NYWC Day 3.1

I'm just about finished with the book Living With Questions by Dale Fincher, one of the seminar speakers. Between down time and the plane ride, I'm enjoying his philosophy/apologetic written for teens. It's kind of like taking an easy, condensed version of my college philosophy class. I'm still debating whether or not I want to use the book as a basis for a teaching series or a small group material.

That night, Mark Matlock of Planet Wisdom spoke on what the American church can learn from the church worldwide. He made reference to the body of Christ, and that a body needs all its parts to be healthy. Its parts aren't just about gifts, or types of people, but includes all races and nations. So to be healthy, we need to learn from the church as it is in other cultures.

Mark also spoke about how the Acts 15 church addressed the gospel heading into a new culture. From that, he developed a comparison of how our culture tells us to run church verses the way of Kingdom of God.

Culture	Kingdom
Defend identity	Deny self
Control the process	Submit to God and others
Critique others	Serve others
Achieve outcomes	Trusts God for outcomes

It's easy to get stuck in a rut of doing things out of our own wisdom and power in the church. Though I want success in my ministry, I don't want to play the numbers game. May we remember that it's His church and not our own.

Done

Okay, so the book didn't take that long to read. Between staying up late one night, and using one of my 'cuts' the next day at school, I finished The DaVinci Code. I got to say. I enjoy fiction. Its been years since my last fiction. Not bad.

Besides obvious heresy (of which I've pretty much heard before), it was a great book...very suspensful. On the recommendation of a few, I might read his other book, Angels and Demons. But definitely not until the school term is over.

On a different note. It was March 9 yesterday, and it snowed! It snowed 2 inches up at my house. I was so excited that I forgot to bring one of my books with me yesterday! There's nothing better than watching snow fall, which I got to do all day. I also smiled at youth group as the mid schoolers erupted with cheers of snow when the night was over.

New Post

Okay, I'll post again, but only because Jessica asked. ;)

Its been a busy fun week(end). On top of the usual schoolwork, Friday night, the Ubels came over for dinner and a movie. My wife made pot roast...mmm...and I made cookies. We watched Walk the Line which makes me want to watch it again with guitar in hand. We had a great night.

Saturday brought Alison's college roomates into town. We shared meals and the gals went shopping. Good times.

I finally got to do something I haven't done since December. Go to Starbucks and read a book. I just finished reading The Search to Belong by Joseph Myers (it's on my sidebar). He has some wonderful things to say about relationships and small groups.

He believes that we put way too much emphasis on small groups, making them the only way...the ultamite way to connect within the body of Christ. He proposes that we need to have relationships in harmony in 4 different "spaces":

• Public - This space is where something common brings us together, such as a sports team.
• Social - This space is where we gather together and know each other just a bit more than aquantences, we know each other, but don't share a lot of personal details.
• Personal - This space are the people that we share most of our lives with. They are "close" friends.
• Intimate - This doesn't mean just physically intimate. This means that we share "naked" raw, thoughts, feelings, (sometimes physical, i.e. your spouse) and are unashamed.

His view of a healthy person is someone that approxamatly has 8 Public to 4 Social to 2 Personal to 1 Intimate relationship.

He says that it is ridiculous that we try to move ourselves and everybody else into personal relationships, when we need many social and public relationships to be healthy, and sense belonging.

Anyway...it was a good read. If you lead small groups, or are interested in one man's view of relational studies, read this book.

Next up...Fiction. I haven't read fiction in over 5 years. I'm going to read The Davinci Code, and yes, I still believe that Jesus is God. I'll let you know what I think of that one when I'm done. (which will be another year at the rate I'm going!)