First let me say that I’m capable of leading worship but it is not my skill or gifting by any stretch of the imagination. I have also decided that as a new years resolution that I was no longer going to allow myself to live outside the provision of God. What that means is we will have worship music when God provides a worship leader.

The reason for this post is to respond to the various people who have come up to me offering to lead worship. I guess the simplest way to put it is I’m not interested in anyone leading our worship. I am looking for somebody who has an interest in being a worship leader. And not just a worship leader, our worship leader.

I thought perhaps I would share the following list on what I think our worship leader should be.

• Committed. To God and the people who make up LifePoint. Seems obvious but for many it isn’t.
• Driven. I expect our worship leader to think about the music the same way I think about the  message. Throughout the week with expectation and much planning.
• Consistent. The worship leader is expected to be there every Sunday. I can’t miss very many, either can they.
• Passionate. Not for music but for people. I don’t preach week after week because I love preaching. The stress of the weekly pressure would have caused me to quite a long time ago. I do it because I love people and opening up God’s Word to them.

That’s it in a nutshell. None of this is to say that I’m not appreciative of those who have offered or that I won’t occasionally work with people to do music for us here and there. It just means that I will not put this responsibility and huge task on just anyone. You have to be called to it and want it out of obedience to the One who placed those gifts in you.

Any Questions?

First let me say that I have only been doing this for 12 days. My results may very well slow down as I continue but currently they are still speeding up. I also would like to point out that you need to know your own body. My methods might be considered healthy by the general health community. With that in mind here is a image of my current progress provided by the iPhone app weightbot.

The Challenge: I need to lose 50 lbs. but I am currently very limited in what exercise I can do because of physical ailments and time constraints.

My Philosophy: My problem is less about my stomach and more about my mouth. Ever when I am full my mouth craves flavor. I find my stomach is easy to appease but my mouth will not relent its desire to eat. This is, unfortunately, a battle of will power. In this battle it is imperative that I keep myself busy and focused. If I can get involved into a project I can almost completely ignore my desire for food. It’s one of the tricks that helps me the most.

Here is what I don’t do.

• I don’t count calories. When I do this I tend to be thinking about food constantly. This is very dangerous for a food addict like myself. I do consider calories however. When I am about to eat I try to eat the lowest calorie item I can unless it’s the end of the day and I know I need a heavier calories meal for health sake.
• I don’t limit the types of food I eat. If what I want is an unhealthy cheeseburger, than that’s what I eat. No carb  or fat free thoughts enter my mind.
• I don’t stare myself. If I’m truly hungry I eat. The journey here is learning what true hunger actually feels like.

So that’s what I don’t do. Here is what I have been doing.

• I drink only water…period. At least for now. I love food and don’t want to wast what I do consume on beverages.
• When I’m hungry I try not to eat anything that’s bigger than my fist. Since my diet is based on appeasing true hunger and not giving in to my mouths desire for flavor it helps if I keep my stomach as small as possible.
• I’ve slowed down how fast I eat. I try to take at least 20 minutes to eat the first half of any meal I consume. This gives my stomach time to process that it’s full. Many times I can push the rest of the meal away.
• I never take more than one bite of food at a time, allowing for a drink of water between each. This helps in the amount I might eat at any sitting.
• If my stomach starts acting up between meals or my mouth is becoming more than I can bear I eat 2 or 3 saltine crackers. That little bit of food usually calms the stomach and appeases the mouth for at least a little while.

That’s really it. Because I have shrunk my appetite and average might consist of a bagel and cream cheese for brunch and then an average dinner. That may not seem like a lot but I simply don’t need anymore than that most days.

So no magic here but I’m finally losing weight and not feeling cheated in the process. Your thoughts?

ChurchRater.com opens the door for anyone to share their real life experience when visiting a particular church. It basically offers 1 to 5 stars and a place to leave your comments. The site launched about 3 weeks ago but was actually active as far back as three years ago until the owners shut it down and relaunched.

This is a very funny idea to me. What would you use to determine your rating. Friendliness, food, children’s ministry, music, sermon, use of multi-media? I think this is amusing to me because I don’t know that you can really get a good enough feel for many churches by just one visit to a “worship service”. First impression, sure, but a real understanding of the people and their hearts and mission, probably not. Granted, all it takes is a first impression to determine if someone ever wants to grace a particular church again.

LifePoint is one that suffers from first impressions. We are friendly and extremely grace filled but let me be honest, we don’t put on a show. Our music is currently non-existent, we always start late, and we regularly do things that one might not expect to see in church. I guess we might not fair well in a service like this.

What do you think? Do you love or hate the idea and why? Are you running off to place a rating on your church even before this post has ended? Share your thoughts.

@robalderman asked, “Ecclesiologically, how does a pastor/church justify a Sunday-centric model of worship? Is it wholly an ontological shift?”

While I’m confident that Rob already has his own opinions about this, you can read more of his stuff at http://robalderman.net/ and http://theinsurrectionist.wordpress.com/, I thought I would give my 2 cents.

To begin I can’t really answer this for all pastors or churches and I don’t suspect he meant it in that literal sense but I thought I would make that clear anyway. Okay, lets begin.

I personally don’t hold any particular day as sacred. Without getting into a history debate, most churches have embraced Sunday as “the Lord’s Day” or “the sabbath”. While I feel the evidence is clear that the actual sabbath was on Saturday, I don’t think it really matters. I take Saturday, to the best of my ability, as a sabbath but this is really a heart issue as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, the real question isn’t whether Sunday is sacred but why we insist on it being the main focus of church worship. This isn’t a biblical command and yet we hold to it like it is. Or at least we appear to.

There is no doubt that tradition plays a big part. I grew up with Sunday service being the main church event and I guess I’ve fallen in line so to speak. Tradition aside, I’m not married to it. If I thought it would be better to have it on a Tuesday afternoon, I would. It’s the gathering that is powerful, not the day.

That only deals with the day though. What about it being the centric form of worship in a particular church? First let me say that I don’t think it has to be. There is no reason the central mode of worship couldn’t be the Monday soup line, The Saturday Habitat build, or the Friday night potluck. I think this is based solely on the mission of the particular local body.

I also think what is central becomes so because it’s what gets the most attention. Leadership is an issue here but so is everyone else. In all honesty, Sunday centric worship has the best chance of being the largest communal gathering. It almost become majority rule and even leadership can’t change that. If our missions event repeatedly had more congregation participation than our Sunday morning, than it has by default become the more centric mode of worship.

I would also like to add that having a Sunday service as the main thing that happens every week does not mean that it is the only or even the most important thing. It just means it may be the biggest thing. Small groups can still be vital and service events can still be crucial.

There are so many other areas that could be covered here and I’ll leave it to the comments for the conversation to continue. Please, share your thoughts or ask further questions and I or others can respond right here.

On this day many years ago you came into the world but it wasn’t until 1998 that you and I were united. Everyday since has been an awesome adventure. Over the years you have changed so much but what I loved about you when we first met remains the same. You are complex and yet so straightforward. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been together, I’m always discovering something new and yet I feel I know you better than myself.

The truth is I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for you. You take my stupid ideas and dreams and make them rich possibilities simply by doing what you do best. No matter what crazy things lie ahead I know that with you by my side we can do it all. With each new layer I’m excited at what we are creating together. I’m sure we will both be surprised when we reach the end.

Happy Birthday, Photoshop! You’re only 20 but you have the experience of a 50 year old.

On a side note, today is also my wife’s birthday. The above is completely true about her as well.

I love you, Angela! I can’t wait to see what comes next. Also, you are going to have to start lying about your age. Not just because you are getting older but because people already think you are lying to them. You don’t look a day over 20. ;-) Loves!

I purchased a domain with this phrase inspired by a conversation I had at dinner with some cool people. I don’t have a plan for it. I’m not sure what kind of website I should put at such a domain. I think it should be intentional since I believe a lot of people would be drawn to such a website. This brings up the subject of this post.

Yesterday I sent out an update asking for suggestions. While I got a couple good ones I also got a couple jabs at the likes of Benny Hinn and Pat Robertson and a few jabs at those who made or agreed with such sentiments. While these comments all took place on my Facebook status and some have deleted their comments, I wanted to address both of these groups here. I would like to address some, most definitely not all, of the “bullshit” that I see in Christianity and compel us to not get sucked in.

To those who took pokes at specific people who you feel have added “bull” to Christianity.

I completely understand where you are coming from. I have been put off by them and many others. I abhor those who claim Christ but then make a mockery of His gospel. I have been known to refer to TBN as my own special Comedy Central. But I would like to share a quote that I shared earlier by Ed Curry.

“Cynicism is a good thing as long as it’s your vehicle and not your home.”

Healthy cynicism will not allow you to swallow all the garbage that is offered to you by so many who claim to be from Christ. Scripture supports this healthy cynicism. Remember not to remain focused there. Our faith shines as we stay fixed on the Father and not those who defile His Word.

To those who cry foul when someone points out one of these obvious people of concern.

I am so dangerously close to being part of the problem when I live in this constant state of cynicism and I recognize this. I don’t want that any more than you do. But lets not kid ourselves into thinking that Jesus, the Apostles, and the entire Word of God doesn’t call these types of people out for who they are.

We can swing to far on this. We can try so hard to be non-judgmental that any statement of truth can be seen as condemnation. Calling a wolf a wolf is not condemnation, it’s species identification. This does not mean there is no forgiveness, grace or mercy. It simply means that believers are well within their right to sound the alarm when error is found.

We also need to be careful not to take ourselves to seriously. This is part of the problem in Christianity. When we take ourselves and “ministers” to seriously and Christ not seriously enough.

I would like to add that this website, whatever I do with it, will not be used to point the finger at specific people who might blemish the name of Christ. If anything it will be a site that proclaims who He is and that He wants us.

So, what is the real “bull” that has been added to Christianity? What say you?

Leave a comment with one thing per comment. I’ll start…

When giving becomes a way to manipulate God into making us rich instead of caring for those who are in need at Christ’s command.

Much like my phone I’m anxious about missing something important. All my email goes directly to my phone so it’s with me everywhere. I have this compulsion to check it often and each of those times I have to weed through the garbage to see if anything important arrived. Rarely something urgent finds it’s way into my inbox but who would know with all the junk.

Here is my solution to avoid email insanity.

• I created folders and starting two days ago began creating filters to relocate messages from my inbox to the appropriate folder.
  • Email Subscriptions – These are all the junk messages that tend to clog my inbox. The goal is to go through that folder and start unsubscribing to all the crap.
  • Blog Comments – I maintain 4 different blogs and all of their comments are filtered here.
  • Social Stuff - All of the emails that pertain to any of my dozens of social media interaction go here.
  • Misc - I actually have several other specialized folders for various other emails.
• I only get nudged when a message makes it to my inbox. With all of the filters these messages are few which means I’m not running to my email nearly as often.
• I still only respond to those inbox emails immediately if they are truly urgent.
• I check and respond to non urgent email twice a day. Mid morning and late evening before bed.

This is a very hard process for me and it’s going to take time to make these practices a habit. What about you? Is email getting the best of you? How do you cope?