Arts Ministry BBQ 2009

Thanks to all of you who were able to make this years Arts Ministry BBQ out at the Boatman's. The Lord was very gracious to give us a dry cool evening when, just the day before, it appeared rain was imminent. I am so thankful for the wonderful people I have the privilege to work with day in and day out at Parkview. What a great group of people who love the Lord and love doing life and ministry together! Thanks for hosting us Doug and Jean! The following are some pics of our time together.

Insanity or Creativity?

Thanks to Ryan Lamb in San Fransico for the pic!

Anniversary of the Flood

A year ago this week, Parkview was under 4 feet of flood water from the Iowa River. It's hard to believe all this church and community went through over the last year. Recently I went through all the photos and was surprised how much it moved me. The feelings were not of regret or frustration, but of fondness. Fondness rooted in the memory of working side by side with such wonderful people. Though some might think the flood got the best of us when it filled our facility with over four feet of muddy river water but, in my view, the Lord used the flood to cement our trust in Him and to fordge deep and meaningful friendships. For this I am grateful.

Here is a recent article in the Press Citizen regarding our return and below are a few pics and descriptions recounting some of the events that surrounded the flood. To see a complete review of the flood, you can visit my June blog archive for more pictures and written detail.

On Sunday, June 8th we began building a sandbag wall around the church. At the time we only expected to build the wall a few feet high.



Each day the flood projections required us to increase the height of the wall, leaving it at about 4 feet tall all the way around the building. Rain gutters were re-built in order to send roof water outside the flood wall.



Walls were fortified and sump pumps were installed all along the wall in order to maintain the integrity of the flood barrier.



Eventually trucks and tractors were unable to transport sandbags due to the eroding driving path. From that point forward long lines were made to pass sandbags where ever they were needed.



Here's our access to the main entrance of the church facility.



A boat with diesel fuel was ready to keep our generators fueled that were to power the sumps once land access was no longer available.



Sand bagging operations continued in our upper parking lot for both the church and area neighborhoods.



The water kept rising.



The wall on the southeast corner of the facility was holding back water by Wednesday, June 11th.



Sandbagging operations kept shifting further north as the waters rose.





On Thursday the 12th, we were ordered by the city to evacuate. At the time we were told flood waters were now projected to reach to the eaves of the building.



Most of the facility was evacuated in these crates that were hauled by lifts across the floodwaters into numerous semi trailers.



Services were relocated to West High.



Within a day the entire facility was flooded.



A few of us were joined by CNN (the guy with the camera) as we toured the flooded facility.



Here's the window in the main office.









On Sunday, June 22 the waters fully receded and we were given access to the facility to begin the process of clean-out.







On December 14th, we had our first services back at Parkview after almost 6 months of facility renovation.

I Am Clean

From my reading from Leviticus for my OT survey course...

If a man's hair falls out from his head, he is bald; he is clean. And if a man's hair falls out from his forehead, he has baldness of the forehead; he is clean. Leviticus 13:40-41

Great reassurance for follicly challenged men everywhere.

Proud of My Sister

This post is a bit out of the ordinary for my blog, but I could not help but brag on my sister who is a veterinarian in Kearney, Nebraska. She was recently trained in a cutting edge ACL repair procedure that involves rebuilding the structure of the leg in order to change the physics of how it functions. Outside of Omaha, she is the only vet performing this procedure which allows young larger sized dogs a quality of life previously unavailable. Here is an article featuring her work in their local newspaper and below is an x-ray of her first completed procedure. If you are looking for a good vet in central Nebraska, I've got a recommendation for you.

Ministering to the Transgender

In this set of articles, Russell Moore, a seminary faculty member at Southern Seminary, deals with the ethical dilemma of how to counsel a surgically altered transgender with a daughter who comes to faith in Christ. To be honest, I am still wrestling with this one. Where Moore's article may break down a bit is the assumption that this person does not have a whole host of emotional struggles that keep them from neatly progressing through the process of discipleship. None the less, he certainly has well thought answer that is Biblically sound. I just worry that his thoughts are written from the perspective of one who has never actually walked through this type of issue with a transgender individual. I am concerned that those who read his thoughts will "amen" them and not really be equipped to handle the sophisticated issues one encounters when working with people in this situation. If dealt with improperly, the Christian could end up pushing the individual out of the church. One thing for sure, helping people with these types of issues requires you to have lots of grace and be in it for the long haul, but that is what the church is to be all about. Here are his thought provoking posts on the issue.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Soul Winning Made Easy

This was too funny to not cop from Challies blog. As a future church planter, I'll need to keep tabs on this post from a 1959 soul winning pamphlet for future reference!

God's Calling

Tonight at the congregational meeting, those of you in attendance heard that Carrie and I are accepting what we believe to be the call of God to plant a church in a little over a year (June 2010) with the Acts 29 network.

This calling stems from a growing heart to be part of, not only planting a church, but of planting a missional church that is committed to spreading the Gospel through the ongoing process of planting new churches. This vision for being part of a “movement of the Gospel” stems from a growing conviction from God and His Word and a growing love for His church. This growth has lead Carrie and I to pray and deeply ponder how it is God would uniquely use us in His mission to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

I am presently in the process of undergoing assessment with the Acts 29 network, which is a network of churches with the goal of planting 1000 churches, both locally and globally, in the next 10 years. We are presently setting our sites on Madison, Wisconsin as an optimum church plant location.

This next year will be a busy one as I work to...

• Develop transition plans with those of you serving in the Worship and Arts ministry
• Help Jeff and the elders in the search for a new Pastor of Worship and Music
• Serve as a member of the building committee as we undergo a master planning process for our future facility relocation

Please be praying as we work with the elders in upcoming months to confirm the various details of this planting vision. We are thankful to be part of a church that not only shares our vision for Gospel expansion, but has also patiently loved us as we have grown through the various successes and failures that often come with ministry. In the last 10+ years of ministry God has used you all to form and shape us in ways that leave us humbled and immensely grateful.

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.

I'm Now On The City

Mars Hill Church in Seattle developed the web community, The City for the purpose of connecting their people in community and service. It's not church management software but, in their words, church movement software. The service has now been passed over to Zondervan Publishers who are making it a resource available to other churches and organizations. I am presently a member through the Gospel Coalition, but am interested to see if it will be an expanding resource for more and more people in the future. Here's a video detailing more of what it's about:

Swine Flu In Iowa

Two cases of the swine flu are now in Iowa. One of the suspected cases was recently in Coralville for a conference. The University of Iowa Hospital now has this web page up where they are posting regular updates regarding the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus in Iowa.