Here I go again!

After a pretty extended absence I think I'm ready to try it again.  No guarantees that my second attempt at blogging will last - time will tell.

Life has continued in the past 5 years and over time I hope to write about some of the changes that have happened.

What is "missional" anyway?

Saw this a couple of days ago and thought I'd link to it. Then someone came in the office and you know the rest of the story. Anyway, check out what Adam has to say about missional ministry - read the whole series (the links at the bottom)

3 Stooges in Action

Back in April, I wrote about the 3 Stooges. At this point, I still have not met the 3rd Stooge - he might be a fig newton of somebody's imagination - even if he is, Ronnie does a lot of the work......

I mentioned to Sam back in April that I had read a lot about teams and how to lead them, etc. Many books and such talked about effective teams, but I had never seen one work well until I saw the 3 Stooges in action. We got to see more on this trip. Not only did we see 2 of the 3 Stooges, but we got to see the interaction between them and their pastor. Three very strong personalities, all with different outlooks on life, all focusing on the same goal - pretty powerful. Watched conflicting goals, ideas be resolved not in an explosive way, but in a God honoring, peaceful, restorative way.

Their example has given me a lot to try to emulate. Two other men from Morenci went with me on this trip. Dennis is a man who never met a stranger. He is a Supervisor in the Research department at the copper mine. Jeff drives one of those small dump trucks (only 240-300 ton per load) for 12 hours a day, and he is pretty quiet most of the time. Both of them are leaders! I found that out on this trip.

Following the example of the guys from Stone Ridge, the team and the pastor, I tried to deflect as much of the decision-making issues to Jeff and Dennis, for many reasons. I want God to do things with us that are not limited by me. These 2 guys went on this trip and saw everything that I saw. They were impacted and want to make a difference in the lives of other people. They took the lead in talking to the local missionary and leaders of the churches. I tried to stay out of their way. It's a different way of operating that will take some time for all of us to be comfortable with, but it has been a good start.

This coming Sunday, Dennis and Jeff will present their views / impressions / etc on the trip, and then will tell the church where they think we should be involved with 2 different churches / missions in the DR. Should be a lot of fun.

The power of vision

It is amazing how fast the schedule takes over when you get back from a trip. Spent a couple of days last week arguing with Montezuma, and it has already been a week since we got back. Oh well.....

We visited 32 different churches/missions from Friday night until Thursday night. We spent a lot of time in the wawa (Dominican for bus). Days were sometimes quite long, and showers quite "refreshing" with the humidity a bit higher than most of us were accustomed.

Everywhere we went on the island, we saw the power of a God-sized vision. The leader of the Dominican Baptist Convention has a vision to reach the entire nation for the cause of Christ. He has been the pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Puerta Plata for 28 years and he is 48 years old. Many men in that church are missionaries to their own people. Many other men in that church are preparing to become pastors or missionaries. It appears that they are approaching planting churches in much the same way that Guy posts about here. Not exactly the same, but similar.

We saw many people who are sold out to the cause of Christ. They work full time jobs, serve in the main church, and work to start missions, holding Bible Studies, developing relationships with other people.

We heard strategies that are well beyond the capabilities of the people who are working them. I made the comment to a seminary friend who was there that what they are doing made our Practicum course look weak in comparison. These men and women minister in impossible situations and God is magnified, lifted up, people are served, and the impossible becomes possible through His means. People are being set free from the bondage of sin regularly. The church is growing and flourishing.

Enough for now. More later.

Reflections on fireworks

Fireworks this July 4th were different. The sound was the same, the colors were the same, the smell was the same, I am different.

In years past, I would hear the song "I'm Proud to be an American" and feel my chest swell with pride and gratitude. This year pride as an American was not at the forefront of my emotions. The overwhelming thought that ran across my mind that night was "Why me?"

Having recently returned from the Dominican Republic, and having met many brothers and sisters in Christ, I realized anew that I contributed nothing to my being born as a citizen of the United States of America. Only by the grace and will of God am I here, at this time, in this place.

Americans enjoy many privileges because of our place of birth. We also suffer some of the drawbacks of that same status. Of all the physical things in life, we enjoy the best. Of many of the spiritual aspects of life, we are poverty stricken. We have traded our spiritual life for an extravagant physical existence - a very poor choice on our part.

Our once strong spiritual vitality has been sapped dry for the most part in America. Yes, there are pockets of spiritual life here, but not like it is in other parts of the world where God has the hearts and minds and entire lives of His followers. He is working in other lands, with other peoples in ways that we will not allow Him to work in the States with us. For that, my emotion is not one of pride, but one of loss.

Am I blessed that God chose to give me life in the United States of America in the late 1900's / early 2000's? Yes I am. Did I have anything to do with that choice? No.

I'm not sure fireworks will ever mean the same to me again - at least I hope they won't.

Tranquilo Bobby!!

We're home!!!! After a 25 hour of day traveling, we are all safe and sound, all 11 of us from Az who went to the DR. We had 4 legs on our journey with breaks (layovers) between just about each leg.

The best comment I have heard about the trip so far came from my beautiful bride. She said "You seem peaceful after this trip, not all keyed up like you usually are."

We heard many times on this trip - "Tranquilo Bobby!" Our Dominican host was very gracious and had a great sense of humor.

For some, it was a stretch to not have a schedule other than what someone else thought needed to happen. I kinda enjoyed it. We could see that God was leading us as we looked backwards....

I'm hoping to reflect a bit on some of the experiences we had, attitudes, questions, etc in the coming days. Suffice it to say that many more questions were raised than answers given, although many answers were discovered. Recently Guy commented here about something that I had no understanding when I replied. I now have a somewhat better understanding.... not complete by any means, but better.

I'm blessed to be home, where the electricity works all 24 hours of the day, along with water coming out of the faucet/toilet/shower whenever I turn it on, toilet seats (and toilets...), paper, etc. We Americans are very spoiled and tend to be fat and lazy.

Trip starts tomorrow

Tomorrow we leave for the Dominican Republic. We are going to help church planters do whatever they want us to do. The only definite on our itinerary is when our planes are scheduled to depart and arrive, Sunday School is on Sunday morning, and Worship is on Sunday evening. Other than that, we are going to serve those we will be with.

Eleven of us are going from 4 different churches (and not all of them are Southern Baptist.....) I'm looking forward to seeing what God is doing there. From what I understand, He is working in ways there that we do not see Him working here in the States.

I have no idea whether I will have Internet access. If so, perhaps an occasional entry will show up. If not, I guess we will see how much makes its way here after we return.

Reading List

Started doing something that I enjoy again - reading. Been a bit busy the past couple of months and haven't been able to read much. Miah commented to me yesterday that I should write something on my blog cuz she's getting tired of reading all the old stuff over and over and over......

Been trying to make up for lost time reading, so here's my list.

Books read in the past 2 weeks:

The Missional Leader, Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk
Practicing Greatness, Reggie McNeal
Simple Church, Thom Rainer & Eric Geiger

Working on:

On Being a Pastor, Derek Prime & Alistair Begg
The Training of the Twelve, A.B. Bruce
The Bondage of the Will, Luther as translated by J.I. Packer & O.R. Johnston

On Deck:

Breakout Churches, Thom Rainer
Sinners in the Hands of a Good God, David Clotfelter
Sex, Men and God, Douglas Weiss

Quotable Quote

At a recent Convention Council meeting in Scottsdale, Nancy Jones, the President of Baptist Senior Life Ministries in Az, made the following statement:

"Who is going to attend your funeral and NOT look at their watch?"

Kinda makes you think, doesn't it.........

Dr. Steve Bass

Dr. Steve Bass is blogging. For those of you who do not know Steve, he is the fearless leader of the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention and an all around good guy.

I have had the pleasure to be a student in one of his classes he teaches at the Arizona Regional Campus of the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. I'm a member or our Convention Council (kinda like an State Executive Board) in my 2nd year of a 3 year term and have had the opportunity to see Steve in a different light than many have. What has pleased me is that what you see in Steve is what you get. He speaks very plainly and directly to whatever issue he encounters.

I'm glad he is blogging and am looking forward to reading what he has to say.

COTB - Last in a series?

Finished up this past Sunday morning with Church Outside the Box, the series. I have a feeling that this thought will not be far away for a long time, that it will flavor many things before it abates.

We started out talking about the Block Party from the night before. Discussed whether we were the church in the Park or not. We decided that serving other people, helping them have fun, having spiritual conversations, and helping them to see that not all Christians are out to beat them over the head was a good thing - we might have been the church outside the walls afterall.

Then we talked about all the things our past and traditions have forced upon us and decided if they were really required for us to be the church. (If you look real close, you can see the ghost-white legs of the goofy preacher....) I preached for the first time ever in big church dressed in shorts, t-shirt and sandals - or at least I started out with sandals, they came off pretty quickly.



Several of the things written on the wall were torn out and thrown away. About the only thing that was not discarded was the Bible. We even decided that a paid preacher was not a requirement for us to be the church....





Clean walls again.... It remains to be seen if we will continue with our evaluation of who we are as the church. It is my hope that we will get rid of as many things that hold us back from being the church that we can. We can put many things down that we have held dear. Hopefully we can show those who do not know Christ yet who He is and who we truly are - His called out ones.

Off to NM

Headed to Glorieta tomorrow to get rid of Daughter #1..... She worked at the Glorieta Conference Center last year and liked it so much that she decided to do it again this summer. Gotta head out pretty early in the am and we'll be gone for a few days. Will post about the ending of Church Outside the Box later this week.

2006 Block Party

We had our 2nd Annual 1st Southern Block Party in the park here in town yesterday. Had around 100 people register, not including church folks. Had a good time watching the kids play and the youth and adults talk with people, sharing an afternoon together. Kids playin, eatin and talkin..... doesn't get much better than that

Grandpa Rocks

Church Outside the Box

The past couple of weeks we have been talking about the church. Last week, we saw what the Bible had to say about us being the spiritual building that God is building, just as He wants it to be.

If you look real close, there are all kinds of boxes in that wall. Beer boxes, a Fry Daddy box, a speaker box, even a Lifeway box.

The Duct tape is the Bond of Love. A little guy coming out of the service said that our love should sound like Duct tape. I think he caught the idea.


This week, we looked at what history has done to us. In many ways, we are way too concerned with the "stuff" than we are being the church. We like being members of the "Club," but don't necessarily like the work that comes with it.


Here's what the "church" looks like today (as we saw it this morning) Lots of words on the outside of the wall like - Building (everybody knows you have to have a building to have church), Paid Preacher (every church needs a paid preacher to be the dispenser of all knowledge), the correct version of the Word, a choir, etc. Sorry the picture isn't detailed enough to get a good view. Maybe I can post others later with more detail.

One of the deacons told his wife (who was out of town thig morning) "Our traditions got hammered this morning." Her response was "Hallelujah!!" I'm kinda glad for her response because she is on our Worship Team and plays the keyboards for us.

A twist - Questions for Churches

Found this today in Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox Issue #257 - Questions for Churches

I like it! For those of us who are in small churches, check out this website. There's quite a bit of help there, as well as some humor.

Gotta see the Herding Cats clip.

More From the 12

Another timeless comment from The Training of the Twelve. Again, near the end of the chapter titled "The Intercessory Prayer." Emphasis mine.

Wrangling is not a divine thing, and it needs no divine influence to bring it about. Anybody can quarrel; and the world, knowing that, has little respect for a quarrelling Church. But the world opens its eyes in wonder at a community in which peace and concord prevail, saying, Here is something out of the common course,--selfishness and self-will rooted out of human nature: nothing but a divine influence could thus subdue the centrifugal forces which tend to separate men from each other.

With all the "stuff" that is happening on the political scene in Southern Baptist life, we need to take a good hard look at this quote and do something about it.

Fixing things......again

I recently waxed philosophic on my proclivity to "fix" things.

My lovely bride this afternoon asked me to help her do something. I quickly donned my knight in shining armor gear, and leapt into action.

I now have a boot with no heel to show for it. And she giggled at me. Then I got a hammer. What she needed help with is fixed.

Now I need to fix my boot.

Life with Jake

Jake is blogging now. Or something like that. Maybe it is the goofy looking human in the picture, or someone who is not in the picture ....... I'm sure it will be interesting none the less.

Lessons learned from the 3 Stooges - Part 1ne

On June 22nd, several people from at least 5 churches will be heading to the Dominican Republic to help with a school of ministry or two. We (Jeff and I) met with them on Wednesday and Thursday. It was an amazing trip.

We met Fred Harris in Phoenix, and he went with us to Yuma. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Winslow, AZ. If I remember correctly, they stand on a corner...... Fred is an amazing guy, even if he says "Stink" a lot and talks about Jewish bears.

Jason (pastor) and Bob (youth group - the entire youth group) met with us. They are from Yuma Community Church. Jason started the church last Easter and this Easter Sunday, they had 100 attending services!!!! Sounds like he is doing an amazing job planting that church. Yuma Community is located less than a mile away from Stone Ridge Church.

Sam is the pastor of Stone Ridge Church.and they are the sponsoring church for this trip to the D.R. Sam and Jason are not in competition with each other, as a matter of fact, they pray for the success of the other church. Imagine that, churches of different beliefs cooperating rather than competing. Think this might be an idea that needs to spread to other places? I do.

Stone Ridge has a Missions Team that operates better than any team I have ever encountered. I used to teach teams how to operate, helped them begin, facilitated them when I was playing Engineer. This team taught me several things! And they call themselves the Three Stooges! Not Larry, Curly, and Moe, but Mark, José, and Ron.

Mark is the Team Leader. He is a relationship kind of guy. Likes to make sure people get to do what they need to be doing. Mark plays guitar professionally, and is self-employed to make a living. The lovely Lindsay is the one who makes sure the teams get to the D.R. and back. She loves the challenge of getting the best price for airline tickets. They are a good team, maybe that's why they are married......

José is an administrator / people person. Good combination of skills and passion. He was born in the States, lived in Mexico until he was 12, then came back to the States. He's been a beliver for a little over 5 years. Sounds like he is Sam's translater in the D.R. (does that make him a Designated Speaker?) Laura is an amazing cook. We hung out in their patio and ate, talked, and ate some more on Wednesday afternoon.

Didn't have an opportunity to meet Ron this trip. He is the administrator / fund-raiser. Heard part of his story, can't wait to meet him and look in his eyes to see the rest of it.

Their work has influenced many and will influence many more people before they are done. All three of these guys work full time jobs. Sam says they spend at least 20 hours a week in ministry for the church and the passion that God has given them. If you are around them for more than 5 minutes, their passion gives them away. Wouldn't surprise me if they bleed missions, reaching people, and serving Christ when they get cut.

That's all for now. My mind still hasn't gotten a handle on what happened. Not to mention what will happen as a result of this week. Good stuff.

I'm off.....again

Headed to Phoenix today to attend another eTeam meeting. Sounds like we haven't had a great deal of response to our questions yet.

Tomorrow - Yuma. Meeting with folks from 4 or 5 churches who will be heading to the Dominican Republic for 10 days or so. Gonna do some planning.

Back to Phoenix on Thursday afternoon. Get to spend time with another friend and his family. Maybe do some planning to fix some things that need fixing.

Will let you know how things went.