Reformation Day

Even though most people will be celebrating Halloween tonight, I'm going to pay homage to the original: Reformation Day. Here's a video of some people at Yale created. They do a great job but get some things confused. Enjoy.

Planting Churches or Making Satellites

Often I come across other pastors that encourage the development of new churches. Now, I'm all for new churches but it seems that some fall into either of 2 categories: the church plant or the satellite church. Allow me to clarify and define each. Each start out with the premise that the current church is growing. Each discover a new site of potential grow. But they go about it in different ways.
(Image: Rows of Salad by majorie lipan)
The church plant (let's call it St. John's Church) addresses the issue by stating that they are going to send a core group to a new location, maybe 10 miles away from the current church location and start a new church. This church would have its own pastor and be separate from the first church (St. Johns'). They would have a new name like (St. Paul's Church). This church would at first be supported by the previous church (St. John's) until it could be supported on it's own. In time people may not realize that St. Paul's Church was planted by people from St. John's because they have grown to be 2 different churches giving the gospel to 2 communities.

(Image: Satellite by wjarrettc)
The church (let's call it Mt. Hope Church) that wants to start the satellite church goes about it differently. They, too, would find a new location, 10 miles away from the current church location and start a 'satellite' church with a core of people from the original Mt. Hope Church. This church may have its own pastor but is not separate from the first church. Often they will have the same name. Mt. Hope Church of Big Town, USA and Mt. Hope Church of Littler Town, USA. The first church would support the new one but there would be no true distinction between the two. The programs offered would be similar and possibly even the style of worship would be exactly the same. There would be no intention of growing each church into separate entities, they would always be connected. This model is often seen by many mega-churches.

So those are the 2 models. Why is there a disagreement between the two? What are the benefits of the church plant? What are the benefits of the satellite church? What are each churches disadvantages? What would you prefer: plant or satellite?

Next week I'll come up with my own assessment but I'd love to hear from you first!

One last PowerPoint help

This will probably be my last Power Point help. I know the video describes how to pitch a presentation for money but I do believe the principles exemplified work in both sermons and teaching. I think that's all I can really do to help others with their power point presentations. The only other suggestion I have is watch good presenters. (Many found on www.TED.com are excellent) Good luck with those presentations and send me and suggestions or comments on this power point series.

Oh, NPR why do I love and hate you at the same time?

Image: From Flickr; logo_npr_125 by MontageMan

So, I love NPR. I use to listen to it all the time when I was in St. Louis. It was great to quickly get my news while driving to Seminary and back. And of course there were the in depth interview with people that I would have never thought to be so interesting and fascinating. Yes, even Ugandan 'flute' players! NPR really broadened my perspective on things in the world. Sure many people accuse it of being a 'liberal' perspective, but I really did think that was honest.

But I will admit that towards the end of the 4th year of the Seminary I stopped listening to NPR. It wasn't a gradual phase but a complete halt. Why? There was a show about a lady who was talking about the Bible. And she was using every single fallacy known to man to disprove that the Bible was completely full of errors and is quite unintelligent. This really infuriated me because I could not really respond to the woman. I knew not just that she was wrong Biblically but that she was using logic fallacies. I guess I was just so mad that I stopped.

Well, I have now begun to listen to NPR again. It was a good news source during both the DNC and RNC. But it happened again today. This time a guy was explaining why he doesn't believe in Scripture, God and the like solely because he found out that a 'medium' was lying about channeling spirits. He took this experience and began to question his whole faith. This time I wasn't as mad but saddened. Saddened not only to listen to this man but saddened that I have never heard Christianity, the Bible, or Jesus ever truly represented in a positive light on NPR. Maybe it's my listening times? But I have yet to hear it. This time I won't be tuning out NPR...I still love...but I kinda hate it at the same time for presenting stories and people of one perspective without covering the whole story.

So am I just too sensitive? Does NPR do this? Do they have shows that give a positive light on Christianity?

DNC is here

Right now we are in the midst of the DNC (that's Democratic National Convention). That's at Denver if you live under a rock. Although if you live under a rock you might not know where Denver is anyway. I think it's great to have the Convention here. It give a good opportunity to talk about citizenship. After all, as Christians we live in a particular time and place. We live in a country and God has not just called us to be His family but to participate in the civil realm (that includes politics). We should all be aware of the 'political' realm. It is an excellent way that we can serve our neighbor.

How are you involved in the political realm?
Do you see serving/doing politics as something that is good?

The Return of .....

I know it's been a while. Life has really sped up. The good news: after much frustration we have a house! It's been a crazy process and as our Realtor said "Everything that could go wrong, went wrong with you guys." But we have a house and things are getting unpacked and put into place. I have many different projects to complete. And as many of you have notice this blog has suffered the greatest hit. But I have returned and let's see if I can give this blog the life it needs. It just might have as many lives as my office plant.

To sermon or not to sermon?

Ok...I know that's a bad and horrible title. But I'm kinda struggling here for this Sunday's sermon. Out of the 3 readings for this Sunday (LCMS lectionary readings) I am really pulled towards Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (I hate that they cut out 10-17, it's so important!). It's rather unusual because I typically prefer the Old Testament readings. My predicament is this: I preached on Matthew 13:1-23 already...at a Women's Retreat in April to 50 women at RSLC. So...would it be ok if I pull out that sermon again? Now, if I'm going to use that sermon, all I'm going to do is update and clarify. After all I will be speaking to a different audience, yet the core of the message will probably be the same. So, I'd revise some illustrations, expand more on the text and give different applications. Is this ethical? Or should I just go for it? What do you think?

More on Presentations

Thanks again to Ed Ross (I think...are you edr??) for another great video on presentations. The video plays on itself, in that they guy gives suggestions on how do do a presentation while the whole video sets itself up in the correct style.


PresenTired: "The Voicemail" from Scott Schwertly on Vimeo.

I'm starting to like sports...what's happening

First allow me to state that I have always liked sports, just certain sports. I wasn't that guy who always had sportscenter on (I didn't even know what Sports Center was until a few years ago). Growing up I always liked tennis. It was my favorite sport...sure I played baseball (probably 2nd favorite sport) and soccer (close tie to baseball). But I did not like any other sports; football--not for me; basketball--please no, don't even let me touch the ball. I've always favored reading, video games, riding my bike (not into cycling though), and hanging out outside.
But recently I've been starting to watch sports. I've usually tried to catch tennis in the summer when it's on but other than that nothing. Now if I'm not watching Headline News, CNN, or SciFi channel I have ESPN on. It's great. I think I'm going to blame it all on my good friend Tony, who taught me to love hockey. You see, Tony introduced me not just to hockey but the Red Wings! He had NHL's Center Ice our fourth year at the sem, so each time the Wings were playing I'd go to his place to watch the game. We'd have some Blue Moon and talk about hockey strategy. Before that I'd never really watch any sports stuff besides tennis (Speaking of which go watch it NOW! Wimbledon is on! Great upsets but my guess it'll end with the typical Federer and Nadal champ match).
Now I like to watch baseball (only if Boston or the Cubs are playing), football (I guess I have to become a Bronocs fan...sigh), tennis (my staple, when I can watch it), and hockey (so exciting, the Red Wings won Lord Stanley's Cup by the way!). But I must admit that Sports Center is great...it allows you to catch up on all the sports and all the highlights so if you can't catch the game you know what went on. And Sports Center is on all the time. So I'm starting to like this new sports me, it's fun. But it did give my wife a shock, "You don't watch sports!" was her response.

So what other great sports are out there that I should look into?

Winds of Change! Winds of Change!

This is the mantra that drives my wife crazy. It stems from many movies, usually of a Japanese influence, that when the trees move and the wind blows it signals a change in direction or something major is going to happen. For example, the protagonist who thinks the battle over, winds of change happen, and something major occurs. So this is the winds of change for my blog. At first, I designed this blog for my class Faith through Film where I discussed film and people from the class could join in the conversation. That didn't go too well. Then I shifted to a type of theology focused blog. That really didn't go too well. All throughout it, I sprinkled posts on my thoughts of the day, my interests and just stuff I wanted to talk about. Examples would be the comics, media and how to do a power point right. (Oh, that powerpoint is still a hot topic of mine) So this got me thinking of just doing a personal blog. My daily thoughts and some other posts of life being intersected. One of the biggest things that got me thinking is how I can show that faith and life do intersect. So I hope you will enjoy this new change in direction for this blog...as it truly becomes "Meandering of a Lutheran". Winds of Change! Winds of Change!