A rare political post

I try very hard not to post anything political here, but I can’t help resposting this post from Bart Compolo.  To quote:

. . .it is high time pro-life evangelicals woke up to the fact that the countless Republicans they have elected over the years have given them practically nothing in return for their votes.

Great Thoughts from a Godly Woman

While I’ve been taking about Java and Spring and other techo-babble, my wife has been blogging about more important things.

How To Be A Hero

Our church has some very serious building needs.  The main building is forty years old and is not adequate for our ministry, and hasn’t been for many years.  Things have been done to band-aid it like add a classroom wing and a separate building with even more classrooms and a youth room, but we still only have one set of bathrooms in the main building, and they are downstairs by our only fellowship room.  During the week, our basement is a pre-school, so on Sunday morning you get to look at Ernie and Big Bird on the bright yellow walls.  Not to mention how we make our older member struggle going up and down the stairs afterward the service to have coffee.  And that, with everyone downstairs after church, you can’t hardly move and can’t hear yourself talk.

I’m not complaining — I’m really telling you like it is. All the members of our church agree that we need do to something major, though we all have been dragging our feet.  Our main excuse has been cost and our location.  We looked at buying more land, but if we could afford to buy a decent-sized plot, our building would be smaller than we have now — which would defeat the purpose.

Then God brought Brown Church Development to talk to us.  They consult with the church, design what the church needs (as opposed with what the church wants, which can be two different things) and then they build it.  All for a set price — if their plan costs more than they projected to us, they eat that extra cost.  And all they do is build churches, and they know what they are doing.

The Council and the Building Team met with Brown’s CEO last night and went over their proposed contract. He went over every piece of it and glossed over nothing. The members present all agreed that it was a surprisingly clean contract. We decided to sleep on it and meet Sunday after church, but no one disagreed that we should work with Brown.

As I’m reflexing on all this on the drive to work, I’m listening to a podcast from Mosaic Community entitled “Deborah: Unlikely Hero” (the direct link seems to be down, unfortunately).  The speaker talked about how Barak wouldn’t go to war without Deborah, because he didn’t really want to go.  He didn’t think that God would fulfull his promises.  Deborah was a hero because she was willing to do something that no one else was willing to do.

This is the same issue — for years, we’ve known that we needed to do a major overhaul of our building facilities, but we’ve been too scared to do it. Now God has presented our leadership an opportunity to make things better for our ministry, and our present and future members. We are being called to do things that no one else has wanted to do.

Praying Psalm 23

Our church theme for the year is “Building on Prayer”, and our pastor is trying to get the whole congregation to envelope themselves and our church in prayer. In that aspect, he has asked the Council members to take turns praying the congregational prayer during the service. This past Sunday was my turn.

Thinking what what to pray and getting it written down was difficult for me. I started thinking about different prayers in the Bible, and Psalm 23 stuck out for me. I have an interesting re-telling of the Bible called, The Word on the Street by Rob Lacey and it’s version of Psalm 23 is especially powerful. So I took it, tweaked it a little to make it sound more like a prayer, and read it to the congregation. I think that is was very powerful. So here is what I read, which is pretty much was Lacey wrote, and what God wants us to say:

DD: Slaying the Dragon

Remember, this was originally emailed  to people I work with.  And it’s my last DD, only most of them didn’t know that.

Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:

“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

– Proverbs 31:28-30

Many people have told me lately how great my family is. A couple of people who aren’t believers have even told me that I am “blessed”. That’s an interesting statement from people who may not even truly know what it means to be blessed!

But it’s true — God has blessed me with a great family. My wife Gina talks wonderful care of our household and my almost-three-year old daughter Leah is full of life, energetic, and fun, but it not destructive like a lot two-year olds. I truly am blessed.

My job as head of the household is to provider for my wonderful family and to lead us not only through the short-term but to forge ahead and see what is coming up months and years down the road and start preparing for it now. In our couples Bible study, we say that men must go out everyday and slay the dragon.

As I have gone out and providing for my family, I’ve come to realize in the past year that how I am providing for my family may not be the best for us long-term. My name was passed around, meetings were held, opportunities were presented, and soon I was prevented an offer outside of ACI, which I have accepted. The decision wasn’t easy — I work with a lot of great people that I have learned a ton from as well as had a lot of fun with. But as I’ve told people what I am doing, all of them have said, “This is a really good opportunity for you. It’s good for you but bad for us.” It’s wonderful that my co-workers think of me so highly. Another way that ACI has blessed me.

So this is my last DD I will write for ACI. I hope that some of you have been as blessed reading them as I have been blessed writing them. If you aren’t writing them, I challenge you to it at least once or twice. I’ve learned a lot about God and myself while reflecting on what God has been teaching me and putting it down on paper (or email, rather).