My friend Cole Hedgecock posted an article detailing the causes of PK’s (Preacher’s Kids for all you non-churchy folks) leaving the church when they become adults.  Fascinating stuff, you can read it at his blog, Colemine Extractions: Why PK’s leave the church.

There’s a lot there, but I think you can reduce it all into the ability to make the home of the Pastor a “normal” one.  Where the experience of growing up at the center of the church’s perspective is not all that different from being the “average” kid in the church.

Here are some things we’ve tried to do in order to make sure our kids are as close to normal as possible.

1. Make sure that you don’t ask your kids to be “perfect.”  Pastors are often times perfectionists (typically first borns) and they can be demanding.  Don’t be unrealistic.
2. Be honest about your spiritual ups and downs.  They have them.  If they know you have them, they know it’s “normal” and don’t feel like they can’t live up to your seemingly abnormal spirituality.
3. Be good talkers and listeners.  All parents need to be good listeners, but you need it more.  If you notice that your kid is not telling you something, then gently work harder to build the trust that allows them to talk about it.  And when they tell you something that sends you reeling, don’t freak out or it’s the last thing you’ll hear from them until they’ve made some huge mistakes.
4. Communicate to the church that your kids don’t have special expectations from you and that you are telling them that they don’t have to live up to anyone’s special expectations from the church.  The church needs to expect the same from them as they do from the next kid in the Youth Group.
5. Be there.  It is a must that your job is not 40 hrs/week and that you are always on call, however… you must lock out  time to coach their little league or soccer teams.  Attend their extra curricular events.  Take pictures while you are there and put them all over Facebook or Flickr.  Let them see that you value them.  If they know that you value the church over them by always being at meetings and other responsibilities instead of their things, you can expect that they will resent it.  Your first responsibility as pastor is to pastor your family.  The church has to accept this as well.  Not all churches do.  If they don’t, perhaps they aren’t the church for you.
6. Laugh.  A lot.  We keep running jokes in our house and celebrate our kids’ senses of humor.  Nothing feels good like fun and a fun family is cherished, not resented.

Those are a few of my thoughts.  Anything you’d like to add?

click on logo for IVM page

I found a great article from the Acts 29 church planting network on the Missional and Institutional church.  The article is written with an overview of terms and cultural contexts from which the terms arise.  If the terms “institutional” and “missional” don’t make much sense to you when applied to the church, this article will help.  It’s well worth your time, if you choose to read it.

Though I am unconvinced the Missional Church’s worship must be unpredictable and messy (sounds like chaos?) as described in point 12, I would agree that routine within worship kills.

At the end of the article, the reader is given an opportunity to evaluate the church of which they are a part by judging 12 markers of either the Missional Church, the Evangelical Church or the Institutional Church.  Just to whet your appetite, here are the 12 marks of the Missional Church:

The Missional Church:

1. Sent by God as missionaries in their own culture (Mt. 4:19).

2. Exists to take Christ to the lost: Go to the world (Mt. 28:18-20).

3. Members are personally engaged in their communities (Acts 16:20; 17:6).

4. Submerged into its culture like Christ (Luke 7:34).

5. Main focus is training and equipping others to be missionaries (Eph. 4:11-16).

6. Dependent upon Holy Spirit to use individuals as agents for evangelizing (Acts 1:8).

7. Develops relationships with the lost on purpose (Matt. 5:13-16).

8. Relationships are the means to influence others in their journey toward Christ (John 1512-17; 1 John 4:19-21).

9. The goal is to help others find Jesus in their own way and timing (1 Cor. 9:20-23).

10. Participants are affected in every way through a calling by God to be an agent for the gospel (Acts 4:13, 31-35).

11. Faith is practiced in community – groups of people together (Acts 2:42-45; Phil. 1:27).

12. Worship is unpredictable, spontaneous, Spirit-directed and messy (John 4:23-24).

The Evangelical Church:

1. Has a program of missions alongside numerous activities of the church.

2. Exists as a place for the lost to find Christ: Come to the Church.

3. Members are supportive of mission efforts.

4. Separated from its culture as a holy quest.

5. Main focus is supporting mission works – mainly overseas.

6. Dependent upon altar call and big events as its main tool for evangelization.

7. Knows a few lost people and prays for their salvation.

8. Uses marketing techniques & business principles to draw people to a corporate gathering.

9. The goal is to produce salvation results.

10. Participants conform to man-made standards through guilt and pressure. Change is through self-will, not Spirit.

11. Faith is practiced at the church building during prescribed gathering times.

12. Worship is structured, predictable and orderly.

The Institutional Church:

1. Sends money to missionaries in foreign countries if it is convenient.

2. Exists for the members of the church: Join the Church.

3. Members expect pastors to bring in the lost and unchurched.

4. Has become a sub-culture of Christians living in a parallel universe.

5. Main focus is supporting church activities to attract new families.

6. Dependent upon pastors and staff to evangelize the lost.

7. Stays away from the lost; has very few dealings with those outside the church.

8. Uses tradition, denomination and family ties to attract and keep members.

9. The goal is to increase attendance.

10. Participants compartmentalize their religion and their lives – generally facades of religious adherence.

11. Faith is a routine activity that is private and personal.

12. Worship is ritualistic.

You can find the scoring tool at the end of the article.

Sunday, Skelly was serving our community by hosting everyone to a free Block Party.  We had inflatables, games, candy, cotton candy, popcorn, grilled corn, caramel apples, bbq sandwiches and funnel cakes.  All of it given to everyone as an opportunity to serve our neighbors.

We had over 450 register and we conservatively estimate another 50 or so enjoyed the festivities without registering.  A lot of them checked that they would like to know what is going on in the future.

Hard work by dedicated Skelly Servants.

Here are just a few of the pics.  You can see all of them here.

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Little Photography for ya today.  My son’s Cross Country team.

Click on a thumbnail to enlarge.

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If you like these, my flickr account is here and my photoblog is here.  (Same pics at both places.)

Tulsa Metro Baptist Network (formerly Association) has prioritized planting churches, which has brought a number of church planters our way.  I thought this 3 minute video might be helpful to them.

If you don’t get dry wit, don’t bother.

HT:  Ed Stetzer

I had someone tell me last week that they didn’t believe in “constructive criticism.”  They went on to say that criticism is just that, criticism.  I took his point to mean that encouragement to change or grow shouldn’t be “critical” or negative, but, well, an encouragement.

That sounds good.  Too bad it doesn’t happen that way very often.

Even within the body of Christ, negativity toward something or someone that we want to see change or grow often comes with an edge.  While there is never an excuse for wounding one another, it would be naive of us to expect one another to be in complete adherence to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Dealing with that hurtful brother or sister is a subject for another day, but let us agree that, from time to time, we will have to deal with someone who desires some changes in our behavior.

Our natural reaction to this is always to push back.  No one enjoys being pushed on and we are particularly repulsed by unkind or insensitive words. However…

The wise man or woman will listen to all that is said, try to understand what the person wants and, more importantly, why they want it.

Then you are able to evaluate the challenge for what it really is and not for what you initially may take it to be as influenced by your emotional reaction.  More often than not, you will find some kernel of truth that might help you as a person.  Sometimes, you find they are just being selfish.  I’ve noticed that talking the “criticisms” over with others who are more neutral to be helpful in discerning the nature of these “suggestions.”

Bottom line:  When it comes to criticism, best not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Love this quote from Bob Roberts:

“Sharing the gospel is the responsibility of every single believer … I learned a few years ago that the church is the missionary … it means that every believer is a missionary and that my job as pastor is to help them to figure out beyond prayer and giving how they connect with the world like the men of Cyprus and Cyrene did, using their vocations and jobs and wielding a powerful story.”
- Bob Roberts, Glocalization

When wherever you are is your mission field and you are at your job more than anywhere else, it should change the way you look at your place of employment. It moves from a place where you work to earn money to get things to the place you go to live out the Gospel in front of others.

Since jobs are rarely ideal, it means you will often be put in trying circumstances… where the difference between one being redeemed and one not should become obvious to everyone.

Been a while since I’ve written here, which is kind of stupid since I pay for the privilege of hosting my own domain.  That’s money poorly spent, if I’m not using the website.

Fascinatingly, I’ve still had a steady flow of traffic, which seems to be coming from search engine hits of previous writings.  I wonder if these random readers wonder where I’ve gone.

Whether or not you feel that I owe you an explanation, I’ll go ahead give you one.  If you aren’t interested, feel free to stop reading and I hope you look for me another day.  Whereupon, I hope that you find me, since that will mean that we are both well because I am writing and you are reading which means that we both are capable of doing these things and both have disposable time on our hands.  And that’s a good thing.

Lots of reasons for me not writing.  Some are simple, like: I’ve been a bit busy, I’ve used my free time differently and I was tired of blogging.

Other reasons are more complex, like: my creativity was lacking, I’ve not been inspired and I’ve had some difficulties at church.

The last one is really the main one.  Without going further than I ought, I’ll just say that my stress level has been up as we’ve implemented some Missionally oriented changes at our church to mixed reviews.  Added to that, I didn’t want people reading into anything I wrote and I had some who actually did that, so I quit writing.

Right response?  Maybe.

Given my passion levels at the time, I’d probably do it again.

Suffice it, then, to say that I’m feeling a bit more passionate and less stressed.  I’m not sure that “all is well” in my church, but is there ever a time in any church when that happens?

I’ve determined to put my head down and work toward the really good stuff that is happening and to allow my thoughts to grace the electronic billboard that is the Internet once again.

God help us all.

Really. ;)

As an act of gratitude, the staff of San Sa Ho school wanted to take us out for a special meal, for which they paid.  It was a local practice called Hot Pot.  This was an important step for all of us, because it was a tremendous offer of hospitality on their part and to refuse would have been just as tremendous an insult on our part.

On the other hand, to accept would deepen the bonds of friendship and give us more opportunity to grow in our understanding of one another.

So the choice was obvious if uncomfortable: We were going for Hot Pot.

To my mind, the phrase “Hot Pot” conjured the street vendors in Hanoi who cooked pungent foods with rickety equipment that looked like it had been cleaned sometime last decade.  In my imagination, each pot had an odd meat or other food that we would sample from.

I was pretty close in my initial estimation, and yet the reality far surpassed my mind’s eye.

We were led through town to what appeared to be a house no longer lived in, but in fairly good repair.  We climbed the steps to a larger room where we found 4 tables set with 8 chairs around each.  Each place was set with chopsticks and bowls, the traditional method of eating in Vietnam.  We spread out among the tables and the school staff did the same.

Jerry, David and I sat at one table in the far corner of the room, as did Sherman, the country director of GVI.  Ken and DeAnn sat together at another table while Selena and Emily sat at the other two tables.

The Headmaster (Principal) sat with us as did the Foreman of the paving job we had been working on.

When we sat down, many of the foods were already on the table.  There was raw beef, finely chopped, raw chicken with the skin coarsely chopped, some unknown meat with large and small orange spheres, a plate of boiled and peeled quail eggs, a bowl of tofu, a bowl of tomatoes, a row of prawns and a bowl of various greens.  A little later, someone brought a plate of salmon.

In the middle of the table was the Hot Pot:  a large bowl of broth on a butane burner in which was already cooking some tofu and tomatoes.  The concept of Hot Pot became apparent.  It was like a shrimp boil, where you put different ingredients in the same pot and ate what you preferred.

My initial thought was that this was uncomfortable, but survivable. Until someone set a bowl of Vit Lo (I’m guessing on the spelling) at David’s elbow.  It looked like eggs, but there was something more to it.  More texture.  Jerry recognized them first and it was later confirmed that they were unhatched duck embryos.

I glanced sidelong at Sherman with a half smile and said, “If one of those goes in the pot, I’m done.”  He chuckled and David refused to look anywhere near the Vit Lo.

When we started eating someone dumped the whole plate of chicken into the pot.  I told them I would like to try the beef, so the Headmaster picked up some beef and put it in what appeared to be a wide flat ladle with holes in the bottom.  He set the spoon in the middle of the pot and it cooked there for a few minutes.  He then raised the spoon out of the broth and beef was cooked through.  Jerry and I both tried some and I thought it was pretty good.

Just about the time we were getting comfortable, the job foreman scooped up the Vit Lo and dumped the entire bowl into the pot.

We all watched in stunned silence as they plopped into the mix.  Sherman tried to stop him, but it happened so quickly that it was done before anyone could do anything.  The foreman looked at Sherman inquisitively as he set the bowl back down and Sherman explained that we weren’t used to that.

The foreman asked what we were used to.  Good question.  The honest answer, was “nothing in this room.”

I don’t know what Sherman said in answer.

After a while, I did eat some salmon and quail eggs after the Vit Lo were in the pot.  I looked over at David after eating the quail egg and he had this odd look on his face.  I asked him, “You’re proud of me, aren’t you?”  To which he replied, “Yes, indeed, I am very proud of you.” He said this in a way that made me feel that he was both proud and a little repulsed.

Later, the Superintendent of all the schools in the region dropped in to meet us all and toast us.

However uncomfortable we were, being there did more for our relationships and future work than anything else we have done or could do.

Throughout the night, the words of Paul ran through my mind, “I have become all things to all men that I might win some.”

Sorry for the delay in updates.  Sickness swept through our team 2 days ago, starting with Selena and rapidly settling on David, myself and then DeAnn.

You never know what exactly causes this stuff, but that doesn’t stop you from speculating.  Hot Pot got the blame from DeAnn, but I’m not convinced.

Regardless, I was in no condition yesterday to attempt to describe the culinary diversity that was Hot Pot.

That story is up next.