Marc’s Musings

A friend just emailed me this great CNN article about how young evangelicals don’t fit the “evangelical” stereotype. Or a political party.

These two guys are out promoting a book Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals. But this is more than selling books. Here’s a quote from CNN:

Back on stage [Shane] Claiborne takes the crowd through a multimedia presentation.

“With the respectability and the power of the church comes the temptation to prostitute our identity for every political agenda.”

It’s nice to see evangelicals questioning the lock-stock-and-barrel acceptance of partisan politics.

I’ve been listening to Air 1 recently and have heard an incredible song by Brandon Heath called “Give me your eyes.” Here’s the chorus:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me you heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

Man. That is the kind of prayer I wish I prayed more often.

[Thanks to stykel for posting the lyrics.]

There’s a great article about Boot Camp for New Dads in TIME Magazine.

The link is: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1812052,00.html

The next one at Inland Hospital is this Saturday, June 21 at 9 a.m.

Just read these demographic numbers in today’s paper. Still not sure what to make of them.

The five highest employing occupations in Kennebec County, from highest to least high, he said, are: office and administrative support (average salary $26,541); sales ($22,734); food preparation and serving ($17,482); transportation and material moving ($24, 211) and health-care practitioners ($51,002).

Yesterday we had a first: Emily and I sat on the lawn and read for a couple hours. The kids played in a blow up pool.

No computers. No phones. Just relaxing.

We haven’t sat side-by-side on the lawn like that once since we moved to Waterville.

I’m liking this resting thing.

Today, when we told a friend at Vineyard Church of Lewiston that we’d closed VCW, he compassionately said, “This has been a really tough season for you guys, hasn’t it?”

I don’t remember how I responded. But it got me thinking.

I’m really doing fine with closing the church. I miss it. Alot. I hope I get to be a pastor of a church again.

And yes, we’ve been through more “tough” situations in the last 3 1/2 years than I can remember. I’ve been in leadership positions since I was a kid. But pastoring a church was the first time I was required to be a leader.

But God never promised me a thriving, vibrant church. Or tons of healings or salvations. Or anything. As far as I know, He didn’t promise it to anyone that called VCW “home.”

All I know is that God called my family to Waterville. He promised to be with us. And He is.

And we’ve gotten to see the Kingdom break out. People have been healed. Lives have been changed. People are following Jesus more closely than they were earlier.

It’s really good. And I wouldn’t want to be any place else.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an interesting article about the giving habits of Xers.

GenXers tend to give less money to religious causes than Boomers. Not a big suprise given that we’re not yet at our “maximum earning” age. But what’s chilling to fundraisers is that:

The difference in giving among the generations appears to be related to attendance at religious services, which has declined nationwide, said Bill Enright, one of the Center on Philanthropy researchers.

A generation ago, more than 40 percent of Americans attended weekly religious services, but that figure has shrunk to about 25 percent, he said.

I know for a fact that those of us under 45 are very open to spirituality and to Jesus. More so than many of our older relations. But evidently we’re not that big on gathering.

That’s scary. I love being part of such an independent cohort. But it makes isolation that much easier. And when we isolate, even Jesus followers, we’re sitting targets for the enemy.

Anyone who’s watches the Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom knows that.

Oops, did I just date myself?

Chris Forbes just posted a link to a great blog post: “Bootleg Faith”.

As a pastor, I’ve become highly aware of the tendency of other people to live their faith off of what I say to them. Scary, isn’t it?

Sure, what I say and do should lead people closer to Jesus.

But it’s scary when people forget that the pastor isn’t God. Each of us need to be hearing directly from God. We definitely need to do that in the context of a community of faith with great pastoral leadership. But simply being in a community of faith with great leadership is no substitute for hearing from God.

In the blog post, Ginger (the blogger) compares her using someone else’s WiFi signal to access the web with the way we often slip into “accessing” God. In it, she says:

But when it comes to my hearing directly from God, I admit, I’m guilty of sponging off other’s signals, from pastor to friends, even shaky two bar signals from popular TV evangelists.

Read the whole post. It’s good for your soul.

(Who wouldn’t want to read a blogger that calls Bible reading “the caffeine of Christianity”?!)

It’s weird to think that two weeks ago today, we closed the Vineyard Church of Waterville.

I’ve posted new pictures from that day at:
http://marcpitman.com/2008/05/18/funeral-for-a-church-an-order-of-worship/

I also have pictures from our gas pay down a couple at:
http://marcpitman.com/2008/05/16/free-gas/

I’ve been wanting to blog more about the last couple weeks. Church in Lewiston today was ???????? ????? ????????awesome.

But it’s now almost 10 p.m. and I am supposed to be in a “rest” period. So I’m going to bed.

Night, night!

Well, today is the day we closed the Vineyard Church of Waterville. (Earlier posts in this process are: Going out with a bang and Free Gas on Channel 6.)

I’ve never had a funeral for a church before, but I think we did an exceptional job today. Here was our order of worship:

• Opening song: “More than Ever” from the Dwell DVD
• Offering
• Purging of the church
  

  We spent about 30 minutes tossing things into the dumpster. Everyone got to play. We filled it high. Then we took a sawz-all to the the old church sign and “buried” it in the dumpster. It was quite cathartic for all of us.

• Horizons DVD
  

  I am immensely proud of being part of the Vineyard movement. This video shows where we come from, what we stand for, and where we’re going. You can see this wonderful 18 minute video at www.watervillevineyard.org

• Communion with the worship song “Dwell”
• Prayer
  

  We pushed the chairs back and held hands to pray. We thanked God for this portion of the journey. We prayed for our time of rest. And we gave thanks for the people that have been part of the journey that weren’t there by offering up their names.

• Stacking of the chairs

Then we all came over to our house for a cookout.

Now, the floor is bare, the fridge is empty, and the signs are down.

Please pray for us as we rest, both that we will grow closer to Jesus and that we will rest. (Already I’ve had numerous opportunities to get really busy with pastor-type stuff this summer. So far, I’ve been able to respectfully say “no”!)

Remember, if you want to be notified of our new church plant, there’s a email sign up list at www.watervillevineyard.org.

It’s funny, I’ve always said that VCW had to plant a new church in our first five years. I just didn’t realize the next church plant would be another Vineyard in Waterville!