Habitat Leadership Team on the Continuum

Commitment Level- fairly high- probably involves total of three meetings.  Take on a crew leader role for a build day or half a build day.  The primary responsibility of crew leader is to make sure folks who come to help are engaged in a meaningful way with others at habitat that day and with you as the crew leader.

Where exactly on the continuum?  Somewhere closer to deeper than wide.  Who would be attracted to it.  Maybe somebody who is ready to "take the next step".

Is there someone in your community that you would like to see offered the opportunity to take a next step in the discipleship journey?

Shoot me an email and we will invite them to the March 24 Leadership Team Meeting.

forrestcate@mariettafumc.org

Find the purpose of the FMMG

See if you can find the purpose of the Friday Morning Men's group in this video.  Brian McNair and Lowry Curry are working on this ministry, but why?

The first three to post a comment with the correct answer will receive a prize this Friday.

Taking Off the Blinders

My-father-in-law tells the joke about the blind horse that the farmer was using to pull the city slicker's car out of the ditch.  The horses name was Buster.  So the farmer hooks Buster up to the car and yells: "Pull Smokey."  Of course nothing happens.  And then the farmer yells: "Pull Midnight".  Nothing.  Finally he yells: "Pull Buster." Buster pulls and the car is freed from the ditch.  "Why did you yell those other names first?" asks the city slicker.  "Well," says the farmer, "because Buster is blind and he doesn't pull as hard when he thinks he is pulling alone."

Andy made an interesting point this morning when he talked about our relationships sometimes being about pulling together like work horses.  Does it matter why we are pulling?  Does it matter what we are 'doing' by our effort?  Does it make a difference whether we are pulling alone or with others?  And of course who has the reins?  Where's the feed trough?

That is a pretty good insight into our Friday Morning Men's Group and a part of it that should and will continue hopefully for years to come.

Many thanks to all the authentic conversationers and to Allen for his careful hand on the tiller (or reins) of leading the group today.

Please "extend" Friday Morning Men's Group weekly meetings until Good Friday, 4/3/09.  6:00 a.m. in room 220.  I hope you will opt in for another module.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if an ongoing weekly or every other weekly small group springs out of the FMMG moving forward.  We'll talk over the details of how we spend our remaining FMMG weekly time together on Friday 3.13.09

Next Steps

As we have traversed and travailed along the journey of getting a group of potential leaders for a men's ministry a funny thing happened: we became a community kind of.  A group of guys with diverse ideas about life and the spiritual life and spiritual leaders and men's ministry and ministry to men and how we fulfill the great commission and the great commandment and what the life of the church means and whether or not the factory is working and what the problem with men is and what the church is going to do about it.  We've had great discussions and we had an overnight.  We've studied books and we have seen things happened that otherwise would not have.  We have seen things come and probably already seen some of them go already.  (Prayer dots, maybe?).

So where are we now?  What do we know?

We've seen a couple of action verbs surface:

Equip-

A group of guys who are leading groups or who are interested in leading groups found some tools and learned about them with a collective consciousness so now we can move forward withe shared language and methods.

Fellowship-

We like getting together with a group of guys we would not have chosen for ourselves to learn more about each other and the way of Christ.  We share scriptural understanding, our experiences, our understanding of our tradition, and we reason things through.

We have had a core value that we want to honor:

We will have an end date.  We will be open to what happens after that as a good outcome, but the weekly meetings need to come to an end so that new things can begin.

So we will determine when the end date is and plan ways that we can continue to work and live together around our objectives of connecting men to each other and to us and to the cause of Christ.

We'll talk a little bit about these ideas on 3.6.09 and then more extensively on 3.13.09 and decide what to do then.

What other action verbs have you seen emerge from our group?

What other core values do we need to honor as this process of growing in community develops?

More-ness

A term Rob Bell used in a recent sermon caught my attention.  Moros.  Reverend Bell defined it as a kind of foolish talk- scorning somebody for their heart and character.  It caught my attention because I have observed this very thing happening a lot lately.  From a variety of sources and in equally varied settings.

On a recent mission trip: "This community development thing doesn't even seem Christian."

At a discussion forum for our church's mission program: "Who gets the credit for the work you are trying to do?  God doesn't get the credit if you do it this way."

Following a confirmation retreat: "The reason we are doing this is because we are 'right.'  We have the only right way to God and that is important."

At a men's group meeting:  "It has to be about Christ.  Not the church.  How do we know if what we are doing is for Christ and not just something that we like doing?"

I have been extremely fortunate--blessed--to be a part of a group of guys who are doing something that I don't know I have been a part of before.  We are taking the time to hear one another and to share.  To learn and to appreciate.  We are looking to join together and discover a purpose and to become a community.  

We are looking to move from Moros to More-ness.  There is something more.  There is something more to what we are doing.  There is something more to life.  There is something more to church.  There is something more to Christ.

We still have an occasional eye roll or a slow head shake.  But what I'm hearing is: "This time I didn't flip my off switch to 'off' when he started talking about _________."  "Now that I understand his story I understand what he means when he says ______________."

The Greek God Moros is defined on Wikipedia as the personification of impending doom who drives every being, mortal or otherwise, to its fated doom.  He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.  Maybe that's why I have been seeing so much moros-ness lately.

There is even a story in Matthew's Gospel under the section (chapters 8-10) regarded as the "mission of the church" where the Pharisee's accused Jesus of casting out devils through the prince of the devils.  (Matthew 9:34).  Even when God was himself fulfilling his own mission, he didn't get the credit for it from everyone.

WWJD? According to verse 35: he "went about".  We'll keep doing the same.  We'll keep looking for more.

Champagne in the parking lot

I came across an empty champagne bottle in the island of a parking lot this morning.  I was trying to reconstruct the celebration it represented.

1.  Assume a champagne bottle indicates some sort of celebration.

2.  It must have been impromptu or covert as it took place in a parking lot beside a Krystal Restaurant.

3.  Sometimes, covert or impromptu celebrations are the best, most heartfelt.

4.  The bottle wasn't smashed, so that indicates some level of restraint.

5.  No glasses were with it.  Did they drink straight from the bottle?

6.  It was more than one person, right?

7.  It was a parking lot, some somebody was driving.  Did they take part or did they celebrate without drinking?

8. Did they retrieve the cork and save for posterity?  Was this celebration just for it's own sake and didn't have any meaning moving forward?

9.  Why leave the bottle on the ground?  No matter what kind of celebration- good/bad, deserved/capricious, fulfilling/cheap, wholesome/shady, in community/alone, or otherwise: leaving the bottle behind cheapens it.

How do we celebrate and how do we do it in a way that lets others know it's whole and authentic?  Don't leave empty bottles behind.

Giving and Offering

I remember hearing that male role models are fairly rare in the church in Peru.  On our recent trip there, I wanted to see if I could involve some of the men in participating in a Bible school we help put on in Chimbote.  I found a gentleman kind of hanging out at the back of the make shift room where we were holding the Bible school.  Through nonverbal communication, I got him to help hand out coloring pages and markers.  He really had a good time and was quite proud to help contribute.  Towards the end of the session the head honcho asked me to hand out cookies as the children departed.  "Give them two cookies--no more--because we might not have enough."  I found my new found friend to help hand them out.  I was first told not to give him any cookies because they were just for the children.  I finally explained that I wasn't giving them to him, but that he was helping hand them out.  

What was interesting was: I was handing out the cookies.  I was in control.  I made sure nobody got too many or more than their share.  My Peruvian partner, though, took a different tack.  Rather than hand out the cookies, he offered the cookies.  Nobody seemed to take more than two and he sure seemed to have more joy in his offering than I had in my handing out.

I wonder about all the joy all around in the poverty stricken areas of Peru where we worked.  I got a clue into maybe why as I was handing out the cookies.  

There is more joy in offering than in handing out.