In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “It’s a Text, Text, Text, Text World.”
How do you communicate differently online than in person, if at all? How do you communicate emotion and intent in a purely written medium?
Our lead pastor often reminds us as staff of the value of face to face meetings. In a world that values quick and constant communication it is easy to forget that while information can be disseminated by cell phone or e-mail, emotion cannot be completely communicated if at all in a tweet, a text or an e-mail. Words can convey emotion but it takes time and the use of narrative (something noticeably absent from most forms of e-communication).
So if my communication involves emotion: joy, sadness, confusion, anger, or fear, I need to see the people I am communicating with. I need to read their body language. I need to hear the inflection of their words. And if I cannot see eye to eye with a person then I must absolutely meet face to face!
Tag Archives: The Daily Post
No Fool In This Prankster
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Fool Me Once.”
So the Daily Post has given us these instructions
It’s April 1st! Pull a fast one — publish a post that gently pranks your readers.
Honestly I am not much of a prankster. Some people say I’m funny but not in any practical way.
Still April Fool’s Day always gets me thinking about this quote from Christian missionary and martyr Jim Elliot.
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Twilah Paris wrote this song in response to that quote
Now some of you may have come to this post hoping to read something funny. The joke’s on you. Happy April Fool’s Day.
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The Jesus Code
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “I Walk the Line.”
The Daily Prompt today asks Have you got a code you live by? What are the principles or set of values you actively apply in your life?
I suppose it is trite to say but I try to live by the motto “WWJD” (What would Jesus do). I approach everyday with prayer directed to Jesus Christ and a renewed hope in His mercies which are new every morning.
Over time I have learned that trying to be like Jesus in my own strength is a fool’s errand. I can no more attain Christ-likeness by my own striving than a turnip can attain humanity by growing in the garden. Left to itself a turnip will always be a turnip and left to my own machinations I will always remain a sinner. But there is hope, for me at least. While I am pretty sure nothing can make a turnip turn human there is something that can transform this sinner into a righteous man; That is the power of Christ.
2 Corinthians 3:16-18 says, “whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.”
The code is “What would Jesus do”. The ability to live by the code comes through my daily inviting Jesus into my life, by prayer, to do what He would!
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The Daily Post: It’s Fresh and Exciting
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Fresh.”
The challenge is to find something FRESH today. I thought about bringing out pictures of this year’s fresh fallen snow; But honestly snow is not making me feel very fresh these days, just tired; So I decided to go with a fresh spring motif
Keukenhof Gardens, Lisse , The Netherlands
Fresh GreenOh! I am longing for these days!
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Britain Abroad
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Study Abroad.”
Today the post has asked us this question, “If you were asked to spend a year living in a different location, where would you choose and why?”
I would like to spend a year travelling and studying in England, Wales and Scotland. I have been to both Ireland and the Netherlands. Great Britain stands deeply connected to both of those places.
I did spend a week preaching in the region around Liverpool in the ’90’s but I would like to go back and spend some time studying the Welsh revivals which in many ways gave rise to my own fellowship of Pentecostalism in America. I would like to visit the places where the Methodist and Presbyterian revivals had hold.
I’d love to spend some time at Oxford and return to the church in Liverpool where I preached before the turn of the Millenium. To have a whole year to study the faith of this ancient land would be really neat indeed!
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Orange Suits Me
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Orange you glad it’s photo challenge time?.”
I love Orange!
Doolin, Ireland
Keukenhof Gardens, Lisse , The Netherlands
Botenmakersstraat, Zaandam, The Netherlands
Zaandyke, The Netherlands
King CakeIt’s strange I had to go to Europe to find it!
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It’s All Work. It’s All Play
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “First Light.”
The Daily Post asked…Remember when you wrote down the first thought you had this morning? Great. Now write a post about it.
There is this struggle I have had for years as a minister. All the areas of my life overlap. The boundaries between work and play, professional and personal are muddied by the rivers of life. It is so hard to see where one thing ends and another begins. I suppose it doesn’t help that I like my job most of the time. I suppose it also doesn’t help that I define being a pastor as a calling (something I am) rather than as a job (something I do). Finally I guess it really doesn’t help that almost all my relationships are marked or affected in some way by the church.
Here are some examples of my conundrum
1. C.cada- Work or play? I enjoy creating. I enjoy being with creative people. C.cada is a work of the church I oversee.
2. Going to dinner with friends from the church- I am J but I am also Pastor at those dinners. They are fun. I enjoy them immensely. I am still Pastor. I am still on. I know that’s more me than them. Still I don’t seem to be able to shut this pastor thing off…ever.
3. Family Skate Day- I don’t go for the skating. I go for the food (which I really love by the way). I go because I am on staff at the church.
I write a lot about this in my journals and I wonder am I ever just a pastor or am I ever just J? It’s all work. It’s all play. And maybe just maybe that’s OK.
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Going Back
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Transporter.”
The Daily Post has asked us to…Tell about a sensation — a taste, a smell, a piece of music — that transports you back to childhood.
As a child I spent nearly every Friday night at my grandmother’s house on Packard’s Pond in Orange MA. The house was a converted camp resting in the shadow of Tully Mountain. My grandparents had settled there as they neared retirement. It was all pine trees and mountain air.
On Friday nights my father would take me and my sister over to a ham dinner and then on Saturday my grandmother would wash clothes and do the grocery shopping around Saturday morning cartoons (my shows) and Saturday afternoon bowling (my grandfather’s shows). She often threw open all the windows on Saturday (except in the dead of winter) to air the camp out.
To this day the scent of a pine candle (the smell of the lake air), the smell of cilantro (the scent of clean laundry) or the fragrance of cloves (a cooking ham dinner) drive me back to the days of my boyhood.
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No Thanks Gatlinburg!
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “No, Thanks.”
The Daily Post has asked us…Is there a place in the world you never want to visit? Where, and why not?
I guess it is not that I never wanted to visit Gatlinburg. In fact I wanted to and did visit this spot tucked away in the Smoky Mountains. It’s a place I never want to visit again!
We arrived on a Tuesday and were slated to visit until Thursday. The hotel we were in offered a suite. It backed up onto the mountain and as we tracked around to the mountain- side of the building where our room was, the mountain itself imposed such a shadow that we lost all the light even though it was midday. Walking across the second story porch to our room was possible only because the night lights were on 24/7. That was creepy enough but when we saw the cardboard sign tacked to the railing that read “Don’t feed the bars.” written in black magic marker, we realized we had left civilization completely behind.
Our room smelled like hornet spray. Dried spaghetti stuck to the walls in the kitchenette, and when I went to wash the dust of the road off I discovered the shower curtain was filled with cigarette burns. Good golly! How addicted does a person have to be to smoke in the shower?!?
We opened the TV console for the kids but the TV was gone. Somebody had put it in the fireplace behind the decorative grate. I ask you why? Why would someone do that?
Needless to say we did not stay the two nights. When I checked out the next morning the lady managing the front desk had a giant wolf-dog with her at the counter. I had to step over the creature to cancel my reservation for the night. I thought I might lose my leg as I stepped back over the dog to leave the building.
My wife and I thought we might redeem the mini vaca by taking a gondola ride up the side of the mountain. But pine beetles had infested the forest leading up to the skating rink at the summit called Oberammergau. Our trip up the mountain consisted of lots of scenery of dead pine trees and $7.00 hamburgers at the top.
Maybe it was just a perfect storm of bad luck. But seriously once is enough for me!
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An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Race the Clock.”
So the daily post has given us this assignment today…
Here’s the title of your post: “An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse.”
Set a timer for ten minutes, and write it. Go!
Several years ago I was asked to come and sing for a group of people at a local visiting nurses dayhab unit. I went and sang.
They liked me and so they invited me back. They liked me the second time and so they asked me if I would begin coming once a month. I agreed and went to sing hymns on a monthly basis and did this for two years.
Over the course of those two years my schedule began to fill out exponentially. It was becoming harder and harder to keep the commitment to my monthly hymn-sing at the VNA and so I approached God about it.
“God you know how busy I am.” I complained, “This hymn-sing is nice but I am not seeing any real fruit from it and I just can’t justify continuing when there are so many other more productive pursuits I could be involved in. God I am going to quit after this next concert. But if you want me to stay you will have to do something to make me stay.”
I went to the concert, set up my piano and sang my heart out feeling fully liberated that at the end of the day I would be handing in my walking papers.
We were about three-quarters of the way through my set when suddenly one of the elderly ladies in the room stopped the concert and asked, “Hey you are a pastor right?”
“Yes I am. ” I replied (they had been calling me Pastor J since day one but God chose this day to make it all sink in).
“You know most of us in this room don’t get to go to church anymore.” She said. “Would it be possible for you to bring us communion?”
The activities director blanched a little. But I had to ask, “Is that possible?”
I fully expected an unequivocal “No!”
What I got from her was a, “Let’s vote.”
The vote was taken and everybody wanted communion.
It was an offer I could not refuse. I had my next marching orders from God. Today I have a team of three which brings communion to 35 individuals at this venue. We started another off-campus service with another team two towns away and last month two of us started bringing music to a third day program two miles up the road from the VNA where it all started.
You never know where fruit from ministry is going to pop up!
Lillie-Put 