The Washing Machine

This is slowly becoming a blog about home improvement projects!

Last night I rushed home, fed the kids, and excitedly ripped into a package sitting by the front door. It was like Christmas Eve in February! Except instead of some fun toy, it held a new lid switch for our dated Kenmore washing machine. Oh the joy!

I'm not a washing machine genius. I skipped "washing machine maintenance and repair" in seminary while wasting time on unimportant subjects like "the eschatological implications of the word it in john 6:54". I realize now that was a mistake. Being able to translate most of the Old Testament doesn't mean squat when you don't have any clean jeans.

I had one pair of jeans that I had wore most of the week. The rest were soaking in the disgusting water of our washing machine which would neither spin nor drain. Not good. My jeans collection -- both the pair I had been wearing and the pairs in the stagnant pool that was our washer -- were rank with vile and foul odors.

Google, though, loves me anyway. I searched for "lid switch replacement Kenmore washer 110.23456392" found an easy tutorial, grabbed my screw gun and marched determined into the laundry room. Believe it or not, to repair the lid switch you don't actually have to do anything with the lid. Instead, you have to carefully remove the entire cover off the washing machine so you can access a very important electrical connection and ground screw.

One sliced pinky later, the cover was removed, the old lid switch extracted, the new one installed, and the cover back into position. Working time? Less than 30 minutes. WOOT! (What does that even mean?)

I drained the washer (which I'm sure constitued an environmental hazard by itself), ran it back to the beginning of the cyle and waited for the magic....

And waited...

And waited some more...

I jiggled knobs. I tested the different cycles. It would fill and agitate, just as it has always done, but never advance to the spin or drain cycles.

Maybe it just needs more time, Jessica and I agree.

We wait.

We listen.

We grow annoyed.

Finally, an unbearable 20 minutes later (it felt like 3 hours!), I grabbed my screw gun again and was determined to either make that washing machine work or destroy it utterly while trying! Jessica suggested that we pray about it first. I agree. We pray, somewhat angrily, and I attack.

You know what happened? A miracle!

Cover removed. Console extracted. Lid switch exposed again. Pinky still bleeding. At some point in the process the electrical connection between the old washer and the new lid switch had come loose and it was just hanging there, with a malicious, mocking smile spread across its evil plastic face.

I put everything back together, reset it all, and Jessica and I rejoiced as the washer immediately drained and started spinning. WOOT WOOT!

What's the miracle? If you had smelled the one pair of jeans I had been wearing this week you would know!

Biggest Loser Daily Devotional - Psalm 1

This post is from the Biggest Loser Daily Devotional that we're doing at Family Church. I'll post my entries here at the Stomp Box, but if you would like to receive all 47 blogs from the FC staff, then email me and I'll your email address to the distribution list.

Opening Prayer
Thank you, Lord, for meeting with me now. I desire to seek Your face. I want to know you better. I ask that you come and visit with me now as I read from Your Word and mediate on its message for my life. Thank you for guiding me into Your presence and truth. Help me to make and keep this commitment to a daily time or prayer and Bible Study. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Psalm 1
1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.
2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.
3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.
4 But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.
5 They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly.
6 For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destructionPsalms 1:1-6 (NLT)

Devotional
It's appropriate, I think, that we're starting this Bible study and devotional with a Psalm that is all about the power of Bible study and devotions in our lives. Over the next 46 days you'll receive a message just like this one. It will have a prayer, a Psalm, and a brief inspiring message that hopefully will help you experience a little of God's presence in your life before you jump into your busy day.

When you think of meditation what comes to mind? For me, it's Buddhist monks sitting cross-legged in the Himalayan mountains, saying "umm" and searching for the elusive state of nirvana.

For the author of this Psalm meditating is thinking about the laws of God day and night. He is processing God's character, His eternal qualities, His divine nature, His personal activity in our lives, and His love for each of us.

What's the result of thinking about God's law - His character and words? We have joy. We begin to take delight in God. I'll take a cup of that with some cream and sugar to go, please.

Today, take a moment and think about our God. Let's meditate on God's nature. Who is God? What is God? What has God done for you? Right now ask yourself those questions. Maybe even write down your answers in a journal.

God has been so good to us that it's hard not to get all happy when we think about God. What better way to kick start our day than by remembering our creator and savior?

Look again at verse 3. What's the end result of this meditation and joy? I'll let you meditate on that for awhile.

Closing Prayer
God, I thank you for who you are and what you've done. I can rely on you. You never change and you love me always. Fill me with your joy today and help me to think about you all day long. Bless my day with your presence. Let my thoughts be thoughts of you. Let my words be the ones you are speaking. Let my actions be from your will. I praise you and thank you for who you are in Jesus' name, amen.

The Fence

I know you're here looking for some witty commentary on church life or Christian living or eschatological hermeneutics. No. Sorry. Not this week. I'm going with the mundane.

I have to build my son a fence. Not a treehouse. Not a custom tube amp. Nope. A fence. Why?

Because my son is getting a dog for his birthday, and before we get a dog we've committed to building a fence to contain said dog.

I'm sure that my wife will attest that I'm reasonably handy. I'm at the least handy enough to have a lot of cool ideas and designs about all kinds of home improvement projects that get started and occassionally even finished!

Anyway, I guess you could say that my son, unbeknownst to him, is relying on me to come through this time. So, here's to you, Jacob! I'm all in for three weeks worth of splinters, concrete, 4x4 posts, post hole diggers, black and blue thumbs, and most likely one ricketty but well conceived privacy fence to contain one man's best friend for one boy who is certainly worth the hastle.

Meanwhile, while I run off to Lowe's to buy things that might or might not help me construct the fence, you can take a glance at a very cute beagle pup that could very well look just like the one that will hopefully reside within the afformentioned fence...




Now if that pic doesn't get me some more readers I don't know what will!

Vision & Membership

Family Church has a vision. I hope that you all know that. I hope even more than you can tell me what that vision statement is. Can you? I say it every Sunday that I give the announcements. It's printed on all of our publications. It's all over the website.

Family Church. Helping people find their place in God's family.

This past Sunday night I taught the membership class called Starting Point. It was a great honor to be able to teach that course. For the past 8 years Pastor Brett had taught it as a way to connect to new attenders and potential members and share in detail and from the heart the vision, mission, and direction of Family Church. Inheriting that mantle, at least temporarily, is not something that I take lightly. Membership is very important to me.

I think that inherent in the term membership is the concept of ownership. In this season as much or more than any other, we have to realize that church isn't about one person. It's not about Pastor Brett's vision. It's not about Dr. Frisbie's or mine. It's not about the board's vision.

This is our church. It's your church. It is what we members, the staff, and the leaders make of it.

So, in the coming weeks we're going to start asking more of our members. We'll be praying more. We'll be fasting. We'll be reading and studying the Bible together more. We're all going to take ownership, at least I hope, of the spiritual health and direction of Family Church. Watch for ways that you can be involved. Listen to that small still voice in your head encouraging you to take a step forward and to embrace a new mantle of responsibility and depth of spiritual awareness.

We're on the verge of good things. I believe it. I'm excited about it. Together we can do great things. We can help a whole new group of people who walk through the doors of our church find their place in God's family just as we've found ours. That's a high calling. Perhaps the highest calling. How will you help fulfill it? Think about it!

The TRANSITION

When I first heard that Pastor Brett was leaving Family Church for Florida I went into temporary shock. I have read Nazarene Polity. I knew what this meant for me. I would resign as our policy dictates, and pray the Board and the new pastor decided to keep me (and the rest of the staff) on. There was little or no risk of us being let go, but it doesn't mean the process didn't create sleepless nights.

I've devoted 8 of the best years of my life to Family Church and while I could accept that God was moving Brett on to something new, I wasn't getting that same feeling in my spirit. In fact, I entered 2009 with a tremendous hope that we were on the verge of new and amazing things. I could feel it. I knew it. It was palpable, tangible. It was exciting.

When the call came, my hope was momentarily shattered. A phantom of uncertainty rose over everything that I did and thought. All the strategy, praying, and planning I had done seemed wasted now as we entered crisis management mode.

Could God bless us and take us deeper without a senior pastor? Could I still bring about positive change in the church while in the midst of a transition?

As a wannabe theologian, I turned first to the Bible. What I found was both surprising and yet comforting. Transition, change, is a primary theme of the New and Old Testament. It's central. God chooses His leader, directs His leader in how He is to lead His people. Then, just when things are getting interesting, he moves that leader on to something new.

Why?

That's the question that I think everyone in Family Church should ask themselves and God. Why does God move leaders just when things are getting good?

I don't have an answer for you. I can just tell you the result. Transition and change in leadership bring crisis. Crisis spurs action. Action results in ministry. Ministry produces life change.

I'm amazed at what I'm seeing in Family Church. For the past 3-4 years we've seen the cancer of complacency spring up in pockets throughout the congregation. As staff and leaders we sought to battle that not realizing that the cancer was covertly invading our own hearts.

In the last few weeks God has healed our congregation of that debilitating illness. The entire church has sprung to new life and a willingness connect and minister like we haven't seen in years. We've created new ministry teams. We've installed new ministry directors. We have ministries writing strategic plans for growth and outreach. It's a beautiful thing for an administrative pastor charged with keeping this church and staff moving forward in a time of transition.

Change is good. Why do we fear it? Why do we dread the unknown? Our God who changes not sure changes us a lot.

My hope and excitement for new ministry in 2009? It's back and it's stronger than ever. This is going to be a great year for Family Church.