• Getting there Paul

    FisherpricepottyIt’s been a bit of a struggle to get Paul potty trained. He get’s it, but he also has had some setbacks. But I am happy to report that he is doing pretty good. The little guy just has a big hurdle to pass… peeing standing up.

  • Theology of Pews

    I saw this over on Dan Kimball’s blog and thought it was pretty relevant to us in Romeo. Good stuff.
    The Theology of Pews

  • Very, very small

    So yesterday I went to this "big meeting" down in Livonia for youth workers. Why is it that I always feel so dwarfed by the egos of youth pastors? Even though rule #1 of the meeting was that we weren’t allowed to talk about "numbers" or size of churches, it was still very clear who the "haves" and who the "have nots" are. It is abundantly clear that being here in Romeo still has me firmly labeled as "have not" in the Detroit area.

    I suppose this is a good time to remind myself that I know who I am and my self worth is not determined by what my peers think or don’t think of me. And another thing… while I will shamelessly plug the name of who I stand for, I absolutely refuse to plug my own name and to stand up and proclaim how great I am. Adam McLane is now and will always be nothing in comparison to the great name whom I serve.

    I’m not saying that I won’t go back to another meeting like this. I am just saying that I left feeling really quite small and did not feel "more connected" or "encouraged" or "better resourced."

  • Extreme CONNECTIONS

    In a few minutes I’ll be taking off to go down to Livonia for the first Detroit Metro Youth Workers lunch.

    The big idea is the brain child of Jason Raitz. The idea is strikingly similar to YMX… people who do youth ministry are unique and their task is specialized enough where they don’t naturally connect with one another. Jason writes, "I have tried to forget about it, trust me, but God keeps planting dream of what a safe, healthy community can look like for youth workers from all over the Detroit Metro area. The goal is to build community for youth workers where they can be loved, cared for, resourced and encouraged.”

    So I am going today with dual purposes. My primary purpose is for me… I know that I need to be better connected with people who do what I do and live like I live. I mean, can I get enough love, care, resourcing or encouragement? Can I possible get full in those areas?

    My secondary purpose is to tell people about YMX. The same reality exists all over the country that exists here in Detroit. Most youth workers feel unconnected with other youth workers. They don’t have people to connect with, share with, get ideas from, or just shoot the breeze with. That is where YMX comes in… and I am always happy to tell people about that! Plus, we’ll be giving away a nice door prize… so that is cool.

  • It’s a flock of sheep!

    Flock_of_sheepLast night at Light Force it made the girls giggle that I kept refering to a group of sheep as a flock and not a herd. As Dave pointed out later, "They do call the person who works with sheep a ShepHERD and not a ShepFLOCK.

    Upon further review, a group of sheep is often refered to as a flock. According to wikipedia, "The adjective applying to sheep is ovine and the collective terms for sheep are flock and mob. The term herd is also occasionally used in this sense." [Read here]

    So we were both right.

    He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in his arms
    and carries them close to his heart;
    he gently leads those that have young.     Isaiah 40:11

  • Cleaing up “myspace”

    CleanmyspaceA buddy of mine has chosen a small but cool mission. He’s decided that there are too many mySpace users with crap on their mySpace’s. You’ve seen it… revealing self-portraits… joining sexual oriented "groups," lots of cussing for no reason, on and on.

    MySpace has become the proverbial locker room of the internet. People do and talk about things there that are degrading to themselves and well… just plain stupid.

    Here’s how it works. Just add Mr. Clean to your "top 8" friends list and clean up your myspace. If we spread out and work together, we can clean it up a bit. Right now, I have to admit that some of my "friends" need some cleaning up.

    Read this part too: By this time, I’ve likely been branded "one of those." Not so, I’m no prude. I’m not "the man" out their judging and patrolling myspace or anything like that, I just want to see something that is really, really cool get cleaned up so it can be really, really cooler.

  • Taking “kissing up” to a new level

    KissingI suppose this isn’t really all that funny, but it struck me as odd. A local elementary school principal was caught kissing a parent in the school gym and suspended from school. Now that is what I call a parent/teacher conference! [Here’s the story]

  • Is it dinner time yet?

    As I posted yesterday, today is my first day of fasting for lent. I just have a quick observation. It was unwise of me to go to Static Age to work on my talk. They make the best sandwiches and I am just sitting here drooling! Note to self: Next week go to the library.

  • A man I admire

    I’m not ashamed to admit that there are some people in my life that I really admire. One of them is our former pastor, Ray Pritchard. He’s not a super fancy guy, and he’s no "church growth expert." But he is a person who simply lives a faithful life obedient to the Father as much as you can expect a man to. From my vantage point, he really lives out James 1:22-25 "Do not merely listen to the word, and
    so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it
    says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and
    immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law
    that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard,
    but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.    "

    As a member at Calvary, I always looked up to Ray. I don’t really know him personally and we’ve only talked a couple of times, but sitting in the pews week to week for a few years and you feel like you know a guy. What always struck me was that he was seemed confident in who he was… just a man.

    Back in the Fall, Ray left Calvary. When I heard that news, as I wrote about back then, I was in a bit of shock… but I always had sensed that this wasn’t the last place for Ray. The shock continued for me when I learned that Ray just felt led to leave Calvary… not head on to greener pastures as so many successful people in ministry seem to do, but just to leave.

    I am a lurker of Ray’s blog. Since I served in the youth group when a couple of his sons were growing up, I’ always happy to see news that the boys are doing fine… and better than fine is always a bonus.

    But it especially warms my heart to read the joy between the lines as he filled a pulpit last Sunday in Tupelo, MS. You can just sense from his words that he feels at home in the pulpit and any church would be pleased to have him as pulpit supply.

    I actually heard someone say "Amen!" when I finished telling the story.
    Afterwards someone remarked that I was talking a mile a minute during
    that part of the sermon. Someone else chimed in and said, "You had a
    lot of ground to cover." When I said I would slow down a bit next
    Sunday, a woman spoke up and said, "Just be yourself and bring the
    message God lays on your heart." That put a smile on my face.

    For me, I need to see this. That may sound so carnal and so selfish or whatever… but I long to see men following and chasing after God with their lives. Not a sprint, but a lifelong marathon.

    So, this is a guy I admire.

  • A big step up for Romeo

    Ss701_bigTo some this will seem like no big deal, but to others what we did today is a massive thing. Just a few hours ago I put together a purchase order to replace our church pews with the chair pictured to the left. This isn’t something that we did flippantly, but I recognize that it will signify something very hard for our people. The tipping point for going to chairs was money… isn’t that always the case. At the end of the day, re-upholstering them every few years was just too expensive when we looked at the one time cost of a chair.

    What will happen to our pews? We are hoping that this isn’t the end of the road for Romeo’s pews. I am currently working on finding a way to sell our chairs to a new church or old church that needs them. I found a very cool website called Used Pews for doing this. If all else fails, we will be finding a ministry in the area to donate them to.

    There are a lot of side benefits to changing the auditorium to chairs. But there is also a lot of sentimentality to keeping them.