doesn’t seem like anything is as it should be right now. But is any of this significant?

Over the past few days I’ve been looking back on what all has occurred throughout this monumental and earth shifting year. One thing that seems to keep coming back over and over again in my mind is one of the restrictions that many of our cities and states have implemented. Heck even the CDC has said this.

If you remember back to April and May of this year perhaps you’ll recall that we were all told to limit our gatherings to no more than 10 people. I think the reasoning was to limit the potential for spread of Covid and to make it easier to track back who all you’ve been with recently. At least that’s what I have understood from it all, and I didn’t think twice about it.

But recently I’ve heard a few different references to the number 10 and how it applies to the church and it’s got me thinking…is this significant? Is there a misunderstood genius behind all of this?

Now I’m not going to go all numerology on you or anything like that but let’s look at the history of the number 10 and why it might be significant here. In the Bible and in ancient Jewish tradition, the people were to come together to establish a synagogue or gathering of worshippers in a localized place. Well, enter what might be the significant part…

You had to have a minimum of, yep you guessed it, 10 people to constitute a synagogue. So what in the world might this mean?

Some might say that this is some demonic force trying to prevent God’s people from gathering in a mass numbers. While this could be? I’m not really sure that I buy that one. I don’t buy it because we’re still able to meet, albeit virtually but we’re still able to gather in many informal settings and the word is still able to be preached. Could the Devil be up to something? Of course he is! When isn’t he? But I think there might be another, and potentially more transforming thing happening here.

The ten mandate is still the case for some people. Much of the country has excluded places of worship from this mandate, but it does still apply in various locations to this day. But the number limitation holds for gatherings of people for many other purposes too. Enter the conspiracy theory portion of this post – don’t worry this is a positive conspiracy theory if that’s such a thing?

What if God was in control all along? Yeah I know he is but stick with me here. What if God was taking this whole pandemic craziness thing and using it as a way to allow some of our churches to stay within the guidelines while still doing, being and even growing the church?

Think about it – you can’t come to the church either because it’s not allowed based on this rule or because you’re just not comfortable in groups that large. But are you able and willing to be in a smaller group with a more controlled atmosphere? Could you gather and form your own grouping of say 10 people?

Ten doesn’t seem like that many, but God even said that for the sake of 10 faithful he would have delivered all of Sodom and Gomorrah. Whoa there’s that number again!

Could God be up to something? Are you unable to get back in your in-person worship space due to restrictions or comfort level? Are you willing to be one of 10? I think this is massively significant and something we need to be taking full advantage of in this weird and wild ride we call 2020. Want to be a group of 10…hit me up and we’ll see how we can resource you.

Who would have thought that something as simple as the number 10 could actually help?

Ok friends those are today’s random ramblings.

Start Right Here

October 19, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Today’s MusicMonday was released in the middle of our pandemic reality. And to be honest it’s probably a message that is a few years too late but oh so true for our present reality.

The point of the song is that we have to start the change needed in the world and it has to start somewhere. And that somewhere is right here and right now.

The message of the Bible isn’t one of blame or pushing responsibility off to someone else. The Bible is about claiming our struggles and admitting our part of the problem. I’ve had a long-time philosophy in my life that I won’t bring a problem if I’m not also willing to bring a solution and be part of that solution.

The divided world in which we live today makes it too easy to blame someone else. Put others down for not seeing life the way we see it. Even “unfriend” someone because they won’t bow to our way of living. Sure there are some issues that are pretty critical to who we are as followers of God, but most of the things we take a stand on really aren’t that important or critical.

Take time to realize that the change you’re looking for in the world won’t start with the person across from you at work, beside you at church or even the one who lives with you at home. That change has to start right here and right now with you.

Canoeing Mountains

October 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

But we’ve never done it that way before! This has to be one of my least favorite phrases of all time! Just because we did it once doesn’t mean we have to do it this way forever! Actually a great perspective gained from this book as well as many others is that what we’ve done is perfectly designed for where we are not where we’re going!

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