Get involved

We talk about this a lot at RCC. It is included at the end of every sermon we have. There is usually at least one opportunity brought up in the connection notes on Sundays of what people can do to get involved. Still, sometimes the message doesn't come across clearly. We have so many opportunities for people to get involved here at RCC. We need people to help setup and help teardown and a ton of other areas. The main place to get involved here at RCC is via the connection group. This is where you can get some close time with others in an environment where you can just be yourself. These are a ball since we all are just talking about the sermon and what it meant to us. If you are not in a CG, they are great! If you have tried it and didn't like it, since they are all about relationships, try another one. There is no problem if you don't like a certain group. Not everybody gets along, and that is okay, try another group until you can find some folk that you resonate with. Let's all commit to get involved

Braggin' on the CG

I have to brag about my connection group again. I'm telling you, after 10 weeks of CGs, we each gain at least five pounds! The desserts we have here are fantastic!
So far this semester, I can remember having

• pineapple upside-down cake
• tiramisu
• custard crepes with fudge sauce
• chocolate pie
• peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream

and that just starts the list! Man, being in my CG is not good for people on a diet.

Miscommunication

I just listened to Dean's audio blog from Sunday. I must clarify what I consider to be an important point. Dean mentioned we have the same birthday and that part is correct. What he failed to mention, though is the age difference. Even though we were born on the same day he was born 5 years earlier than I was! Just have to clarify things in the interest of full disclosure.

Continual Growth

I was speaking with a friend of mine the other day and I ended up pointing him here to this blog to read about the Twinkie Bomber post a while ago. I've known this guy for years and years and he came back to me about an hour later and said

Tom, you aren't the same person I met 9 years ago

and I've been thinking about that since.

Sure, there have been some large changes in my life in the last nine years. I've gotten my priorities straightened out in regards to home and work. I have found myself placing God in a better priority in my life, and for people who have known me, these have resulted in some rather drastic external changes in my life.

But these external changes are the result of internal changes that have been made in my life. Our lives that others see only reflect what is going on inside of us. When we are working to follow Jesus and truly emulate Him, that shows up in our lives as things being different. Our priorities changes, what used to be important to us changes as well.

The important thing is that it is continuous.

Growth is not something we look back over the years, say we grew and stop working to learn and grow further. If I look back at my life nine years from now and don't see a continual growth process and I'm the same person I am today, then I will have failed. God is not done with any of us, and we need to open ourselves up to the possibilities that He has something for us to learn today.

Growth is continuous, and it is our job to find out how we can grow and get connected with what we need so that we might grow. Whether that is something found in church, in school, at work or elsewhere, we need to find opportunities and embrace them.

An experience...

You might remember I blogged a while ago about Bizarro Tom (BT) and I needed to experience some things on a recent trip. Well, for good or bad that whole idea of experiencing things has been consistently going through my brain since. I'm struggling to grok this completely, and it keeps coming to the fore of my brain.

Just this morning, I'm reading an article on the use of Flash and Ajax in web pages, and the gentleman says

And a word to website designers: Most of the time, most of us aren't looking for an "experience". We're just looking to find stuff. Bear that in mind.
I get that...it makes sense to me...I want data, not an experience.....

or so I thought.

So I'm here at home, on the mend, and I'm not allowed to be up for more than 20 minutes every hour. And up is defined as not laying down. What a bummer it is for me! I have farm work to do! I have shop work to do! I HAVE WORK TO DO!

Okay, I got that out and feel better.

So I'm at home, mostly horizontal and I'm reading a ton. Recently, I've been working to finish up Covey's 8th Habit. And I got to thinking this morning about reading and experinces and stuff.

You see, I'm a prolific reader. I've always enjoyed reading. I can remember my parents coming into my room at night and taking away the flashlight I would use to read under the sheets. I can take a vacation by just selecting the proper book from the shelf, and I'm on an adventure! I can remember the first time I read JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. It was when I was right around 12 years old, and it transformed my world! This really was an experience for me. I am able to read these books, just dumping myself into them and living them...I find myself standing alongside Frodo and Sam as they go through their troubles. Reading has always been an experience for me.

Reading Covey's book is not an experience for me. I can't lose myself in Covey's book even though I am enjoying it and appreciate what he has to teach me. It is different. It is just transferring data.

For the longest time, reading the bible was that way for me as well. I can remember right around the age of Tolkien trying to read the bible. My first attempt was a King James Version of the bible, and knowing how to properly read, I of course started at the beginning...

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And I was bored. This was not an experience where I could lose myself in a book, but rather just transmitting data that I had no motivation to learn. I have begun to realize that is is the job of the preacher to make these stories come to life...make them an experience rather than just transmitting data. This is fundamental to talking about God. I've always been concerned when I preach about presenting this perfect truth without a) messing the truth up and b) making this incredible message boring. It is the job of a good preacher to make this truth of God an experience and drive people to get the data on their own. People should wonder

does the bible really say this

then go home and find out for themselves!

So, BT, the story is I can learn! I am beginning to understand more the value of the experience rather than just data. They both have their places, and can be used in their appropriate place.

Tom Steel

I was talking with an RCCer yesterday and he told me now that I have metal stuff in my body holding me together I need a new name like Iron Tom or something, but since it's stainless steel in me, we settled for Tom Steel

Yes, I am back! A great big thank you to everyone to has been praying for me and my family...I survived the surgery, and it appears to be a success at this time. I'm back home recovering nicely.

It certainly would not have been as smooth without my wife who spent 14-hour days at the hospital keeping me on track and my parents who stepped up to watch the kids for three of the four days we were gone.

I certainly missed RCC while out, but unfortunately for me, will have to take another Sunday off still to recover. I have big restrictions from the surgeon, but I'm sure they will relax as I go.

Bumped up

For people waiting for an upcoming surgery, some of the scariest phone calls you can get is when you pick up the phone and the office says "there's a problem with your surgery on Friday"

UGH

I received that call on Monday. The neurosurgeon couldn't do the surgery on Friday...I have no idea why and really didn't care...all that went through my head was hanging on until they could get in there and repair me.

Fortunately for me, it was a bump up rather than a bump back so today is my day. I'm headed to the hospital in just a couple of hours and will come out of the OR today with my back repaired!

Thanks for everyone who is praying for me...I'll be out of it for a while, but back blogging shortly!

Easter

Easter is almost upon us. The day we spend to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. Wow, did I really just write that? We spend one day a year celebrating Jesus' resurrection from the dead? Just amazing! Shouldn't this kind of giant miracle be an all-consuming aspect of our lives? As followers of Jesus, this culmination of His work should be something we celebrate daily, hourly, minutely!

Yet all too often we relegate our celebration to one day a year. One day. Then we even take it further...we celebrate for an hour at church, have dinner as a family and "Easter is over."

As Jesus followers, this time, this final part of all He has done for us, should be in our thoughts daily. Without the resurrection, the story doesn't have a very good ending. We need to hear about the resurrection of Jesus, we need the resurrection.

As we go through the remainder of this week, let's consider that thought. Whenever you take the time to spend a few minutes in prayer or contemplation, let us consider the resurrection and whether that has all the importance of one day in our lives or if it consumes our lives.

Board Meeting

So yesterday we had our monthly board meeting. We have been discussing the book Fierce Conversations and yesterday we discussed ground truth. Basically what the ground truth was of what is happening here at RCC.

My observation was regarding people coming to our church. It seems that because of the way we are doing church now...in a theater that is easy to attend, sort of darker with only the sidelights up and the casual atmosphere...that I am seeing people more at ease to share what is going on in their lives. It seems to me that when we were in the old church building, we had to spend a lot more time with folk taking off the church clothes and our church smiles to get to really what is going on in our lives. Now at the theater, that seems to have changed...it seems that people are more comfortable with just being themselves and that is making it easier for people to get to the heart of what is going on without feeling like they are being judged for their problems. If that is a result of the venue change, then WHOO HOO this has been a huge success!!!

Flying again!

The bad thing here is my friends know me and want to suck me into this flying thing, so he reserved the Cessna 172 again from the club and off we went flying.

The nice thing is we flew for a while, and it only cost 30 minutes because of they way they keep time on the airplane.

And once again I had a ball!!!

He let me fly some over my place in Benjamin again, and so I turned on my own to fly over again, and it was just a great time!

We then headed over to the foothills of the mountains by Spanish Fork and Springville and saw just a ton of Elk down below us. Now his plan is to get me up in the club's bigger plane, the Cessna 182 which has a bigger engine, a slightly roomier cockpit, and more power so we'll fly above the mountains and circle over Sundance to fly down Provo canyon...all before I get cut on Friday!

The other evening...

I met with a couple of RCCers and the talk turned to tithing. They both pay their tithes, but were a little frustrated that they don't hear about it on a Sunday and were wondering what was going on with all of that.

So first off, let me state that we at RCC believe in the principle of tithing. We believe that God has made each and every believer a steward of all they are given. It no longer belongs to me, but rather to God and he allows me to use it. This is very true for the farm I live on and I try to teach my kids that...we are stewards of this place, and we need to do everything we can with all of God's stuff. Not only that, it is also our belief that God wants each believer to give back 10% of what they have to the local church they attend, and to give beyond that to missions or other areas of need. This is a heart attitude like we've discussed many times in the past.

If we truly believe that everything we have belongs to God, then it is really easy to give back to Him and what He is doing, but the biggest problem comes up when it is ours and we don't want to give when the popcorn bucket comes by. This is what I mean by it being a heart attitude. If our heart is right, our checkbook will reflect that with our giving.

The decision to tithe is a very personal decision. Unlike the decision to be baptized where it is a public confession that you follow Jesus, the decision to tithe is between you and God. Here at RCC we do not audit those who come nor those who are members nor even those who serve on the board of directors. This is a personal decision that we have to make between ourselves and God.

Now is the effect of that decision felt? You bet! RCC is run off the tithes (10% of the increase) and offerings (anything above the 10% not designated for other things like missions) that RCCers give. Our denomination does not support us financially and no funds come from anywhere but those who choose to give locally. So peoples' decisions to be faithful with their money has a direct effect on how the church is able to run. But that is not the most exciting to me...I am excited when people decide to step out and trust God with everything including their money!

So a story was relayed to me how another RCCer was given some advice that they should cease tithing for a while because they were behind on their bills. As I've said, tithing is a personal decision, but I certainly would not counsel somebody to stop giving their tithes because of other obligations. The tithe just isn't ours to mess with. We don't get to write out on the envelope what we want done with it...it's a tithe. Now if you are giving to missions and an offering above and beyond your tithes, sure if you can't do that any longer and can't find the money elsewhere, stop paying those, but I sure wouldn't want to mess with the tithe!

We live in an amazing land. Most everybody has at least one car, a television and probably a computer. Yet we say we have nothing and wonder how we could ever possibly pay our tithes. You realize eating at McDonald's one day a week for $5 is spending $260 every year there? Heck, if you subscribe to cable tv at $40 a month, that is $480 every year spent on cable tv! We purchase cars we don't have the cash to buy, so we make payments every month. We have our credit cards we pay every month. We pay our mortgage or rent monthly...then say we don't have any money rather than taking the hard look and wondering if we really are living outside our means.

So why don't we hear much about tithing in church on a Sunday morning?

Well, it is the belief of the leaders of RCC that this church's mission in this community is to reach out to those who have left church. There are so many reasons people leave church, but we want to provide a place for them to come in, spend some time singing to God, pray with us and hear from God's word. One of the big problems people have to send them back out the door to not be connected to God is hearing about money. They complain that

All church wants is my money!

and use that as an excuse to leave. We don't want them to have that excuse. We want to help people to come into a place they can feel comfortable in and spend some time connecting with God and with people.

Now, after people have been to RCC a little bit, they will have heard us talk about these connection groups. These are our small groups where people can go to connect with other RCCers and spend more time talking about the message from Sunday and how they can actually use it in their lives. This is where people open up and share about themselves and this is where questions about tithing are asked.

We spent 10 weeks of Winter semester going through the Crown Financial series and discussing biblical principles about our finances. These CDs were played not only to the hosts and facilitators, but to everybody involved in a connection group. It was our hope that this would lay the foundation of doctrine for people to learn off of and to help folk with understanding how tithing works.

I've been thinking recently about the Summer electives we will be having and I'll have to check with the other Crown teacher and see if we will be offering the class over the break. It does cost $50 per couple for the materiel for the class and I like that because there is value in things we pay for...more information on that will be coming soon.

If I've left you with any questions on tithing or RCC's position or you just want to comment, you can comment here to send me an email

Fun Lunch!

Today for lunch I was able to meet with Richard Green. He's the chaplain out at the Utah County Jail and he plays the bass in the band.

Anyway, Richard was recently invited to Nigeria to speak at Dr. Felix's church there. It's a fairly good sized place running around 12,000!

He was going through a bunch of photos and talking about the trip...we are putting together a presentation for RCC on this trip, it will be great!...and showing all the pictures of them. The one that struck me was a huge banner in their main sanctuary talking about taking the gospel to the world.

Now, when we talk about taking the gospel to the world, we are usually talking about places like Nigeria, but here they are worried about us! Richard tells me they have planted churches in the United States to bring the gospel to us...that is a mission focus!

To think these Nigerians love us enough to send people over and have people who want to come over here to share the gospel with us...that is fantastic!

It's all data to me

I was speaking with my wife the other day. Since I've been following a bunch of blogs, there are some she follows as well. I was telling her that I'm using Bloglines to know when they are updated and to read the updates. Now here's a look at my brain...Bloglines uses a framed web page to just show the update to the blogs and another panel that shows the blogs with new items. It only works on blogs with RSS feeds, and I like it because I don't have to do to a bunch of web sites each day to see if they are updated.

My wife, however, hated Bloglines. The experience was not the same because the colors of the web page were different. She didn't like not having the sounds and the links on the sides. I just don't get it...it is all just data to me!

Upcoming Surgery

Dean mentioned today during worship response that I'm going in for surgery. I figured I'd blog about it and let you know what's going on. Unfortunately for me, I've had fairly intense back pain since February last year. I've gone through my GP, chiropractic, accupuncture, massage, a physiatrist, a pain clinic and now a neurosurgeon. He wants to do two fusions on my thorasic vertebrae. I'm having T8-9 and T9-10 fused together. They'll use 6 big ol' (that's the medical term) screws and a couple of bars of stainless steel to hook it together. They are using BMP and recombinant DNA to put me back together...weird. Anyway, I'll be out of commission for a little while starting a week from Friday. Thanks for your support!

It's over!

This last month I've been doing my Proverbs reading out of the King James Version. There are a number of Psalms that I enjoy in KJV, but for Proverbs, I prefer a version that is more like the spoken word...I think for April I'll do The Message again.

Are you reading a Proverb a day for the month?