I messed up

Oh man, did I mess up this week.

I prepare each week what notes to go over during the connection notes portion of RCC's worship experience and this week I missed a big one.

Amber Thompson is running in a marathon to raise funds to help RCC send a container full of medical supplies to Sri Lanka as they are still battling the effects of the tsunami that hit them at the end of 2004. RCC has been raising funds to send this container to Sri Lanka for months now, and Amber saw a way to have her hobby (running) help out others with this project. She came up with the Big Wave Run project and got businesses and people to sponser her running. The last day to donate was 28 May and I completely forgot to bring it up in connection notes.

Thankfully, Amber has graciously forgiven me my lapse. They are still trying to get some folk that pledged funds to get their money in as well, so if you have pledged, get the funds to her (or the church office) right now! I know my kids have been running around trying to get all sorts of family to donate at least $1/mile run to this event and a lot of our family has already donated.

If you want to help out with the Big Wave Run or just help the tsunami, Karen at the church office is helping take care of the donations. You can email her at kvarley@rockcanyon.org or call at (801) 374-5725.

One of the neatest things about this raising funds for the container is how the community has rallied to the cause. This has not been just an RCC project, but folk around the community have been made aware of the need and stepped up generously to donate towards getting this taken care of. This is an important part of RCC...being part of the community we live in.

Traveling down the nerdy path

I have really been enjoying myself recently. My church work and my work work have been working together and it's been great for me. We have been talking a lot about God being open source. Additionally, I work for Novell who is greatly involved in open source software. Novell is just getting ready to release our latest desktop solution (instead of running Windows you can run this) and I am using it and enjoy it. I'm using GIMP for my photo manipulation and I think OpenOffice is the best stuff I have used for an office solution. There are so many talented individuals that are working hard to make software available for everyone. I'm just loving Bloglines for my blog reader.

To me it is all just data, though. I know some people are passionate about Linux or Windows or MacIntosh operating systems. Heck, here at home I run SuSE 10, SLED 10, Windows XP and Mac OSX and I'm just happy to use what works for whatever I am doing. I'm not a purist and I don't see it as a religion. I want to just use the technology to accomplish a task. Maybe that makes me strange, but I just want a computer or piece of technology to do what it is supposed to do!

I know a lot of the time, in RCC's production meeting I'll be asked if a certain computer can do something. As long as the computer is not too old and out of date, the answer is usually "yes." Because for almost every problem we come up with, there has been another person who has had that problem and somebody somewhere has decided to come up with a solution for it. FreshMeat is a place that shows the latest open source projects available to be worked on if you are so inclined. SourceForge has a listing of a ton of open source projects from their beginning stages to the second and third release of the product. You can spend hours out there looking for an open source solution to a problem.

Isn't that what a good computer program is anyway? Just a solution to a problem? Whether we knew there was a problem or not.

Memorial Day

Tomorrow is our Memorial Day service at RCC. I wanted to share some photos I took on my recent trip to Washington DC. I have found some places to be cathedrals to me...one of them is Arlington National Cemetary. The place commands respect. I was able to take some photos of my recent trip there...

Reflecting

I'm sitting in my home office working on my message for Father's Day and I'm struck with what a different person I am today than eight years ago when my first child was born and I became a father. I can tell you that some of my friends (who might be reading this right now) would stand up and testify that the furthest thing from their mind that I would become would be a devoted family man and point pastor at a church in the valley.

I was selfish.

I was power-hungry.

I worked hard to earn money.

My father taught me the value of hard work. I learned from him an excellent work ethic that has carried me far in my career as a software engineer for Novell. He tried to teach me there was so much more than just work, but that didn't take as well.

I can now look back over the last eight years and be proud of the person God has reached out and touched and made a difference in. Oh, I'm still bullheaded at times and it takes a bit to smack some sense in me. I still have my selfish, prideful moments when I'm tough to be around, but thankfully they are fewer and not as long. I'm grateful that I've not been given up on, but rather God has had extreme patience in working with me. Sometimes it is frustrating, but I do eventually learn.

I've learned that providing for my family financially is only a small part of what I'm here for.

I've learned that love involves self-sacrifice.

I've learned that people are worthy of being loved.

And I've learned that the greatest moments in life are not ones that are purchased with money, but rather they occur when people allow you to be a part of their lives when they are the most vulnerable and most hurting.

It has taken me a long time, but I have learned that pastoral care is not something that happens only on Sunday from 10:00 until 11:30, but first happens at home, then with your friends and at your job and all those you interact with. I have found that people are desperate for somebody to love them and listen to them rather than somebody who will jump in to fix things.

So as I reflect on where I have been and where I am today, it is my prayer that God does not stop his efforts with me, but rather continues to work on me...honing me...making me better...I look forward to seeing where I am eight years from now.

What a weekend!

I live on a farm. Not a big farm, but a family farm that raises meat for us, a few people at work and we have some chickens for eggs. With my back problems last year, we had to sell off all the girl sheep we had since I couldn't do the work of keeping them over the Winter. Now that I'm feeling better, we have started to put the farm back together. Step one was get some sheep back.

I had a plan for the weekend. The plan was to have the truck loaded with the boy and myself, the neighbor's trailer on the back and head out at 0600 to arrive in Moab by 0900, load the trailer with our new flock of Navajo-Churro sheep by 1000 and be back by 1300.

It was a good plan. A plan rooted in reality. A workable plan.

Right up until the harsh fist of reality hit!

I slept in. Didn't hit the road until 0630. Not a tremendously bad thing, but we were a touch late out the door. The boy was a great traveling companion. Took a nap and we talked for a while all the way up there. We arrived around 1000, knocked on the door, spoke with Jan, moved the truck and trailer over to the first pen that had the two boys we were buying in it, turned the truck off, loaded the boys and.........the truck wouldn't start.

*SIGH*

After playing with it for a while, I called my mechanic. He gave me some good pointers, but by 1315 he was fresh out of ideas, so he hopped in his truck in Mona, loaded the family and drove to Moab to save us. About 230 miles he traveled in the truck to fetch my boy and I. When he got there around 1800, he played with the truck some, determined it to be a lost cause, so we unhooked the trailer, pulled the truck out of the way and hooked the trailer to his rig. Loaded up the girls and babies and hauled back to Benjamin. We finally got home about 2300 Saturday night. I had a couple of things to get ready and print out for church, so I did that, reported to my wife and crashed. Up again at 0600 to get to church, took care of all of that, back home by noon. My mechanic called me, drove here, we then picked up a car dolly from Springville, a spare part from Mapleton and back to Moab.

*UGH* The drive is loooooooooong

Truck starts right up in Moab. Yep, par for the course. Start driving home and it dies about 50 miles down the road. Load up on the dolly and he hauls me to the shop in Mapleton, then takes me home. About 2200 tonight, so we're ahead of the curve. Dentist appointment at 0700 Monday, so I shovel in dinner and crash for my Monday.

Thankfully, my Jeep was willing to run today, so at least I can get around, but wow what a weekend! I had planned on an hour in Moab and instead spent the better part of two days around there! Still it could have been worse. I had some good time talking with my son and with my friend the mechanic. I just want my vehicles to both work for a couple of months in a row!

The water is coming!

Everybody lives in a community with its own idiosyncrasies and rules. One of the strange ones of the place I live is water.

Since I live on a small farm in a rural farming community, water is super important to everyone around here. Unlike homes in the city, our pastures in this area are not watered by sprinklers, but rather every farm around here flood irrigates. This means there is a decent sized stream that is turned out to each and every farm by a series of dams and headgates and we all flood our fields with water. I did the math on it once, and with the amount of water coming through and the length of time I water, my 5 acres use a bit over 300,000 gallons of water each time I water!

Well, the stream is not always running down our ditch...we tend to see the water every 18-21 days and we just have to be ready when it comes whether that is noon or 2 in the morning! The days leading up to the water coming sees my neighbors driving around more, we all stop and chat about where the water is, if we are taking the water and who we will turn it out to when we're done. For a day after we water, I'll see the neighbors driving around, checking the fields to see if they advanced the water far enough, and to report to our watermaster how much was used. You see, the amount of water we are each allowed to use each year is finite. We can't just use as much as we want, but it is carefully tracked so we don't run out.

This is our little quirk in Benjamin that brings our community closer and has us talking to each other more. What do you do in your community that's unique to you?

A herd, a horde....?

So on Sunday, being impressed with all the new people in the band, I referred to them as a herd (or horde) of musicians.

Anxious to point out all of the times I messed up on Sunday, I was solemnly informed at production meeting that many musicians together do not form a herd and that the term is derogatory. Realizing how sensitive some musical types are I offered up...

A herd
A horde
A wad
A slug (thanks, Kim!)
A handful
A steaming pile (my favorite!)
A gaggle
A pride (yeah, like that is wrong!)
A bucketload

Of which none were good enough. So I asked,

What is a steaming pile of musicians called?

And I was told

A band.

A band?!

How boring is that? Can't you at least be a merry band of musicians? Why just a band? Well, I have accepted it...I will no longer use the improper term for multiple musicians again...they are now a band.

I hate lawns!

I'm already sick of this. We need a lawn. We've been in our house for a while now and we need to install a lawn. The dirt is fine by me, but the kids tend to become dirty/muddy/icky in that, and we want to give them a place to play.

When planning the lawn portion out on paper before we built the house, it worked out nicely, but now that I'm paying for sprinklers and dirt (yes, I'm paying for dirt) it is becoming huge! I have a ton of tractor work to do before 19 June when the sprinkler guy comes out. I need to have it graded, have the curbing done, and run 220 out to the pump house for the pump to be installed. I have got to get to work!

Guest Podcaster!

Dean asked me to sit down with him and be a guest on his podcast. He wanted to discuss our idea that God is open source and how we came to that idea and what it really means to us. It was a fun time, and you can listen to it right here.

I don't know

I was meeting with some RCCers the other day just knocking some ideas around, and I mentioned another church had done a series on tough questions. I wanted to play off that with a series on tough answers and headline it with the answer I don't know

That was when a person who just got back from a sales training seminar told me that I don't know is not an answer they are ever supposed to give to potential clients. Since I believe all truth is God's truth I have been giving that statement a lot of thought and I just don't agree with it.

Saying I don't know and leaving it at that would be bad in a business situation. But adding but I'll look into it and get back to you is a response I have given countless times in my career as a software engineer, and I believe people appreciate the honesty of the response.

In the church world, I think the response I don't know has a ton more value. If we could explain all the mysteries of God, isn't that making Him too small? If there is an answer to everything we can think of about God doesn't that diminish Him? It's the mysteries of God that continue to astound me and keep me looking for the next. The fact that bumblebees can fly. The vastness of nature and the delicate balance that keeps it all functioning. The miracle of a single seed growing into an entire plant that not only feeds my family but makes hundreds more seeds never ceases to provoke a response in me.

Some people worry about the hard questions we ask of God, but I think sometimes the hardest isn't a question, but rather the answer I don't know. We like to have things tied up in a bow. We like periods at the end of sentences and we hate the last page of a book missing, so having mysteries of God can be discomfiting at times, but I believe it is an important part of who He is and who we worship.

Gut bomb lunch

Man, I do not eat right on vacation. Not only did I learn about the liquid cheeseburger (venti, breve cappuccino) but the first day of the Buzz Conference when it was time for lunch, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted...Boardwalk Fries. YUM!

These people talk french fries and put toppings on them...like gravy and a liquid yellow cheese-like substance...I could actually feel my arteries clogging as I ate it!

Oh, man, were those good!

During that same lunch, Dean found a donut the size of a dinner plate

And tried to eat the whole thing

While on the phone. That is one talented man!

And we were all impressed! Nicely eaten gut bombs!

UGH

Fun with Numbers

Today was just a great day!

Flew in Saturday night, grabbed our minvan and the kids, plopped them into bed just after 2200, then I sat down to get the run sheets and my speaking sheet printed out, quickly crash into bed (nice to be back home in my own bed!) and off to church this morning

Whew!

One of my favorite parts this morning was when I sat down to do some math. When we previewed the video for Amber running a marathon to raise funds to help fill the container we are sending to Sri Lanka I started doing some math.

We are putting $200,000 worth of medical supplies into this container and yet it will cost us to fill it and ship it only $15,000 it sort of removes the argument that people don't have any money.

Just $1 put towards the tsunami relief in Sri Lanka translates to $13.33 in the container. That was amazing to me! The multiplication of our funds is incredible! As I mentioned this morning, I am now addicted to venti breve cappuccinos which cost me $4 each. That $4 multiplies to about $53.32 in the container! So if I give up only one yummy coffee drink, that is $53.32 to fill the container. My wife then challenged me when I got home...was I willing to put some legs on this? I say YES! So for the remainder of the month of May I am not having any of the venti breve cappuccinos and I will donate all the funds I would have spent on coffee towards the Sri Lanka container being sent off.

I love this multiplication of funds God is doing for us in this project. Too often people think they need to write the big check to be able to help out, but with this project, even a seemingly small amount of funds is multiplied over 13 times over! What a great opportunity we have...and good luck to Amber! I know I'm winded just running to the pasture!

Buzz Film Festival

As part of this conference in DC, there was an evening of watching original movies a bunch of churches put together to either promote an event or sermon series or illustrate a point. The judges selected what they thought were the best to show us attendees the other night.

I was amazed at how creative some of these churches are! WOW! There are some really neat ideas. My favorite was a film titles Why Don't We Pray sung to the tune of YMCA...I laughed the entire time! Unfortunately for me, that one didn't win.

It was neat to see the amount of talent we in the body of Christ have. There was a disappointment, though...at the end, the question was asked

How much of this can we just take and use

And of all the finalists only one church was willing to pipe up and offer their work for others. If we are all in the body of Christ together...if we all have the same goals of bringing the news of Jesus to people, why are we stuck in a proprietary mindset that we made the movie you can't have it. We need to have an open source mindset and partner with others to get the message out! None of RCC's movies made it to the finals, but our stuff is available for anybody's use. We are happy to work to pull off anything on a project that identifies it as an RCC project so it can be used in other churches and they can brand it as their own.

When we get back, we are going to have to work with our creative team to start making some of our resources open source instead of making them proprietary

Washington, DC

I really enjoy the history of Washington, DC. Visiting the monuments and remembering our past and how this country was formed is very enjoyable for me. Today, we have a couple of meetings to attend (yes, I'm wearing a TIE AND BLAZER!) then tomorrow the Buzz Conference starts in earnest. Not a bad view of the Potomac river from the hotel, eh?

Mexico missions trip

Today in service we had a chance to watch a video of Maria talking about her upcoming missions trip with Kim to Mexico to help out an orphanage. What a fantastic video. We'll make the vodcast available just as soon as we get it ready. I thought the video was compelling?

It is so disturbing to hear that these children have nobody to love them. They have no papers, so in the eyes of their government they don't even exist. What is exciting is the fact that Maria and Kim want so much to show these unwanted babies love that they are putting their lives on hold to head down to Mexico and just love them. This is the kind of ministry I see Jesus doing all the time in the stores I read in the bible. Jesus finds a need and rushes to meet it. He doesn't wait until they have accepted some truth he tells them, He doesn't ask them to sign up for a certain creed, Jesus just goes to people in their deepest need and loves them. That is exactly what these women are doing...they have found a need that touches them and when they heard God's voice asking them to help out, they were willing to say YES.

Maybe this isn't the people group God has laid on your heart. Maybe there is another need that you uniquely know about and feel compelled to do something about. Let me encourage you to get involved! We are all unique beings made for our own part of God's purposes on earth. Maybe you are to help with unique needs men have or young mothers or the poor or homeless or....? Only God knows what he made you for...are you willing to spend the time needed to find out what He has for you?

Sharpening the saw

In Stephen Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People the last habit he talks about is sharpening the saw. Basically after learning the other habits and putting them into practice, you always need to take a look at what you are doing and make sure you are doing it to the best of your ability. It is taking the time to step back from where you are and assessing how it worked or didn't work.

We are getting ready to head out to Washington DC to do some saw sharpening tomorrow. National Community Church, one of the first theater churches and a very helpful church in our own transition to a theater, is putting on a conference to discuss what we are all doing and what we have all found that works and doesn't work. This is going to be an open source conference where all of us will share with each other. Should be a lot of fun!

Anyway, I take off from my place here around 0300 (ACK!) tomorrow morning, and I'm not sure how internet access will be back in DC...it might be a bit dodgy. If we have access there, I'll be sure to blog about it while we are there otherwise I'll hold off until my return. I do know they are having a bloggers breakfast one of the days...I might be there for that one!