Search results for: “good news”

  • Like a Good Neighbor…

    “Like a Good Neighbor. State Farm is There.”

    That’s a familiar slogan, isn’t it? If you live in the United States chances are good that I just put that jingle in your head. But have you ever stopped to think about the meaning of this song?

    What is State Farm saying? It’s an insurance company reminding you that your neighbors stink. But if you pay them a premium they’ll be like a good neighbor to you.

    “All we did was show up and smile.” That’s usually the honest reflection for teenagers who are serving on a mission trip. The lead-up to the trip elevated their expectations that doing mission work was somehow extraordinary. But when you sit in a circle with a group debriefing a day of service someone in the circle will always say that they didn’t do anything particularly special. There’s a little ounce of disappointment that handing a homeless person a sandwich or painting the classroom of a school didn’t feel more special.

    Yet, there is power in that reflection. Often times loving a neighbor isn’t a big thing. Something doesn’t have to be large or especially memorable to be meaningful.

    In fact, becoming Good News in your Neighborhood is often so free that you begin doing it without any intentionality. I recently sat down with a denominational leader who shared with me just that. He left a parish ministry to accept a position at the denominations offices, and in doing so he left his parsonage garden behind and began living in a condo. Several months later he noticed that a small common area of his complex was getting overgrown and he approached the property manager about turning it into a little vegetable garden. He admits, his desire to do this was very selfish. He missed gardening and saw an opportunity to do something he loved. But as time went on neighbors began to ask him questions about what he was growing. Of course, he shared some of his crop. And the next thing you know everyone in his complex knows his name, about his garden, is helping with “their” garden, and looks forward to seeing him.

    I’ll give you one guess where a couple of families are now going to church…

     

  • Tim Shelton Uses His Influence for Good

    When my family moved into the College Area 3+ years ago we had no idea how much impact San Diego State would have on us. We just knew that we were going to embrace SDSU because it was the neighborhood we live in and we always have hopes of being Good News wherever we live. (Yes, being season ticket holders is being Good News… right?)

    What we didn’t know is that in these 3 years the entire university has begun a transformation no one could have anticipated.

    In 2009, the major news story on campus was about a campus-wide, one semester ban, on the consumption of alcohol. (Including on campus fraternities and sororities.) There was concern about how this rule would impact the school’s Playboy’s Top Party Schools ranking and the economics that went with it.

    SDSU was a party school and defined by it.

    Truth be told SDSU is still a party school. It’s a fun place to be a student. But partying is not the first thing people think about anymore when they hear SDSU anymore.

    Winning Changes Everything

    Tim's knees have become a mascot, of sorts.

    San Diego State is currently the most winning college in major sports. Football had back-to-back 8-4 seasons. Basketball was 34-3 in 2011 and is currently 20-3.

    Winning has redefined campus. 3+ years ago you saw far more frat/sorority t-shirts than SDSU gear. Now, most students rock SDSU gear multiple times per week. Each home game 12,414 pack into Viejas Arena to cheer on the basketball team. Last year saw a huge increase in student involvement at football games. Students aren’t just coming to campus to party anymore. Now they want to be part of The Show.

    Increased interest has created a groundswell of students trying to get into SDSU as their first choice. Consequently, the admissions standards have gone up, making SDSU more and more of an academic school beating it’s “fall back school” reputation.

    As the video shows, winning also transformed the type of student-athlete SDSU attracts. Tim Shelton has been on campus long enough to see this transformation first hand. It’s obvious to point out that this transformation is part of his legacy. Steve Fisher, SDSU’s Hall of Fame-bound coach, sometimes refers to Tim in press conferences as “coach.” Tim has lots of talents and lots of influence on campus and with his teammates. (Case in point, Tim wrote and produced Aztec Motto, the video played during pre-game introductions at home games.)

    So what is he doing with his talents and influence? 

    Raising money for kids after school programs. $26 at a time, one t-shirt at a time, Tim is helping to fund an after school program to keep kids in school. $15,000 so far. He’s aiming at $26,000– enough to fund the program for 100 kids for 1 year.

    Winning attracts winners and Tim Shelton is a winner.

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  • What Good Works?

    church-ephesians-2-10

    I’m a rubber meets the road kind of guy. I want to know the big picture early on in a discussion. And I want to know what I’m being asked to do.

    Perhaps that is why I’ve always wrestled with Ephesians 2:8-10.

    For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith– and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

    In this passage Paul addresses the question, “Why are we saved?” More importantly, he points us to the biggest struggle of the church today: Do we exist, as believers, for the church’s good works or for the good works of the city we live in?

    I think church leaders morph the meaning of this verse and lift it out of context for their own purposes.

    Church leaders interpretation: “You were created in Christ Jesus to do good works, and we’re going to point you to good works right here in the church building. We have many programs of the church that could use your good works… especially in the nursery. Did you know we have a growing nursery and a shrinking pool of volunteers willing to hold babies so their parents can worship Sunday morning?”

    Let’s be honest. That’s a very seperatist view of the the world. Much of what we do as church leaders is kingdom building for our local church. We address our most current need as if it were the communities most current need. In America, our view of a  good church is one that is full of people, has a great pastor, and has a huge building. But what good are those things to the people of the community? Do they see the church as a place of good news for them? In most cases they don’t. American churches serve themselves more than they serve the community! Most churches in our country have little to no impact on the community they live in. They reach 2-3% of the populuation and all of their programs essentially benefit themselves or that 2-3% of the population who come to their building to worship.

    To the community– a lot of churches are bad news.

    Paul’s explanation in Ephesians 2:12-13: (The part pastors don’t read when asking you to volunteer for something) “Remember that at that time [before you were saved] you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ”

    Paul is reminding his people… you were once locked out of the being a part of God’s family because you weren’t born into it. But Jesus tore down that wall of separation. There is no “good works for Jesus” and “good works for the world” in God’s eyes. A good work is a good work. Verse 14 makes this even more explicit, “For he himself if our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.”

    So… why are we saved? What is our purpose in the city we live in? To do good works both within the church and outside. There is no separation and one is not better than the other. They are both good works! The purpose of the church isn’t to create a holy huddle… it’s to create a sending place of good works and renewal into the places we live.

    Perhaps this is why the program-driven church is so repulsive to people exploring a walk with Jesus today. They read the New Testament for themselves and cannot reconcile what is described as a movement of God’s people to change the world with the church they are presented with… one that exists to feed its programs.

  • Bad news for suburban kids

    graduation-dayIn the next few weeks millions of high school seniors will hear their name called and walk across the stage to recieve a high school diploma. There is an interesting phenomonon on graduation day that I’d like to point out.

    Kids in the city are typically pretty excited about the achievement. In the city graduation rates are typically lower and there isn’t the same assumption that every child will graduate. Consequently, everyone is more excited and a city high school graduation ceremony is truly a celebration. Parents go nuts when they hear their kids name called. And students literally do backflips when they get their paper.

    Kids in the suburbs are typically excited about graduation for other reasons. It’s assumed they will graduate so the ceremony carries an air of “farewell to my friends” more than a true celebration of achievement. Parents take pictures and clap politely as their children achieve something they fully expected their child to achieve. Rather than this being a moment to celebrate, students are anxious about how much they will get at their graduation party or hoping to get to go to the hot girls party. It’s a nice day but lacks the flamboyance of the party in the city.

    That’s not the bad news.

    dorm-lifeThe bad news is that kids from the city are going to kick the kids from the suburbs butt from here on out! While their richer, more priveledged peers wallow away their days coming up with new ways to not work, take advantage of their parents wealth, and essentially avoid responsibility as long as possible, all while piling up tens of thousands of dollars in college debt. Kids from the city are taking advantage of the system and running laps around their advantaged peers.

    Let’s contrast things.

    1. The typical “rich white kid from the suburbs” goes to college on a combination of his parents dime and college loans. Almost none work significant hours. (20 hours per week or less seems to be the norm) They waste time professionally. They are so busy playing, going to class, and hanging with their friends that they skirt by classes without taking them seriously. I’ve met countless affluent college kids who passed all of the tests but didn’t learn a thing in 4 years of college. They graduate with $40,000 in debt and no real life experience. Without a job they move back home and hope that someone will give them a job. I’ve even witnessed these affluent college kids chose to live at home and make no money while skipping opportunities to take entry-level jobs at places in their chosen career path. The assumption is that the system will work for them. One day they will magically wake up from a video-game-induced dream get their dream job and make loads of money. The truth is they don’t know how to work hard to earn good money as they’ve never been forced to innovate solutions or hustle to make rent money. In fact, with the mom/dad fall-back plan there is no motivation to strive to achieve anything. They will always have a roof over their head, they will always have food in the belly, a car to drive, and someone to care for them. And even more true is that the silent racially lopsided system doesn’t work like that anymore. While they were watching The Hills, kids from the city took the upper hand.

    2. The typical “working-class minority kid from the city” goes to college on a combination of scholarships, work study, and summer jobs. While their more affluent peers weren’t looking, their ACT and SAT scores have caught their suburban peers and the system rewards minorities who compete academically with rich white kids. In other words, a Hispanic student from the city will get a full ride with the same scores that the suburban kid had. (It’s no secret that scholarship dollars are easier to get for minorities.)  Taking advantage of that, these students work harder in class, consequently learn more, and are ultimately rewarded with more opportunities than their affluent peers. job-search-resumeWork study and summer jobs, combined with almost no college debt result in a college graduate who is highly marketable and financially advantaged for the first time ever. They are more industrious, more hungry to take responsibility, and more aware that they can make it than ever.

    As an adult I look at this and slap my head. If you were an employer looking at the resume of recent college graduates… which employee would you want? The kid who came from nothing but is crawling out of poverty by his achievement and hard work? Or the kid who was handed everything and never worked a day in his life?

    And that my friends is bad news for the suburban kids.

    Parents! What are you going to do with this scenario? How can you change your behavior from enabler to motivator?

  • What’s Good About the Recession?

    Our culture is inundated with the negative news of the recession. News outlets struggle to find fresh ways to accurately describe the words “the economy sucks” each hour of the day.

    The church has followed right along with the negative news. A lot of blogs have cited a report that church participation is on a steep decline. Of course, people won’t admit that there is a tie between the recession and people leaving the church. Perhaps churches should have responded to help sooner? That’s another rant for another day.

    Here are three good things the recession has done for my family:

    – A huge emphasis to live in the black. As I’ve documented before, we are working hard to get out of debt and build a little savings.

    – A huge emphasis on what is important. Tough times lead people back to their roots and we are no different. A major focus for us has been on “cheap family fun.” We’ve kept the value of family time but re-tooled it to focus on the time and not the activity. There are lots of other areas where we are making values-based decisions as opposed to having little rhyme or reason as to why we do things.

    – A huge emphasis on sustainability. Scaling things back and focusing just a tad more on thrift allows us to live within a sustainable budget. While we can’t predict the future (no one can) we can manage our house in a way that would allow us to sustain in thin times and thrive in good times.

    I think these three things… live in the black, focus on your values, and practice sustainability are three things that every family, church, business, and institution should be learning during this recession. Without a doubt, these are tough times. But there is great good to come from it if we’ll learn hard lessons and apply them in the future!

    Those who are hit hardest by this economy should resolve a “never again” attitude. We all made fun of our grandparents for saving everything and compulsive frugality. Who is laughing now?

  • Tragic News from Alaska

    My mom forwarded this to me. I thought it was good for a giggle this Christmas Day.

  • Goodnight Gospelcom Alliance

    I was pretty excited to have Youth Ministry Exchange join the GCI Alliance back in 2006. In fact, we made a big deal about telling people with over 100 guesses as to what the big surprise was all about.

    I sensed in the last few months things weren’t going well… staff leaving for other places and not getting replaced, stuff like that.

    Yesterday I got news that the Ministry Alliance will cease to exist in mid-December. For the 200+ organizations who look to GCI for assistance and encouragement this was a huge shock.

    Here’s parts of the email I got.

    As the result of a number of factors, the Board of Directors of Gospel
    Communications has decided that the ministry of Gospel Communications as we
    have known it is coming to a close.  This was, obviously, not an easy
    decision, but our commitment is to carry it out in the best manner possible.
    We are currently involved in trying to find good stewards for the various
    ministries of Gospel Communications who will be able to carry those
    ministries forward.

    I wanted to let you know that the decision talked about above means that the services offered to Alliance Ministries (hosting, technical support, training, etc.) are coming to an
    end. Although this is not the path that any of us would have necessarily
    chosen, we are committed to making this transition as smooth and as
    God-honoring as possible.

    Right now it looks like our date for “end of service” will be December 15,
    2008. We are contractually obligated to give Alliance Ministries 60 days of
    notice. The December 15 date will make the transition period approximately
    90 days.

    Here’s my personal opinion. I think that the need for the Alliance may have passed. When it was created back in 1995 this thing was totally needed. Ministries struggled to find decent hosts, small ministries had no practical way to create an online presence without spending tons of cash, and there wasn’t a lot of technical support out there for people just learning. Boy how times have changed! Speaking as a member, having been to the conference, I just don’t see the need for this type of Alliance.

    With that said, I do think there is a great need to keep ministries together. I think that things like traning events and sharing resources is always going to be needed. Further, I think that as ministries get more sophisticated and as high capacity people look for work in this field there will be a greater need for the networking that something like GCI could provide.

    In other words, a retooled version of the Alliance could and will still work. Fewer hoops, increase the help, and loads of churches and ministries will flock to it. Hint: Make it for-profit, ask people to pay to be a part of it, but make it worth their while to pay. Another hint: Dump the hosting and technical support. No need to compete on that playing field with hosts that are so cheap and so reliable.

    What about the Gospel Communication sites? All I know is that there’s no way sites like ThinkChristian.net or Biblegateway.com will go away. They are simply too popular to let go.

  • Buy a Good Lock for Your Luggage

    lost luggageAccording to a recent Fox news story, the TSA knows that $31 million in items have been stolen from bags since the agency took over airport security. To highlight, here is how it goes down most often.

    1. The most dangerous time for your luggage is the time between your initial check-in and departure.
    2. Typically, just one person works in the baggage holding area sorting luggage onto various carts, creating the perfect opportunity.
    3. Since luggage isn’t locked, that person can take items like expensive shoes, perfumes, and cameras easily.
    4. To distract from the crime, that person can then misdirect your luggage to another airport to cast the blame on numerous other people if it is reported.

    TSA JacketThree tips for keeping your valuables safe while you fly.

    1. Carry valuables in carry-on.
    2. If you must check valuables, the article suggests not having brand new or matching luggage as that is a clue to them that your bags are valuable.
    3. Put a TSA approved lock on your bags. This won’t prevent crime completely but it may encourage a would-be thief to go after an easier target.

    Top 5 TSA Approved Luggage Locks

    1. TSA Approved Lock with Search Indicator by Travelaccessory. This has an indicator light to tell you if you bag has been searched. If it is red and you didn’t get a TSA notice, you know your bag has been tampered with.
    2. TSA Approved Set of 4 Brass Luggage Locks by Master Lock. This is perfect for a family. Not only are the locks high quality brass, with a single key unlocking and getting unpacked couldn’t be easier.
    3. TSA Pelilock – 1506 by Pelican. This combination-style lock is simple and does the job perfectly every time.
    4. TSA Accepted Cable Lock in Multiple Colors by Master Lock. For those with luggage that locks better with the cable style latch, this is excellent. With 5 different colors to chose from, might as well accessorize.
    5. Strapsafe by PacSafe. If you’ve got big luggage and need to lock it down with straps this is the best. With straps extending to 74 inches, this should do it for anyone.

    HT to Boing Boing

  • Scary news in the UK

    London_terrorWe woke up this morning to reports of some good news. Not that anything serious happened, but that anti-terrorism police in London had broken up a major terror plot to blow up planes between the UK and US.

    Apparently, the threat level is as high as it gets with flights between the two countries. When Dave wakes up, I am sure he’ll be very suprised. I have to admit… if I were him and I had to fly home in a few weeks… I’d be pretty nervous.

  • good morning at the church

    OK, so I am biased about what we are doing. But I felt pretty good about church today. The jr./sr. high split is going OK, the feel of Sunday school is about where I want it to be, on and on.

    Valley I thought the worship service today was pretty solid. It’s no secret that we’ve had plenty of technical problems lately… today everything worked for the most part. We had some problems with Media Shout 2.5, but I will be upgrading that to version 3 later this week. Hopefully that will stabilize all of that stuff and the transition to fully digital will work a lot better. Also, tech news… the new handhelds worked great. PHEW! I also enjoyed highlighting the ministry of the Esklund’s in Denmark. [see picture] Holy cow, I could live there, it is beautiful.

    For the rest of today… I am planning on resting. Jon might come over later, but I will be resting mostly. With all the wind today I can’t really work outside anyway.

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