The Honest Golfer

Have you heard the news (ok, sports news) story about J.P. Hayes? (If not, read it here) Hayes is a golfer a Q School, which is where golfers attempt to qualify for the PGA Tour. Q School is an intense compitition because if you qualify, you play on the PGA Tour making good money for playing golf. Here's what happened there. Hayes hit his ball out of bounds and began to use a nonconforming, non-approved golf ball for one hole. But Hayes did not know he was using it. When Hayes realized that the ball was not approved for play, he said something to the officials. Using the wrong ball was a 2 stroke penalty...using a non approved ball meant Hayes would be disqualified. Hayes owned up to using a non-approved ball and was disqualified for his honesty (Golfers have to police themselves).

People have been debated whether or not Hayes should have admitted using a non-approved ball. After all, it was one hole. How much of a difference could it make? Others have said 'rules are rules' and he should turn himself in. Is honesty a big deal when it's the rule? While it's assumed that all golfers would do the same (it's the rules), if no one notices the infraction, would they admit it?

How do we do with honesty? As Christians, why do we allow dishonesty to creep into our lives? I knew Christians who cheated on test in college, copied term papers, cut corners, and were generally dishonest. If we look around at churches, we see pastors/leaders who allow dishonesty to creep into their ministries and their churches.

I remember a class in college where I didn't know the answer on a multiple choice question and I was searching for the answer on the ceiling tiles above my head. At some point as I search for the answer in the air, I caught a glimpse of my neighbors paper and the very question that I was stuck on. I thought about using that answer (because I also knew it was correct once I saw it), but since I came to that conclusion from someone else, I left the answer blank and lost 2 points off the test.

Now, I don't write that to pat myself on the back. But I write that to say that it could have been easy to put that answer down...but to do that would be cheating. It would be dishonest. Yes, it cost me some points, but I was able to say with integrity that the answers I gave were my answers.

Why is the J.P. Hayes such a story? I think it's because we've made it culturally acceptable to cut corners or act dishonestly as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. Rather than being honest, we lie, cheat, and cut corners to get ahead rather than doing the hard work to be successful. We have lost the meaning of INTEGRITY in our society. We just finished an election season where candidates talk about integrity, yet many ultimately get involved in some sort of scandal or compromises on their convictions.

What does it mean to live a life of integrity? What does that look like? How do we do at it? Why are we so quick to take short cuts for short term success rather than doing the hard work? Why does our culture exalt those who get away with cheating (again, look at some sports, politics). Why is this seen as being crafty or sly rather than dishonest?

Your thoughts?

Your Turn: Sermon Prep...

I am preaching Sunday and finishing my series on worship. I am going to be preaching on how giving thanks to God is an act of Worship. I have some ideas floating around in my head...but I want to know from you is...

1. Do you think we're a thankful people? Especially in the Church?
2. What does giving thanks really look like? What impact could an attitude of gratitude have in our communities?

Just two or three questions. If you have comments, I'd love to hear/read them. They help in the thinking process. Many blessings.

Monday Morning Update: November 17, 2008

The Week That Was: This was certainly not a normal week by any stretch of the means. Monday-Wednesday, I was in at pastoral leadership training along with our pastoral staff down in Rehoboth Beach. I have to admit, my expecations were pretty low for the training. Thankfully, the training was excellent. While I have heard most of what was taught, it was a really good refresher, and really good to process it with some of our staff. We have more to process, but it could lead to some interesting discussions. As soon as I left training, I headed up to Philly for school. I spent a lot of time in the library, which was good. I only have two weeks of class left. It so hard to believe because I have a lot of work to get down yet.



Church Review: Church went pretty well today. I did not preach, so played a little different role as just the worship leader. Pastor Phyllis gave a good message and the gathering structure was good. I wish our 11:07 gathering had a little more consistency. We'll finally do some marketing about the gathering when our community mailings go out in December.



Where I Am At the Moment: It's actually Sunday afternoon as I write this. I just finished my theology paper and watching the Eagles try and blow a game to the Bungals.



On My To-Do List This Week: On Monday, I have to pick my mom up from the airport as our daycare is closed and she is watching Abbie for the week. I have to pick out music for the community thanksgiving service next Sunday. The rest of the week will be devoted to school work. I have two 10-15 page papers due, plus I have to build a small website on an aspect of Methodist History.



What Abbie is Up To This Week: Abbie finished up one round of teething about two weeks ago, and I think that she has another round coming up. Some of her "I" teeth are ready to come in. Abbie is beginning to enunciate more and more words.



Book I am in the Midst Of: I am mostly reading seminary stuff. Not much else.



Music That Caught My Attention This Week: I purchased two CD's this week. The first was a Vineyard Worship CD called Sweetly Broken. The title track is by Jeremy Riddle and is powerful. I don't know that I could pull that song off, but it speaks to me every time. Otherwise, I didn't immediately hear anything that stood out. I also picked up Charlie Hall's new CD called Bright Sadness. It was pretty good.



How I Feel About this week: I can almost begin to smell the turkey and pumpkin pie!

Worship Resources

With my series on Worship coming to a close next week, I wanted to give a listing of some of the resources that have helped shape the series. This is a psuedo-bibliography. Don't let my seminary professors see this because I won't be formatting it correctly!

Books on Worship:

The Dangerous Act of Worship- Mark Labberton: This book really challenges the reader to put worship and social justice together. What good does it to worship God if we do not love and care for our neighbor? The first couple chapters are tough on churches, and rightfully so. We must move from consumer worship to worship that is centered around the things of God.

The Unquenchable Worshipper- Matt Redman: This is a small book with short chapters. Redman has written a couple books on worship since then, but none of them come close. This is just a great primer of what worship is supposed to be about. I've given out lots of copies of this book to people on the worship team.

Worship Matters- Bob Kauflin: I came across this book kinda randomly a few months ago, but it is a great guide to leading worship. Kauflin builds a theological foundation for worship, and then offers a lot of practical considerations for those who lead worship. I will be using this book with some students and worship team.

Songs Used During the Series:

There were two songs that were used during the series that I wanted to reference.

Sweetly Broken- Jeremy Riddle: This song appears on a Vineyard compilation CD of the same name. Powerful song. Go get it on iTunes right now.

Albertine- Brooke Fraser: Great song on a great CD. Brooke wrote and sings Hosanna on the Hillsong United CD's and the videos are below. This CD is packed with songs that make you think, and done with great musicianship.

The Catch Up Blog

I usually write up a blog on Monday, which I didn't do because of a 3 day staff training in Rehoboth Beach and now I am in seminary. I thought that I would just post a few quick thoughts as I am in between some work at school.

Sermon Series Update: The iWorship Series will conclude next Sunday (November 23rd). The message will be entitled Worship is Giving Thanks. If you missed the previous messages, they are available on Avenue's website. There is also a link there to our iTunes page.

The Dangerous Act of Worship: I have had several people ask about some of the resources that I used for last weeks sermon. I will be posting some books on here tomorrow with some worship and justice resources.

Pancake Dinner: One of our college students, Laura VanVorst, is heading to Romania in February for a four month long mission trip with Word Made Flesh. Avenue is hosting a fundraiser dinner this upcoming Monday (November 17th) from 5:30-7:00 p.m. The dinner is free (you can give donations toward the trip if you'd like). Laura will be on hand as a hostess. If you're in the Milford area, come out for a great meal, fellowship, and supporting one of our college students called by God to serve.

Update and a Link

I am in Rehoboth Beach for the next three days for a effective pastoral ministry workshop. So far it is pretty decent. Because of this, I won't be doing my monday morning update (Especially since it's Monday night). But I thought I'd give you a link or two.

Click here to read a story about how children are being tortured as witches. How do you tell there a witch? No, they don't sink or float like wood (monty python reference), they cry at night, don't sleep, and get sick. Geez, my girl must be a witch. At any rate, this is a horrible story that is fueled by a pastor in Nigeria.

More to come later.

Change Is Here

I stayed up long enough last night to hear NBC call the election for Barrack Obama at 11:00 p.m. It is certainly a historic moment in our country's brief history. I will be in Philadelphia later today at Palmer Seminary where most of the students are African-American Pastors from in and around Center City Philly. I am anxious to hear and see their perspective on the outcome of the election.
There is a lot of hope riding on Obama's presidency. It is a good thing to have hope. But we must remember that Obama is human, and that Obama has to work with the House and the Senate...both of which are filled with, ah, fallen people. There are several things that I hope will happen when Obama takes office in January.

1. I hope the new president will stop the culture of war that the Bush administration focused on. The Bush administration was quick to call nations 'evil' and created an "us" vs. "them" mentality. I hope that Obama will use every available diplomatic means and extend olive branches rather than weapons. The Bible speaks of loving our neighbors, and that includes our global neighbors.
2. I hope the Obama administration will tackle the issue of poverty and injustice in our country and around the world. I could write more, but certainly the world economic crisis is one area, the situation in Sudan (Darfur region), and others areas.
3. I hope that the Obama administration will go beyond party politics and create a spirit of unity in our nations government and in our nation.

Yeah, all of these (and plenty of other areas) are tall task. But not impossible ones. I also hope that we will pray for the Barrack and the other leaders of our nations that they will lead with honor, integrity, and love.

What Does the Lord Require?

I am in the middle of preaching a series called iWorship at church. I've been taking a look at what worship is; who we worship; why we worship; and how we worship. I think it will be a four part series...we'll be on part 3 this Sunday. If you go to www.avenueumc.com/listen you can find a link to the sermons.

The first week, our main point was worship is our response to who God is. I focused much of our conversation of the majesty and holiness of God. We looked at the Creation account in Genesis and Isaiah chapters 6 and 40 as we considered the bigness of God. The challenge was to enlarge our image of who God is, and then to respond in worship.

This past Sunday our main point was worship is our response to what God has done. Starting in the Exodus account, we went through God's activity in redeeming humanity and extending grace and mercy to us. This culminated in the salvific sacrifice of Jesus Christ- who is the final sacrifice for our sin. We talked about how to worship is to remember. As those who worship God, we must always remember what God has done for us.

This Sunday's sermon is called The Dangerous Act of Worship. Part of this is inspired from the book by the same name. The book is by Mark Labberton and I highly recommend it to everyone. It will challenge your view of worship week in and week out. The premise of this week's message is that when we enlarge our vision of God, when we remember what God has done we respond, not by greater sacrifices or acts of worship, but by the words of Micah 6:8, "What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." True worship focuses our heart on the things that are close to the heart of God- the poor, the oppressed, the outcast, the widow, the orphan, etc. It is not truly worship if we write a big check or raise our hands in worship and ignore the injustices that happen in our world.

I'm working on the sermon now, and I've been excited about getting to this week. I'm hoping this will begin a conversation in our members and our church about what it really means to worship God.

Monday Morning Update: November 3, 2008

The Week That Was: Not a bad week overall. Although I got very little done the way I wanted to get it done. Friday's are usually reserved for sermon writing and school work, but instead I had somone at the house doing some repairs. Some good news of the week was my laptop crashed back in September (not the good news), but after a month of waiting, I might be getting an upgraded one back. Hopefully soon. Andrea, Abbie and I went to Abbott's Pond on Sunday for a nature walk. She stopped to pick up lots of leaves along the way. I also had lunch with Becky (from my church), Kathleen and Mel (From Delanco camp). They are all students at Eastern University. It was great to see them all.

Church Review: I generally write my sermons out, and the preach without reading from the manuscript. Normally you should trust the flow of what you've written. I was not fully happy with my sermon so I tried (during the 9:30 service) to make it something that it was not. Fortunately, I did not make that mistake at 11:07. It was a busy morning at church with stewardship stuff, All Saints Day, Mission team commissioning, and communion.

Where I Am At the Moment: It's 6:30 a.m...just finished devotions and I am waiting to go get Abbie up and ready for the day.

On My To-Do List This Week: School work and a sermon. That really about says it.

What Abbie is Up To This Week: Last week, I wrote that maybe we're getting a break from Abbie teething. I was wrong. I've been awake at 4:30 a.m. that last few mornings as she wakes up with uncomfortable gums. Poor girl. When Abbie is ready for dinner she has begun to tell us "Eat, eat, eat!" rather emphatically.

Book I am in the Midst Of: I am mostly reading seminary stuff. Not much else.

Music That Caught My Attention This Week: I heard a few songs off of Grits' new CD on iTunes (and downloaded a few). Pretty good stuff. The problem I have with Grits is at one time I thought they were innovative with their sound...now they seem more chameleon like by doing whatever is popular at the time. Bring back the old Grits!

How I Feel About this week: It should be a good week. Andrea has off on Election Day, so we're voting (and I hope you are to!) and then going out to breakfast and to a park together with Abbie. That will certainly be the highlight of my week.