Count It All Joy

More practical advice from Paul ...

2010-07-16T05:38:00.002-05:00

Colossians 4:2-4 (the message)
"Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude..."

5-8 "Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders. Don't miss a trick. Make the most of every opportunity. Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out."

Words to Live By

2010-07-11T08:09:00.004-05:00

This struck me this AM while reading Colossians 3 in "The Message":

~v5-8 "... make sure it's all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

*ouch!*

and

v12-14: "... dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on , wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it." (It's like American Express:never leave home without it - gh)

and

v15-17: "Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ-the Message-have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives-words, actions, whatever-be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way."

Was God bored?

2010-06-05T18:04:00.003-05:00

Or lonely?

I'm talking about before he created the universe. Think about this in human terms. What if "you" was all there was. No other people, no "stuff".

Talk about claustrophobia!

That would actually be my definition of hell. Nothing else existing but me. Of course, I'm speaking from a human perspective.

But then why did God create? Maybe to relieve the endless boredom and loneliness, he extruded himself into this universe of diversity where he could get lost in the drama and forget once in awhile about being all there is.

Maybe it's like a kid playing with toy soldiers (army men, we called them) only ones he imbued with free will and the ability to function independently of himself.

People question endlessly about why God permits evil and injustice. Really, if I made a pot out of clay and decided I didn't like it and broke it up and threw it back into the scrap bin to be reconstituted into usable clay, would you question my right to do it? I paid for the clay, I created the pot and it was my time that I expended. It's not as if I broke somebody else's pot. I'm not saying God does the evil. But I'm thinking, he set the stage, introduced the players and now he wants to see what's going to happen.

Christians I know talk a lot about wanting to be in God's will. There's this concept of God's perfect will versus his permissive will. I personally think that's a bunch of hogwash. As if God's playing a guessing game with us. If we pray (beg) him to tell us what his perfect will is, maybe he'll tell us. But he's not going to make it easy. If we don't figure it out and do the wrong thing, maybe he'll give us a pass. That's his permissive will.

I mean, we're not talking about right versus wrong here. We're talking about "Should I take the job at the car wash or stay at Burger King."

Rather than saying "let's see if he can figure it out", I think God is saying "let's see what he will do". Then when we pick something, even if it's disastrous from a human point of view, I think God says, "Yeah, I can work with that." Everything is all coming back to him no matter what anybody does. Hitler, Pol Pot, Charles Manson, Hurricane Katrina, World Wars. It doesn't matter. God can and does use everything but he doesn't do everything. He left some of it for us. That's the point.

So anyhow, in the realm of permitting evil to exist, if it's all God's anyway, and he'll more than make it right after we die at least, who are we to question? That was God's response to Job: "Who are you to question me? Did you create all this? Do you sustain it?" Even if he were to try to explain it to us, we could never understand it.

I realize this is all very glib talk when faced with the suffering of innocents but that's how I see it right now from the comfort of my living room.

Brainstorming

2008-02-24T16:00:00.002-05:00

Ok. Here are some ideas for what could happen here.
1. Guys could post here. They would have to sign up for a free blogger account.
2. We could print a monthly newsletter based on the blog contents to distribute in church both for the benefit of guys that are not comfortable using the internet and new guys that are not aware of the mens group or the blog.
3. give a class or classes in how to use the blog and/or email and/or internet
4. i could print up/email information on how to use the blog or put up a post right here on how to use it.
5. keep it simple, stupid

Restart

2008-02-24T09:12:00.002-05:00

OK. This blog is back by popular demand. But first, one ground rule: There are no rules... yet!
I discontinued posting to this blog because it had become a chore for me and not achieving my intended result which was to foster more discussion and interaction among the men of the men's group between Saturday meetings.
A couple weeks ago, I was talking to Dikart and John K. who told me that they missed the blog and would like to see it start up again.
They had some good input which I will get into at some point but for right now I just want to throw this thing open to you guys. What do you want out of this? What are your ideas? As for me, it has to be a joy not a job so I'm just going to post what's on my heart (Christianese for mind) rather than a formal summary of what went on at each Saturday's meeting. I'm done for now. I'll post some ideas later and if you want to do some brainstorming with me, leave a comment.

The New Man Report: Men Need Men

2007-05-17T11:16:00.000-05:00

The New Man Report: Men Need Men

An Undivided Life - April 21st

2007-04-21T19:55:00.000-05:00

For today's meeting, we read from Chapter 11 of John Ortberg's The Life You've Always Wanted, titled "An Undivided Life: The Practice of Reflection on Scripture." The problem, according to Ortberg, is double-mindedness. In spiritual terms, wanting to follow Jesus and wanting to follow the "world" too - to have it both ways. He quotes Jack Palance's character in the movie "City Slickers": "The secret of life is pursuing one thing." Similarly the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard defines our problem as "...the failure to achieve simplicity - to have a life that is integrated, that is focused on one thing." Or as Jesus said, "seeking first the Kingdom." Ortberg goes on to define multiplicity and duplicity, the enemies of simplicity. Multiplicity is being pulled in opposing directions, eg. we want to be generous but we want to hoard our money, we want to give our time to some charity but we want our time for ourselves. Duplicity, on the other hand, involves dishonesty. We say or do something with an overtly noble intent but in reality our motives are not so pure. What comes to mind is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They intended to appear more generous than they really were for the sake of what others thought of them.
By contrast, in simplicity, "The motives we appear to have are the ones we really have." (Clifford Williams).
So how do we do it? Ortberg says one way is to have our minds re-formed by immersing them in scripture. This means meditating on it not just reading the words. This is how our minds are "washed by the water of the word" and purified.

Next week we will continue with The Life You've Always Wanted series. Same time, same place: Sat. 7AM (yes, that's AM) in the lounge in the old building.

Please leave a comment on the blog and let BCCMan know you're out there!

SNOWED OUT! Sat. March 17th

2007-03-17T11:23:00.000-05:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day! See you next week!

Iron Sharpens Iron

2007-03-15T21:26:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, March 10th, 11 men from BCC attended Iron Sharpens Iron at Loudonville Community Church. It was a worthwhile experience and everyone took something of value away from the conference workshops and plenary sessions. Additionally, it was great being together with the guys, getting to know one another just a little bit better (wasn't a lot of time for hangin' out) and doing something together outside of our home church. If you attended, we would all love to read your comments about your experience and the specific workshops you attended, so, feel free!

Business Cards

2007-03-14T16:26:00.000-05:00

We're going to be trying out some ideas for business cards for the men's group. Please feel free to post your comments or suggestions. Here's the first one. (see above) This one is kind of fanciful. We are VERY serious about the men's group but perhaps want to convey that we are not overly self-serious and maybe we even have a little fun. I thought of it cause I know some guys are leery of a church men's group cause they think they're going to have to talk about "feelings" and do touchy/feely stuff. So I thought we could have a little fun with that. Kind of bring that thing out into the open. What are your ideas? Picture? Sayings?

More Prayer and Confession

2007-03-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

Today we watched the DVD session “Praying and Confessing” from John Ortberg’s The Life You’ve Always Wanted and held a discussion based on questions from the Participant’s Guide.

The main points from the video are:

Prayer really does matter

In the Bible you don’t really find “nice”, religious prayers. People haggle with God. They are bold, reckless in their prayers. They seem to operate from the assumption that prayer really does change things.

No heroics – start where you are

Start small. One step at a time. If you’re too ambitious you might burn out and give up after awhile. Start out with 5 minutes a day devoted to prayer. Even if you feel you can do more sometimes, stick to 5 minutes to start. Consistency is more important than quantity.

Pray about what really matters

We need to slow our minds down to be able to pray effectively. Ortberg used the phrase “monkeys in the banana tree” to describe our wandering minds. When your mind wanders, rather than fighting it you might want to consider maybe that’s what’s really important to your heart so you need to talk to God about it. The concept of “simple prayer” is just talking with God about what really matters to me. Being real in prayer is important.

Stains on the sofa

We all have sinned. We have all “stained the sofa”. That is, done what we ought not to have done or not done what we ought to have done. The remedy? The practice of confession. Why do I have to confess? Ortberg suggests it’s not for God as much as it is for us. So that we can become the kind of people who don’t sin anymore. It’s really about “how do I become a different kind of person.” We should practice self-examination. You can use lists such as the 7 deadly sins, or the 10 commandments to assist in bringing to mind our sins for the purpose of confession. Be ruthlessly honest. Confess to specific acts not general sins. The goal is think and feel differently about the situation where you sinned so you don’t do it again. Confess to another person as well as to god.

The real value of confession

I can only be loved to the extent that I am known. Through confession to God I appropriate his love more fully. By confessing to another person I become fully known. Thereby I can be fully loved and start to heal.

Since we will not have a meeting next Saturday because of Iron Sharpens Iron, we have two weeks to put what we’ve learned in this session into practice.

Practice confession to God by yourself.
Establish a pattern of prayer. There’s section in the participant’s guide on page 63 to help with this. Give it a try. (The handouts this week were copies of the relevant pages in the participants guide.)

Interrupting Heaven! The Practice of Prayer

2007-02-25T22:27:00.000-05:00

This Saturday, Feb. 24th, we continued with the “Life You’ve Always Wanted” series by John Ortberg. We read from and discussed Chapter 6 “Interrupting Heaven”.
Some of the main points from our reading:
1. Many people only resort to prayer when they are desperate but “[desperation] prayers are not sufficient to sustain spiritual life.”
2. Usually we think of life as normal here on earth as being “interrupted” by action in heaven but in the book of Revelation prayers of the saints interrupt heaven and then heaven takes action upon the earth as a result of these prayers. He quotes Walter Wink who says “History belongs to the intercessors – those who believe and pray the future into being.” Real prayer, as depicted in the Bible, is not the religious stylized prayer that we often hear but “impertinent, persistent, shameless, indecorous. It is more like haggling in an oriental bazaar than the polite monologues of the churches.”
3. Prayer does not come automatically upon becoming a Christian but must be learned and practiced. The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray like he did (as observant Jews they already knew how to pray in the religious way) and he did.

Next week we will continue on the subject of prayer, reading from Ortberg’s book and using some of his questions and discussion starters to stimulate our thoughts and reflections.

See you there!

More "Slowing and Celebrating" Feb. 17th

2007-02-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

This Saturday we did not watch a video but continued our discussion on the concepts of "slowing", solitude and celebration with 14 men present.
Several men related their experiences during the week that illustrated these concepts, especially "slowing". It seems life presents many opportunities for us to slow down, wait on and reflect. If we are willing to reflect and not react, they may reveal much about ourselves. Perhaps much that we don't really want to hear. Waiting in lines, being stuck in traffic we are confronted with our anger, impatience and self-importance. We have a God-given desire for justice but when it comes to justice for ourselves, we feel it's a right and we need to take care of it ourselves, RIGHT NOW, rather than trust God for our outcomes. Life is about us. NOT!

Next week we are going to read selections from Chapter 5 in John Ortberg's "The Life You've Always Wanted", titled Interrupting Heaven, The Practice of Prayer. We are going to be purchasing copies of the book as well as the participant's guide for use by the men's group.

Also, don't forget about the Iron Sharpening Iron men's conference on March 10th. If you are interested in attending with the men's group, please contact Gary Halbedel at ghalbedel@gmail.com or 424-0941. The cost is $48 but if we get 10 or more as a group, the cost will be $39 each. I'm not collecting money yet, just looking for interest.

Slowing Down and Celebrating! Feb. 10th

2007-02-10T21:27:00.000-05:00

Today the BCC men's group viewed Session Two of the John Ortberg series, The Life You've Always Wanted, Slowing Down and Celebrating. John says we are a people plagued by "hurry sickness", a disease of the soul! The cure is to practice "slowing" and solitude. Also, God commands us to be joyful, to celebrate life and the good things He has given.

Ortberg gave us some practical steps to help us to slow down and celebrate including practicing solitude, ... take time to reflect each day. Plan an 8 hour period of solitude with nothing to do, no contact with people, media. Just quiet.
Some other "slowing" exercises are: deliberately driving in the slow lane, eat your food slowly, get in the longest line at the grocery check out and let someone get in front of you!

He also said that hurried people cannot love. It's a matter of priorities. If we are trying to accomplish what we want rather than what God wants we will miss the work God has set for us to do. God wants us to love people and we have to set aside other things to do that. Opportunities to love and help people come at unexpected times and we have to be ready. We have to train ourselves (there's that word train again!) to be the kind of people that catch those opportunities and see that God has placed them there for us.

Please add your comments, thoughts and experiences in putting slowing and celebration into practice and we'll see you next Saturday at 7AM for coffee and donuts and the next installment of life in the slow lane!

God bless!

........BCCMan

It's "Morphing" Time! Feb. 3rd

2007-02-07T22:26:00.000-05:00

This week we watched the first installment of the John Ortberg series "The Life You've Always Wanted." In it, John talked about personal transformation or "morphing", changing into what we want to be. Hopefully that is more like Christ. He introduced the concept of training instead of trying. In trying, we just will ourselves into being different. It doesn't really work. But by training according to God's word, we eventually find ourselves being different. We set up a space for God to work and He does it.
Ortberg also talked about "boundary markers". These are things we put on, ways of appearing or speech perhaps that set us apart from others not in the "group". In this case, Christians or church men. By doing this, we have really despaired of real transformation. It's just a cheap substitute and it doesn't really do what God intends.

As always, we invite your comments.

See you next Saturday at 7AM! Coffee, juice and donuts will be served.

"Bullhorn" Jan. 27

2007-01-27T12:23:00.000-05:00

Brian is back from his 30th anniversary celebration in Hawaii. All limbs appear to be functional after several days of surfing and he says he's back to his target weight. We're glad to have you back in any shape Brian!

Today's Rob Bell video was entitled "Bullhorn". It depicted a modern day street corner "Evangelist" delivering threats of hell and damnation to indifferent pedestrians. Bell's point was that this type of evangelism is not only ineffective but is not really the Gospel. That Jesus came not to judge but to forgive sins and show us the way to the Father.
Our ensuing discussion was somewhat animated with points pro and con "Bullhorn", the antagonist. Some agreed that Christians are painted with the broad brush of negativity because of the efforts of people like this while others pointed out that they themselves eventually came to faith in Christ at least partly because of the ministry of Bullhorns. What do you think?

This is the last week of Rob Bell "nooma" videos (http://www.nooma.com). Next week we begin the John Ortberg series, "The Life You've Always Wanted" which presents the spiritual disciplines.

See you there at 7AM! (Donuts, coffee and juice will be served)

As always, bccmen invites and welcomes your comments either directly to the blog or email to bccmen@gmail.com.

"Rich" Jan. 20

2007-01-20T15:44:00.001-05:00

This Saturday's video for discussion was from the nooma series by Rob Bell entitled "Rich". He introduced some staggering statistics as to just how wealthy Americans are in relation to the rest of the world. For example, 90% of the world's population does not have a car. Not any kind of car including a beater. So by most of the world's standards, by virtue of my 95 Geo with 181,000 miles and the side bashed in by a snow plow, I am rich! Actually, we also have a second car so I am practically a tycoon!

We had a stimulating and sometimes spirited discussion about what we do with what we have. God blesses us so that we can bless others. Not just our money but also our time. How can we bless others? Not that we can't enjoy what we have but, hey, spread a little of it around!

Pastor Frank shared some insights on the story of the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17, pointing out that the issue here was not that having money was wrong but that putting your trust in anything but God is idolatry.

Brian will be back next Saturday and we all hope he and Jean had a great time in Hawaii!

Don't forget! Feb. 3rd we begin the new DVD series by John Ortberg "The Life You've Always Wanted."

As always, bccmen invites and welcomes your comments either directly to the blog or email to bccmen@gmail.com.

Till next Saturday, God be with you.

New Video series begins Feb. 3rd!

2007-01-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

A new 6 DVD session series will begin for the BCC Mens' Group on Sat. February 3rd at 7AM in the BCC lounge (formerly the fireside room in the old building). The title is: The Life You've Always Wanted: Six DVD Sessions on Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People by John Ortberg.

For more info contact Brian Fast at 475-1441 or email bccmen@gmail.com

"Rhythm" Sat. Jan 13th meeting ...

2007-01-14T22:03:00.000-05:00

This saturday we watched another Rob Bell video titled "Rhythm". It had to do with how we see God. Do we see him as some "Wizard of OZ" figure who is off behind a curtain pulling levers, blessing this one and not blessing that one. Or do we see him as someone who made the universe but then sits back from some remote vantage point and watches maybe coming back now and then or getting involved only occassionally? Rob Bell said when he thinks of God he hears a song. He said Jesus showed us how to be in tune with the song. That everyone is playing the song, the question is, are you playing it in tune? Here are some challenging questions that he asks us:
What does it mean for you to be in or out of tune with the song?
Are you in tune?
Can you believe in God and be out of tune with the song?
Does it work the other way around?
What is more important to Jesus: what we believe or what we do?

How would you answer these questions? We would love to read your comments!

Don't forget to pray for Brian and wife Jean vacationing in Hawaii for their 30th! Pray that Brian will stay away from the big waves on the North side!

Jan. 6th meeting

2007-01-13T16:47:00.000-05:00

Brian is still away in Hawaii. It's a tough deal but hey, somebody's got to do it!

After the usual prayer and worship opening, we watched the Rob Bell video, Flame. The topic was love. Rob used 3 Hebrew words for love to refine the concept. Ahava, riya (ree`-yah) and doh (don't know how to spell these so they're just phonetic from what i can remember).

Here's a quote from the cover of the DVD: "God Created love. and wants us to feel it all in the way it's meant to be felt."

Dec. 30th Men's Meeting

2006-12-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

Well, seeing as i overslept and was about 1/2 hour late for the start of the meeting, i'll do my best to summarize.
Brian asked us what we would like to see happen for the coming year and this is what kicked off the discussion: less conflict!
We wound up discussing:
- how conflict can be good
- how differences in culture, language and perspective can create conflict where none is intended
- things that happened in our past that shape us to this day, good and bad
- trials and how they make can help us be conformed to Christ ( a favorite theme)
- the importance of spending time with God, getting a little space for that relationship
- the need for forgiveness

As always, comments are welcome. If you want to post yourself send an email to bccmen@gmail.com and i'll put you on the access list.

Brian will be in Hawaii for his 30th wedding anniversary for the next 3 meetings, so we want to keep him in prayer.

Next Saturday, Jan 6th, our first meeting of the new year, we will resume watching a Rob Bell video to kick off our discussion.

See you then!

No Men's Group Next Saturday Dec. 23rd

2006-12-18T00:07:00.001-05:00

Don't forget! Be there and you'll be square! Meetings will resume as usual on the 30th.

Abraham and Isaac ...

2006-12-16T22:25:00.000-05:00

The big hit today was Frank's take on the Abraham and Isaac story in Genesis. I'm hesitant to try to interpret what he said. Frank maybe if you have time you could help us out here. Inquiring minds want to know. I think you were saying that God really didn't tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Is that right?

I would have taken better notes (I didn't take any) if I knew I was going to be doing this blog but I just thought of it at the end of the meeting today. I don't remember the scriptures Brian used but the last one I have on my Blackberry is Exodus 33 around verse 17 and 18 or so about Moses asking God to show him His glory. Brian do you still have the other scriptures?

Why a blog?

2006-12-16T22:04:00.000-05:00

Why a blog? Well, my idea is for this to be a place where we can continue discussions and whatever other purpose it may serve that I can't see right now for the Sat. AM BCC Men's Group. Involvement is totally optional including my own. That is, I might get bored and/or lazy and give it up. Or maybe some hardy soul will pick up the torch at some point. Whatever. Or nobody may give a rip about it and it may die a natural death. That's OK too. My intent is just to wing it and see what develops, if anything.

It might be a good place for guys to check out what the group is like before attending for example.

Men that wanted to could be granted rights to create posts like this one. The post would be a new topic or item and you can then leave comments pertaining to the item where indicated.

I'm going to send out invites based on the email list I got from John K. today. Maybe at some point we could put the url (that's the website address for you non-techies) up on the projection screen at church.

Let me know what you think.