Arts Ministry BBQ

Worship and Arts teams! On Wednesday, June 10 from 6-8:30 pm we'll be having a BBQ fellowship at the Boatman's. Meat will be provided. Bring your own beverage and side dish (last name A-M) and dessert (last name N-Z). Tableware will be provided. We'll have an inflatable game for the kids as well as numerous other games. Those of you who want can bring your pole and tackle to fish in the pond.

Here's a few pictures from the last community time we had at the Boatmans. Kristen will be emailing directions. Hope you can all make it!

By My Side

A few months ago my oldest, Hannah, sang 4 songs for me that she had written with the hopes that one of them would be a candidate for this year's middle school pops concert. We selected "By My Side" and she ended up singing it for tonight's concert. Way to go Hannah! Thanks to John Carlson for playing percussion (that's me on guitar) and thanks to God for giving her such a neat opportunity to sing this message to her class. The lyrics are below...



VERSE 1
When life is hard and you don’t know what to do
Seems like everything is crashing in on your life
You feel like there’s nothing left to do, and you think you can’t push through
And you feel like there’s no comfort for you.

CHORUS
Well I know a solution to help you through this life
To guide you through tonight and every time
He will change your life, when He’s by your side.
And I guarantee you’ll like it, yeah you’ll like Him
By your side.

VERSE 2
When your life is going great and it seems just like a dream
You’ve got lots of friends and things are perfect, so they seem
But you still feel lost, it’s something you can’t ignore
Inside you feel so empty, your looking for more - - - -

CHORUS

BRIDGE
He’ll help you through and guide you, in the right direction
Never leave you on your own, you can trust him now.
He’ll always be there for you.

CHORUS

Yes, the God, my Lord will help you through this life.

Simple Church on Discipleship

Quote from the book, Simple Church (p 26):

To have a simple church, you must design a simple discipleship process. This process must be clear. It must move people toward maturity. It must be integrated fully into your church, and you must get rid of the clutter around it.

This is truly a challenge for today's church which struggles to compete with complex lives and a complex church culture. Like many churches it is something that we struggle to keep in check at Parkview. One thing for sure, defending a simple vision requires us to say "no" to a lot of good things. This is one of the most difficult essentials when it comes to guarding and advancing a vision.

Hold the Interview

In this month’s Fast Company magazine Dan Heath & Chip Heath wrote a great article that turns conventional hiring practices on its head. In it they propose that it may be wiser to hire people without ever meeting them. They site that, “Interviews are less predictive of job performance than work samples, job-knowledge tests, and peer ratings of past job performance. Even a simple intelligence test is dramatically more useful.” The conclusion is that with potential employees we need to give interviews the same or less weight than we do other methods of evaluation.

For the church this is a great reminder for those of us who regularly hire church staff. I would suggest that these realities may even come in handy as we consider the appointment of lay leadership. The main point being that we must never minimize the importance of getting work samples and doing multiple layers of job performance evaluation beyond the standard “references” of the candidate. For lay leadership, it just means we do our homework outside of the interview, so we are considering other factors and methods of evaluation before making leadership appointments or recommendations.

Death is Not Dying

Rachel Barkley is a 37 year-old wife and mother of two who is dying of cancer. Physicians say she will be dead in a matter of weeks. On March 6th she spoke to 600 women in Richmond, BC, Canada at the "Death is Not Dying" conference. To see and hear this powerful talk click here.

(HT: DG Blog)

Video Worth Contemplating

Before you watch this video posted on iMonk I want to say that one of my pet peaves is when missiologists try to shock people into action. In many ways, the purpose behind this video is just that. The dark music and dismal tone only increases an unwarranted panic in the hearts of Christians. Your motivation to serve God in global mission should always be your desire to see the fame and worship of God reach every nation, not your fear of cultural domination.

All this to say that the statistics in this video are difficult to argue against and somewhat alarming. The global cultural landscape is quickly shifting and as followers of Jesus we should be aware and ready.

Swine Flu at Major Universities

Here's an interesting map that shows where swine flu is showing up at major universities around the nation. I am honestly not following this flu thing all that much. It seems like a bit more of a hysteria than anything else, but it is probably worth keeping an eye on. No cases at University of Iowa.... yet.

Biblical Leadership and Submission in Marriage

In Each for the Other, Brian Chapel develops one of the best expositions I've ever read on Ephesians 5 regarding Biblical leadership and submission in marriage. Here are two excerpts from the book, one regarding the husband and one the wife. I know most of you won't take the time to read or contemplate these quotes, but please know I truly believe that "getting" the meaning behind these quotes is one of the foundational keys to a strong marriage.

Regarding the husband....

A husband should submit his own life to God before he requires submission from anyone else. The true head of a home bows before God, asking to be the man God desires, interceding for the welfare of the family, and petitioning for love, wisdom, and strength that will make God's grace evident in the home. Only when a man humbles himself in these ways can he give a proper account of his headship to God. (p 40)

Regarding the wife....

The wife fulfills a redemptive purpose in the home, enabling each person more fully to know and be what the Savior desires. She does this by submitting herself in love to the good of another, and in doing so she reflects Christ's sacrifice. As his image bearer she becomes his chief representative to her spouse. Like her husband, the wife lives for another and thus represents Christ in and for the home. (p 102)

Twittering In Church

OK, some of you don't have a clue what Twittering is, but some churches are encouraging people to tweet during the service as a way to ask questions and discuss the sermon while it is being delivered. At Parkview we're discussing how it is Twitter can be a good source for event communication. Here's yesterday's feature article from Time magazine regarding this new trend in churches.

Churches and Pig Flu

Some churches like Mars Hill are suggesting that all churches take extreme measures in assuring their people that they can come and worship with no fear of the flu. If you ask me, they seem to be getting a bit carried away. Read about it here.