Change by the inch is a cinch

Several years ago an older minister friend of mine said something that I thought was the kind of thing old guys say to justify not changing. In referring to church leadership he said, "Change by the inch is a cinch, but change by the yard is hard." He was encouraging me not to be in so much of an all-fired hurry to make things happen and look the way I wanted them to be. I dismissed his comment at the time and stayed aggravated at anyone who didn't share my exact vision for how things "should be".

Now, a few years and many experiences later, I see the wisdom in his statement. Now that I lead a congregation, I understand. I am blessed by having people of all age groups represented. I have people who are recent converts and those who have been in church their entire life. I understand that I will never get all of them to agree with 100% of anything I do, but that is not a reason to intentionally leave any of them behind.

I know that it is possible to become paralyzed into inaction by fear of the reaction of the people I lead, but I can also see that thinking of how my decisions may affect different people causes me to  think things through and make sure that they are God's idea and not my own path to Pastor Randy awesomness. As most any pastor can attest, I have some in my church who would like things to change faster, and I have some who think I am going too fast already. So, instead of threatening or frustrating me, the variety of opinions drive me to my knees to pray for wisdom in each decision and new direction, and I am grateful for that. It keeps me going in a consistent direction. And when I am sure that I am following God's leading, I can live with the outcomes.

I have a vision of our church as being much different a few years from now than it is currently, but I don't feel rushed to get there by Easter or even by Christmas. I will strive to continually nudge our folks toward the goal, hoping that all will make the trip with us. So far, this change by the inch has been a cinch.

Series for April

Beginning Sunday, April 3, I am starting a series to lead up to Easter. I will be presenting messages about Jesus. They will be "The Challenging Jesus", "The Loving Jesus", "The Crucified Jesus", and on Easter Sunday, "The Resurrected Jesus". On May 1, I will conclude with "The Ascended Jesus". I am pretty excited to begin this series and I look forward to delivering each of these messages. Of course, if the Lord returns before the series is finished, I'll see you up there, and we can live it instead of listening to it.
Be blessed-

A Pretty Good Week

I don't get many weeks like this one and that's too bad. This week has allowed me to cross many things off of my "gotta get it done" list. Several of those things have been on the list quite a while. In addition, it seems as though each of these things have been completed at minimal expense!

We got a report that our home A/C unit had gone out and would have to be replaced. The final report was that there was a problem with the electrical service and OG&E fixed it.

At church I was getting the fire extinguishers tested because they had all expired. The first report was that I would have to buy a new extinguisher to replace one which was too old to continue to use. Later I found a newer one hidden in a closet, so I didn't have to buy one. Now all fire extinguishers are current.

Finally the internet is functioning in the church again, and all network functions are restored. This took nearly a month to get done.

The material list for the ceiling and lighting for the E-zone has been submitted. I have compiled the cost to get that done and will begin to purchase materials next week.

None of these are huge, but it is incredibly energizing to cross these projects off the list. Now there is plenty of room to add new projects.

How Good is Good Enough?

I just finished reading How Good is Good Enough? by Andy Stanley. It addresses the common assumption of our day that good people deserve a good afterlife and bad people deserve something, well, bad. Stanley does an excellent job of breaking down the issue, addressing questions of whose definition of "good" are we to use? and is all of this fair? I would give this book to anyone who is having honest questions about salvation and how to make heaven. It is brief, very readable, and thorough without getting scholarly.
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.