New Year!

Ah – my first blog of the New Year. And, in case you hadn’t really noticed – my first blog in quite some time.

The reason I’m writing today is actually about that thing. I’ve noticed that, in my life, the time necessary for introspection often gets crowded out by the time needed for tasks. Those tasks vary, as they do for everyone. For me, most of my deep thinking ends up going into the sermons I prepare on a weekly basis and the Bible Studies I lead on a weekly basis, and the time left over ends up going to tasks at home – sometimes the necessary cleaning and cooking, remodeling, etc. – and then the “spare” time, I tend to squander in front of the x-box or TV. Often, the TV time is spent with my bride at my side, and we laugh or shake our heads together at what we’re seeing – so that’s not really “squandered” time, but anyway, the point remains that… I don’t spend much time being introspective, and that is to my detriment.

I spend time doing, or acting, or reacting – but not much time asking why did I do, or act, or react. I find myself asking cultural questions – like “Why is our society like this?” or “Why are we so blind to this?” but fail to ask the same questions about myself.

In part, that’s a hard thing to do in a public forum – a journal feels very private, but a blog is more… well – it exposes the inner workings of my brain for other people to comment on, and I’m not always comfortable with the vulnerability that creates.

But, as a pastor, I don’t always have a forum to simply throw out what I’m thinking and have people respond to it. My thoughts are supposed to be “spiritual” all the time, and “correct”, and I’d prefer this forum to be someplace I can throw thoughts out and not get creamed for it.

I long for the days when all the guys used to retreat into a smoking room and air their thoughts, argue about it, and be able to come out more educated for hearing everyone’s thoughts. Almost a sense of public introspection – things in my brain get expressed and other people comment on them, and I’m not insulted but I’m grown. I’d like this to be that kind of atmosphere, but I’m not sure I’m always willing to be that public, or capable of taking the shots to my thoughts that would allow this to be that forum. I become so attached to my ideas that I take intellectual criticism personally – not necessarily a good trait.

Anyway – I’ll work on it this year, and try to post some introspective thoughts at least once a week, and we’ll see what happens.

Woops! It’s been awhile…

Wow – I didn’t realize that it had been quite this long since I last posted. There have been so many different things going on that I forget to blog.

The work on the house is coming along, and I do actually think I’ll get it all done. I put the first coat of stain on the deck yesterday, and should get a second coat on today. Garage doors go in this weekend, and then I can finish up with the last remaining siding. It’s nice to reach a point where I can see it all finish.

I haven’t been running quite as much, but did go out again last night.

I’m still losing weight – and I think that some of that is because of the work in the cold I’ve been doing. I’ve been hungry as a horse, and even though I’m eating more – I’m not gaining any weight. I’ve got to be careful so I don’t gain my normal “hibernation weight.”

I’ll get back to updating on the “Why” question areas soon…

Physical Journey Update

Haven’t done any updates on my continuing journey in this department lately…

I gave an update on the race, but I am continuing to run. I’m trying to gradually increase my distances looking to possibly running a half-marathon next year. I really don’t want to jump into the increased distances, I’ve learned from past attempts that this doesn’t generally work for me. My tendons don’t respond well to sudden jumps in activity. So I’m gradually increasing. One of the benefits of this is that I’m continuing to see times drop and proficiency rise. My running proficiency (using the method I posted here) has increased from 1.43 yards per heartbeat to 1.49 yards per heartbeat. I’m still not running at any kind of world dominating pace, but my pace is increasing – and I’ve replaced one of my 4 aerobic runs each week with an anaerobic run to get my times increasing. It is nice to get the wheels turning a little faster at least once a week.

On the pushup side. As my running increased I’m finding it harder to maintain the pushups. I haven’t been able to reproduce the 74 that I did before, and still have not been able to do the week 6 schedule for that max, so I’ve dropped down one level on the week 6 schedule and keep pressing along. If you have no clue what I’m talking about here – I’m trying to complete the hundred pushup challenge, and have increased from 45 to 74 – but can’t finish week 6’s workout. I’m sure there’s a connection between that and the increased running, especially when I try to do pushups on a heavy run day…

On the weight side, I’m down to 15.1% body fat. That’s a pretty good decrease from the 22% my scale said I had when I started the journey, so things are coming along. My goal is 10-12%, and I should be able to reach that. Typically, I go through the acquisition of “hibernation weight” with the onset of the holiday season – and I’m hoping to avoid that this year! We shall see.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now. The pants that were too small are now coming close to being too big – and my belt is more than just decoration, and that’s a good thing!

2nd Reason “Why”

Back to our “Why” Question meeting… Our church went through the NCD survey, and came up with “Gift Based Ministry” being our lowest category. We held a meeting to determine “Why”, and six things came up. We’ve talked about one already – People being afraid of judgment, criticism, etc. last week. I want to look briefly at the second one, and that is:

Don’t know what our gifts are or how to develop them. Church doesn’t know what gifts people have.

I think that there are legitimately 2 parts to this – people don’t know what their gifts are, and the church doesn’t know what gifts people have.

Part 1 – people don’t know what their gifts are. For some, I think there’s just general confusion about what “spiritual gifts” are. How do Spiritual Gifts differ from talents? How do I figure out what gift I have? Could I have more than one? If I’m really good at something, could that be my spiritual gift? Will Spiritual gifts make me feel important and special? Answering these questions is, in part, the church’s responsibility – and we’ll be addressing this in a sermon series soon. Part of it also is accomplishable through “smart” Bible study. I think we run the risk of opening ourselves up to deception if we decide we’re going to find out more about spiritual gifts by checking out two dozen books and reading what other people have to say about spiritual gifts. We have to start with the Bible and then, if we still have questions, find reliable sources to help after that. The four main listings of gifts in the New Testament (there are some others that could be added from OT scriptures) are in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4.

Part 2 – Church
doesn’t know what gifts people have. This is an issue, and because of it, as we’ll see in other findings later, people often find themselves burning out or ministering in areas that they don’t feel gifted (which will eventually lead to burnout.) I’m not 100% sure how to overcome this, but I know that part of it needs to come from better communication between people and the church about their areas of giftedness. It’s not enough for the church to ‘guess’ about a person’s giftedness, and it’s not really enough for a person to come and say that “I’m gifted in teaching.” Ministry has to go beyond just sticking a person who’s gifted in teaching in a teaching spot, or a person in service into a serving spot, or a person who’s gifted in praying for healing into some vague healing ministry. The church has to not only know gifts, but know people, and have ministries available for them to be involved in. We need to find a way to know people, know their gifts, know our ministries, and have ways for gifted people to get involved in ministry.

Growing Pains

Well, this last Sunday was a really neat Sunday for me. I realize that it’s now Thursday – and Sunday was quite some time ago… but, it’s been one of those weeks already! In case that’s a vague statement (and I know it is) it hasn’t been a bad week, just a busy one, and it’s been difficult to sit down and blog about stuff going on.

On Sunday, we had a meeting that talked about some of the reasons we tested lowest in Gift Based ministry on our NCD survey. I felt it was a good meeting, because it gave people an opportunity to share and express why they felt we tested lowest in that area. IN fact, that’s the whole point of the meeting. We weren’t telling them why, they were telling us.

I enjoyed the assembly of information as things came in. I want to talk about some of those things for the next several blog entries.

One reason people said we tested low in “gift-based ministry” was that people were afraid of being criticized or judged when they ministered, and that they were nervous about failing or the perception of people when they failed.

I wasn’t surprised by that finding.

In fact, I see it more and more – and it’s something that needs to change in the culture of our church. I’m not exactly sure what causes this culture of criticism to develop. Where does something like that begin? Maybe it’s because so many of us can think of a “better” way of doing things, and we’re quick to suggest the better ways rather than help someone by encouraging what we see.

Maybe it’s because we get used to a certain way of doing things and change threatens the comfort level we’ve developed.

Maybe it’s because secretly we’re upset that someone we know better didn’t get the position or job.

Maybe we’re all conspiracy theorists at heart, and we imagine all sorts of motives behind the decisions people make, so it’s not just what they’re doing that’s not the same way we would do it, but we imagine all sorts of sinister reasons behind what they’re doing as well.

Fact of the matter is, in a church that wants to see God’s people involved in God’s work, that culture of criticism can’t continue. It’s not that we don’t want to become better, it’s that we need to find ways to encourage people in service without making them feel like they’re being chopped up into little pieces for trying. If people don’t feel safe to explore what God wants for them inside the boundaries of a church, than where will they feel safe?

Certainly we don’t want to give free reign to try anything and explore anything, but if it doesn’t violate scriptural principles, we really ought to back off the judgmental spirit a bit.

If we don’t, no one will volunteer, and ministries will die.

Race update

Race was yesterday – finished in 25 minutes 52 seconds, or something like that. 8 minute 20 sec miles. It wasn’t as fast as I wanted to go – BUT – my heart rate was in the 170’s for almost the whole race, high 170’s toward the end, and my monitor actually showed a max heart rate of 192, which was 3 higher than it’s ever been before. So, from a physical exertion point of view, couldn’t really expect much more. Any increases for future races will be gained through training, not racing better.

Elissa had a good race also, although she would have wanted to go faster. It’s a funny thing – no matter how much improvement you see, I think you always want to do better. Heh.

Won’t be 100 pushup testing this week, I haven’t been able to make it through week 6’s training. That day 1 is a tough one! Sets go 56, 42, 40… I can’t get the 42 after the 56, so I need to keep working up to that. Maybe by next week or the week after.

Got a bow adjusted set up this week and started target shooting. That worked some muscles I haven’t worked in forever. Such a strange feeling!

Random thoughts…

• Race on Saturday, probably no chance for me to hit my mental goal time – somewhere below 8 minutes a mile. I just haven’t done enough pace running because I’ve been intentionally taking it slow so my knee feels good. On the bright side – knee has been doing great, so a slow time is really the only thing I will probably have to complain about. Even that’s not such a bad thing. It will get better.
• Pushups – did 74 two days ago. I tried to do the workout yesterday but that didn’t happen. This last week’s workout is a killer! I’ll try again tonight.
• I miss my secretary. Laura is gone on vacation this week, and between the phones ringing and bulletin printing and everything else it’s tough to get it all accomplished.
• I’m preaching on Saul and the witch of Endor this week. The sermon’s written, but I’m still not entirely sure what direction it’s going to head. I’m talking about the Christian’s response to increased spirituality in our culture and using this passage as a launching point. It should be interesting, even for me to hear what I say…
• My remaining house projects are:
  • Remove existing siding
  • Tyvek house
  • Trim windows on exterior.
  • House siding
  • Replace garage entry door
  • Replace garage doors
  • Remove siding on garage
  • Tyvek garage
  • Caulk everything.
  • Interior finishing.
• I should finish with removing the siding on the house, tyveking the house, and putting up the external trim boards around all the windows and the corners of the house. I might even get some of the siding done.
• Still mad about the church breakin. I talk to a security systems guy on Monday to finalize locations for sensors, etc. It just seems wrong that when our goal usually is to get lost people into the church I have to do something now to keep people out from the church. What a strange thing.

Church Breakins

Well – for the third time this summer, our church has been broken into. Thankfully – they aren’t stealing anything really valuable. No computers, instruments, sound equipment, etc. – just petty cash. I think they’ve totaled maybe 75 dollars in money taken – but done close to $1,000.00 in damage. It’s extremely annoying. Cleaning the mess, calling the police, calling the insurance company, calling contractors to come replace stuff. Yuck.

And now, it looks like we’ll have to actually install a security system. How crazy is that? A church installing a security system? Then we have to teach everyone codes to enter to disarm the alarm, and I have to screen calls from the monitoring system. “Hello, Mr. Piccc..an..a…too. This is blah blah blah security system and we have a report of an unauthorized entry at the church. Do you know who might be there?” Then what do I do? Do I drive over to check? Or do I have the cops show up to haul some poor lady off who was just coming to work on a bulletin board but couldn’t rmember the code.” Such a mess.

Plus the money – I mean – with all the facility dreams we have, none of them really included a security system. So do we take the almost 2 grand, stick it into a security system, and then pay another 400 bucks a year for monitoring when there are so many MINISTRY things we could do with the funds? If we don’t, how much money to we sink into replacing doors and windows before we actually catch whoever is breaking in?

I tell you what, this is not what I went into the ministry for!

My newfound respect for jackhammer operators…

Thursday night I rented a jackhammer. I needed to remove our concrete steps so I could replace it with a deck. I learned something – when a tool of any sort ways more than half of your weight it’s going to be difficult. I also learned that jackhammers really wear you out! My hat’s off to anyone who uses one of those things on a daily basis.

I didn’t even quite finish. After running that thing for about 15 hours, I said “Enough!” Hopefully I can find a friend with a skid-steer to help me with the last bit of removal. If not, I’m decking over it.

The continued Physical Journey

Several (just about 4!) weeks ago I posted on some of the physical goals I had set for myself, and it’s time to update.

• My goal is to reach 10-12% body fat. I started at 21%, and am down to 14.8%. Excellent progress. Typically the last bit has been the hardest for me, but it’s fun to get close to where I want to be.
• 100 Push-ups by September 10^th. I’ve been following a program called the hundred pushup challenge . Yesterday was the end of week 4, and another “test” was required. I did 66 consecutive pushups (no stopping) – up from my initial test of 45, and my second test of 53. All told, I’m up 21 pushups, or up almost 32%. That’s great! The program gets harder the last couple of weeks, so hopefully it will push me enough to add the remaining 34 to my total. We’ll see!
• A 5k in the 20 minute range on September 6^th. I’m afraid the reality for me is going to probably be a 5k in less than 30 minutes. I’d like to see it under 24 minutes, but I haven’t done much pace running yet. It’s been really nice to not have my knees hurting, and I know fast runs have made me pay in the past. I started training late, and don’t want to “jeopardize” my race in a couple of weeks, so I think I’ll wait for the pace run actually in the race. It’s kind of backwards, but I’ll let the race help determine pace for future events and go from there. My pace at low heart rate (140 average) has been getting better – it’s in the 11 minute mile range, and I know I’ll push up to 165-170 bpm in the race. I’m just not sure what that will mean in actual race time yet
• Other long term goals…
  Other goals such as a duathlon and possible marathon are fairly far off in the future, and my ability to do those will depend on me staying faithful to exercising through the winter. I really intend to do better this year!

So – to my other “hundred pushup challenge” friends – where are you at in the process? Are you still working on it?