All posts by eurlog

I am a church planter. I love my city and participating in its life.
Church planting

Prayer


Bev and I went to see the Merry Wives of Windsor at Applegate Park on Saturday. We sat in our lawn chairs and watched the wonderful free performance.

After the play we got to visit with several friends, including some new friends we’ve just made. That conversation got my attention.

The person I was talking to said he and his wife had been praying very specifically for God to use the Playhouse for His kingdom. Which brings me to my point.

I do not generally think in terms of who else might be praying similar prayers as I am. I thought Bev and I were in Merced because WE prayed about it. My friend knocked that idea out of the ballpark.

He’s not the first person that told me they were praying similarly. And I am humbled by that thought. A concert of prayer for Merced going on, and ours was only a small sliver of it.

What a God we serve!

Church planting

Trip to Auburn

This past weekend was busy beyond belief because we had two major events occurring Saturday and Sunday.

The first event was the Playhouse Merced Gala which was scheduled for Saturday evening. It was held at the Boys and Girls Club.

On Friday night we got possession of the Boys and Girls Club and could start unloading supplies for the Saturday evening event. We set up over 40 tables with chairs. Decorations were put up, and the room was basically ready for Saturday by the time we left.

On Saturday the staff, some board members, and a few other people put the finishing touches on the room. Meanwhile, Bev and I attended the performance of Merry Wives of Windsor at Applegate Park.

I had to be at the Boys and Girls Club at 5 PM on Saturday, and I didn’t get away from the event until after 10:00 PM. Normally that would have been just fine. But…

Sunday we had to get up at 4:00 AM to drive to Auburn, California where I spoke at their two morning services. New Life Christian Church is going to be giving us financial support beginning in January of 2007. This will continue for two years.

New Life Auburn is a wonderful family of Christians that warmly welcomed us and also gave us a “baby shower.” We brought home several wrapped gifts which included a coffee carafe, a paper cutter, reams of printer paper, markers, and other office supplies.

Our launch team helped open the gifts, and they seemed to be quite impressed that a church such as New Life wanted to be a partner in our church plant here in Merced.

I didn’t go to the gym this morning. The bed felt too good.

Life in general

Diva in the House


We’ve got a Diva in the house now. Bev auditioned recently for Fiddler on the Roof, and got a role. She will be playing Yente, the Matchmaker.

She is enjoying the process of putting together live theater. The first couple of nights were used to work through the music, especially the group numbers. This weekend will be for blocking the moves of the actors.

The role she is playing is of that of the matchmaker in the tsarist Russia town of in Anatevka in 1905. The role of Yente is a charming role, and it brings humor to the story.

The play begins in mid September and runs for three weekends. The people cast for the roles are very talented people, and it will be a wonderfully presented play.

Life in general

Diva in the House


We’ve got a Diva in the house now. Bev auditioned recently for Fiddler on the Roof, and got a role. She will be playing Yente, the Matchmaker.

She is enjoying the process of putting together live theater. The first couple of nights were used to work through the music, especially the group numbers. This weekend will be for blocking the moves of the actors.

The role she is playing is of that of the matchmaker in the tsarist Russia town of in Anatevka in 1905. The role of Yente is a charming role, and it brings humor to the story.

The play begins in mid September and runs for three weekends. The people cast for the roles are very talented people, and it will be a wonderfully presented play.

Food for Thought

The Global Rich List

I find that it is quite easy to feel sorry for myself when I use myself or people I consider to be more privileged than myself as points of comparison. Grumbling issues for me can include a wide variety of things.

That was until I went to the Global Rich List website. The website has a place where you can type in your annual salary, and then it compares your salary against the rest of the world. It is a sobering experience.

Global Rich List is not for the feint of heart. It shows what American dollars will purchase in the rest of the world. Here are some examples.

$8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.

$30 could buy you an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.

$73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.

$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.

Imagine what Americans could do if they devoted even a small portion of their salaries to feeding the poor and helping Third World Countries! Enormous good could be done, and much of the anger that exists because of the frustration of poverty would be eased.

Editorials

The Global Rich List

I find that it is quite easy to feel sorry for myself when I use myself or people I consider to be more privileged than myself as points of comparison. Grumbling issues for me can include a wide variety of things.

That was until I went to the Global Rich List website. The website has a place where you can type in your annual salary, and then it compares your salary against the rest of the world. It is a sobering experience.

Global Rich List is not for the feint of heart. It shows what American dollars will purchase in the rest of the world. Here are some examples.

$8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.

$30 could buy you an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.

$73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.

$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.

Imagine what Americans could do if they devoted even a small portion of their salaries to feeding the poor and helping Third World Countries! Enormous good could be done, and much of the anger that exists because of the frustration of poverty would be eased.

Food for Thought, Life in general

Simple Church

3 Comments

I just finished reading Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger. I’ve been reading it for a couple of weeks, and I am greatly impressed by its profound treatment of simplicity. Rainer and Geiger concluded as a result of a lot of research that simple churches grow more and are healthier than churches that are complex in structure and activity.

I also attended a one-day workshop on small groups in Sacramento. It was sponsored by Church Coaching Solutions and hosted by Stadia. Jim Putman was the presenter, and he is the senior pastor at a 7,000 member church in Idaho that has virtually all of its members involved in small groups. They have a phenomenally high rate of involvement.

What was interesting was that what Jim Putman presented closely mirrored what I had read in Simple Church. Simple, basic churches are actually healthier than churches that try to offer too many things and who are too complex in their organization.

I don’t know how supermarket churches will fare in coming years. They will be constantly having to offer something that is new and delicious in order to keep their momentum and structure. Simple churches, on the other hand, train small groups of people to think in terms of meaningful relationships and serving others.

Relationships and service are highly portable ideas and do not require large, complex structures to enact. At LifeSpring Church this simplicity will enable us to minister effectively to this community without over-burdening our members. Simplicity is so incredibly wise and easy to do, provided that you can turn loose of unnecessary traditions and baggage.

Editorials

Simple Church

I just finished reading Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger. I’ve been reading it for a couple of weeks, and I am greatly impressed by its profound treatment of simplicity. Rainer and Geiger concluded as a result of a lot of research that simple churches grow more and are healthier than churches that are complex in structure and activity.

I also attended a one-day workshop on small groups in Sacramento. It was sponsored by Church Coaching Solutions and hosted by Stadia. Jim Putman was the presenter, and he is the senior pastor at a 7,000 member church in Idaho that has virtually all of its members involved in small groups. They have a phenomenally high rate of involvement.

What was interesting was that what Jim Putman presented closely mirrored what I had read in Simple Church. Simple, basic churches are actually healthier than churches that try to offer too many things and who are too complex in their organization.

I don’t know how supermarket churches will fare in coming years. They will be constantly having to offer something that is new and delicious in order to keep their momentum and structure. Simple churches, on the other hand, train small groups of people to think in terms of meaningful relationships and serving others.

Relationships and service are highly portable ideas and do not require large, complex structures to enact. At LifeSpring Church this simplicity will enable us to minister effectively to this community without over-burdening our members. Simplicity is so incredibly wise and easy to do, provided that you can turn loose of unnecessary traditions and baggage.

Uncategorized

Nevada Church

I’ve had a hunch about evangelism for several years. My hunch was that what normally masquerades as evangelism is really something quite stilted and odd. I tried some of it, and I was never satisfied with the results.

And then I met Jim Henderson. Jim put into words things I had only felt before–things I had dismissed as being peculiar or maybe my own reticence or cowardice. His definition of Ordinary Attempts is excellent.

That spark was fanned into a flame by Randy Stiever of Sparks, Nevada. Randy has been sending me OA stories, which I have been uploading to the Ordinary Attempts site.

I hope you’ll go lurk around at Ordinary Attempts. Overhear what people are saying about a commonsense way to show others what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus. ….without scaring them off with odd, ineffective methods.

LifeSpring Church

Nevada Church

I’ve had a hunch about evangelism for several years. My hunch was that what normally masquerades as evangelism is really something quite stilted and odd. I tried some of it, and I was never satisfied with the results.

And then I met Jim Henderson. Jim put into words things I had only felt before–things I had dismissed as being peculiar or maybe my own reticence or cowardice. His definition of Ordinary Attempts is excellent.

That spark was fanned into a flame by Randy Stiever of Sparks, Nevada. Randy has been sending me OA stories, which I have been uploading to the Ordinary Attempts site.

I hope you’ll go lurk around at Ordinary Attempts. Overhear what people are saying about a commonsense way to show others what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus. ….without scaring them off with odd, ineffective methods.