Too Young to Say Good-bye

Last week you might remember, I had the privilege of officiating a funeral for Jack Anhalt. It was an amazing time, though much to early to say good-bye to this 53 year old father, husband and grandfather.

My friend Roger Fowble lost his brother this week to congestive heart failure...Robert was 33! The funeral was this morning and the rain seemed quite appropriate. Though the weather was dreary, Robert's life was not. And because of the joy and laughter with which he lived, there was much celebration at his funeral today.

Three things that were definitely present during the service and afterward were faith, hope, and love. Pastor Dave shared about Robert's faith. He spoke of heaven and how Robert was there now, urging us to realize that fantastic reality ourselves. The hope was expressed as several family members shared about how Robert was now with his mom...and that they, too, would join them someday. And lastly, the love was evident as each family member shared their memories of their giant of a brother. His heart was as big as his life and it affected everyone around him. It was too early to say good-bye, but at least he made the most of his 33 years here.

Quick Update

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the participation last night in our little church. It was great to share in the Scriptures, prayer, and communion together. And thanks Krista and Jessica for the great dinner!

Tonight we are seeing The Fellowship... in it's entirety. Please be on time. We are starting with or without you at 7:00 p.m.

Blessings

Kindred Spirits

Our family visited a new church on Sunday...a house church in the San Gabriel Valley. We had been meaning to join them for the past month and we finally made it. It was very refreshing to experience God's presence with a group of like-minded sojourners. So blessings to the church in Covina known as the Offramp.

Our evening included a common meal, silence, singing, lectio divina, and communion. Our kids melded with the others splendidly and we had a marvelous time. Thanks Jason, Mark, Debbie, Ann, Gary, Dan, Carrie, and the rest of you, for making us feel right at home in your community.

Rites of Passage

Throughout our lives there are certain things that mark a new beginning or era of our lives. I remember getting my drivers' license and car when I turned 16...going to college...getting married...having kids, etc. Some times of transition are easy while others are more difficult. This past Saturday, our daughter Natalie had a rite of passage of her own that we want to celebrate.

For the first four years of her life, Natalie has been addicted to pacifiers. She has had them...and I do mean them....almost non-stop for four years. On occassion we would lose all of them and that usually would signify the end of the world as we know it. The crying, stomping, throwing a fit hysteria that we have endured is enough to drive her parents (namely me) insane. But that all ended on Saturday.

You see we have been grooming Natalie to release her pacifiers (pacis, affectionally) when she turned four. We had this plan, instituted by cousin Karissa a couple of years ago, by which she would hand them out to characters at Disneyland. This required us to tell her stories about Karissa doing this, showing her the video, and prepping her for the past six months. We anticipated that this "transition" was going to be hell for mommy and daddy. Thankfully we were wrong.

Natalie gave up using her pacifiers last month...on her birthday and has yet to shed a tear about it. Consequently, our trip to the Magic Kingdom was uneventful in the tears category...but quite eventful in the life of our four year old. So with all the pride a parent can muster...I say, "Congratulations, Sweetheart! You are officially paci-less!" There was one small snag when we arrived a few minutes too late to Pooh Corner where the final three pacifiers would be retired, but a couple of smooth-talking parents and grandparents rectified the situation and all was well.

Yeah Team!

Teen Church Happening in Valencia

Tonight, Tuesday, we will celebrate our one-week anniversary of our first teen church. A charasmatic young man named Carlo is the inspiration behind this new endeavor. While only 13 years old, Carlo sees his future in church planting among his peers. His parents have blessed his vision and opened their home to him and his friends to meet on Tuesday nights. Roger, Cynthia and I are providing some oversight and leadership...and a meal to help them get off to a good start. Pray for Carlo and his friends, as we seek to establish authentic Christian community and multiply disciples among teenagers in Valencia.

check out the block for this new church: http://c4community.blogspot.com

LOTR-Week 3 Fulfilling Divine Purpose

Sorry it has been so long since we actually had this discussion. We will be brief here, especially since most in our community were actually present for the discussion. Our purpose that was found both in our LOTR clips and in the Scriptures was two-fold: recognize God's overarching plan for mankind ie you and me, second to find our particular part in the puzzle.

Our characters all had their unique contributions that were part of the one goal: to destroy the ring. In the same way, we are here to advance the Kingdom of God on earth...to promote his ways, his justice. Each of us has gifts and talents that we bring to the table that contribute toward his goal of bringing the kingdom. This is most evident in Paul's writing to the Corinthians, where he discusses the body. We are all different members with different functions, but the same body, the same purpose, the same calling. We must work together to bring the kingdom to our homes, neighborhoods, and communities.

For more on our discussion or other LOTR talk, simply respond with a question and I'll be happy to dialogue. In fact, this coming Thursday, our discussion will be Q & A on the spirituality of the Lord of the Rings. So bring your questions to the group and let's talk.

Frodo

On the Edge of Mortality

I just finished conducting a funeral for a man I didn't know. Fortunately, I did spend some time with the family and called a friend to find out all I could about this man. What I found was that he was an amazing servant. He was always fixing something or someone. At 53, this man was far too young to be entering into eternal life.

Between the service and the grave site prayer, I was talking to a friend who brought up a profound truth. He said, you know these are good for all of us. He went on to say that it makes us realize our own mortality and even gets us thinking about our funerals. What will people say when we die? Is anyone going to show up? Does anyone really care? Does my life matter? If I wasn't here would anyone notice?

In a way funerals inspire us or at least nudges us toward living in the way in which we want to be remembered. Too often I get caught up just trying to get my to-dos under control. That is when I actually write them out. But back to my point...am I living my life in the way that I make a difference in this world and in the manner I want others to remember me by. Because the day will come when you and I will both be pushing daisies.

I am happy to say we had a huge crowd. This man, Jack, was loved and his life affected many, many people. His life left a legacy that his three boys will try to emulate and remember forever. He was and is loved. He will be missed.

Good-bye, Jack.

LOTR (continues tonight)

To the Free People of Middle Earth,

We will continue our ongoing discussion of the themes of the Lord of the Rings and how they intersect with the Holy Scriptures. This evening our topic will be "fulfilling our divine purpose." We are showing cool scenes that deal with each of the characters unique contributions to the overall goal. So come on by...dinner's at 5:30 p.m.

Two Weddings and a Funeral

More than an allusion to a film from a few years, ago this has been much of my life's work for the last few days. Mimi and I have been earning a little side cash (which always comes in handy when your primary income is support-raised) by coordinating weddings (Mimi) and I run the sound board. It has really helped recently. We were able to do two weddings in December which helped with Christmas spending and now we are slated to do two in February. So we have been making plans, talking to the parties involved etc. I will, however, miss the second as I will be at Christian Associate's Leadership Summit in Lisbon at the end of February. No tears are necessary.

In addition to the weddings, I was contacted this week about doing a funeral. Though I never knew the man who died, (heart attack, age 51) I got to know him through his family over the past few days. Jack was a man who spent his life helping people with cars, computers, or personal problems. He was known as a real servant who cared more about others than himself. In our materialistic and self-absorbed world I am glad to meet (even posthumously) a man who swam against the tide. So if you think of it, pray for me tomorrow morning around 11 a.m. PST. Thanks!

Neighborhood Breakfast Club Plans are Underway

Yesterday morning (Sunday) a group of young people and a few of us who are older met to discuss plans for a new ministry. It is called The Breakfast Club. It will be a kids/early teen ministry on Sunday mornings that will include breakfast, fun, and some element of faith. It is designed to bring the church to the neighborhood kids...and perhaps be a bridge to their families as well. We have a fantastic team, led by 20 year-old Krista Dison. My primary responsibility is to make pancakes, which could be one of my best assetts. We are still waiting on confirmation about a location, but are looking to begin on January 30. So if you are inclined to pray, we'd appreciate your prayers in this matter.

Posting made easy

Hey, everyone out there in cyberville we wanted to let you know about a change to our blog settings. Many of you have made comments to me about how much of a hassle it is to post. Well, that has now changed. I went into the settings and made it available to anyone, whether you are a member of blogger or not. It was set up to the default before, which is members only. So I hope this gets you more involved in the discussions we are having online.

LOTR-Week 2 Spiritual Worlds

With a little rearranging of our schedule and a little better questions this week, our night was vastly improved over week one. Tonight we went straight into our discussion following dinner. This was especially important as just about everyone except us had major traffic issues. For those of you outside of socal, you need to understand that the rain and mud over the past couple of weeks has shut down many streets. So consequently, the open streets and freeways are overly crowded. So we got started a little late.

Our discussion tonight was interesting and lively...and it was aided by having three young ladies joining us. Ordinarily I like to be prepared for church before Thursday afternoon. For several reasons, including I changed what I had planned, this was not the case today/tonight. However, everything came together before the first people arrived:)

So here's the scoup on what went down at the Hudson pad this evening.

We started by talking about the reality of the spiritual world. We talked about how there are real things that exist outside the physical realm. To illustrate this we discussed the mind. No matter where you look, you won't find the mind. You can't disect it nor does it exist in space. Yet the mind is an excepted reality none-the-less.

In the same way there is a spiritual world that is outside of our physical world, and in fact interacts with the physical world at certain times and places. Most of us acknowledge that we have a spiritual dimension. We are not all cells and fluids. We have more to us than meets the eye. Tolkien was aware of this reality and incorporated it in the Lord of the Rings.

We watched the prologue which sets the stage for the movie. It gives the background of the forging of the rings of power and the battle for Middle Earth. We also showed the scene with Gandalf explaining the origen and power of the ring to Frodo and how he must leave the Shire and protect the ring. And finally we showed the great battle between Gandalf and Saruman. In addition to the clips, we looked at several passages in the Bible.

We spent quite bit of time looking at Isaiah 14 & Ezekiel 28 and discussing the demise of Lucifer. It is interesting to note that Lucifer was beautiful, wise and powerful. He had a privileged position and was blameless prior to his fall. But pride got the best of him and he sinned. God would hae no rivals...He has no equals.

Following Jesus requires more than simply acknowleding evil...we must resist it. 1 Peter 5 was our text to deal with this important truth. "God opposes the proud (as Lucifer found out), but gives grace to the humble." Later he describes how we are to resist the devil, take a stand against him. He is like a lion. prowling around for someone to devour. I love that language. It gives me chills.

One truth I hope everyone walked away with tonight is that we are in a spiritual battle. Whether we realize it or not, we are at war. Ephesians 6 tells about our battle and the armor we need to be succeful in it. Let's not fall victim to ignoring the realities of the spiritual world.

C.S. Lewis has a couple of great quotes I will close with.

"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, adn to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them."

"Now, if by "the Devil" you mean a power opposite to God and, like God, self-existentfrom all eternity, the answer is certainly No. There is no uncreated being except God. God has no opposite. No being could attain a "perfect badness" opposite to the perfect goodness of God; for when you have taken away every kind of good thing (intelligence, will, memory, energy, and existence itself) there would be non of him left."

*Both quotes are taken from the Preface to The Screwtape Letters.

Redefining Discipleship

It is curious to me how messed up our ideas of things can get. I'm sure the inadequacies of language are partly to blame. Most definitely our bad theologies can also be at fault. Take discipleship for instance. Just the mention of the word can either befuddle or shame any genuine follower of Jesus.

I have been reading Dallas Willard's book, "the Divine Conspiracy," and he has an interesting take on discipleship. To him, discipleship is simply living life and following Jesus. It is becoming his apprentice or student. It isn't something that should be all that mysterious or difficult to grasp. It is much more natural of a way to look at it...and probably more true to the original situation.

To Jesus, discipleship has as much to do with our careers, family life, conversations with our neighbors, the way we celebrate holidays, and the rest of our lives as it does with prayer and worship. Jesus gave us instruction on how to live life in the real world. He was concerned with anger, lust, making oaths, prayer, and the poor. Jesus intersected all of life with the spiritual and the spiritual with all of life.

To many of us practictioners of faith, discipleship is a complicated religious education that primarily involves filling our minds with important religious information. This information is supposed to bring about transformation (life change), but often times only brings about guilt about what we aren't doing...i.e. reading, praying, talking to people about Jesus. Jesus' approach was more of doing life in the manner of the Kingdom of God...or the way of Jesus. It is emulating the way he lived in our environment. It is treating people with the respect, honor and love that he did. It is dealing with people in honesty, integrity and purity. These are the ways of the Kingdom. This is the way of discipleship. When signing people up for his discipleship class, Jesus simply says, "Follow me."

A Welcome Change in the Weather...

This morning we awoke to the first sunshine we've seen in some time. It feels a little bit like we've been in cave for several weeks and just now we've found a way out. So it's time to stop the whining and complaining about the rain. The sun has returned and we can go about our merry way again.

While I was enjoying the sunshine, my reading for today included Luke 11:34-36. It was a bit convicting for me. Jesus says, "Your eye is a lamp for your body. A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul. but an evil eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness. Make sure that the light you think you have is not really darkness. If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight is shining on you."

I don't know about you but I want to be radiant, not a flicker, or glimmer of light...but a floodlight! It's easy to be aware of other peoples' lack of light...but how often is my light dimmed by the cares of the world, my own desires, or even the weather? Something to ponder...

Donning the Green Apron?

About 10 months ago my friend Jeff Noe predicted that I would one day soon be wearing a green apron, ala working at Starbucks. Well, the process is now underway for me to join the coolest coffee company in the country. I still have another interview ahead of me and if I don't botch it, I should start work later this month. So if you are in the SCV and are looking for some good coffee and great service, look me up. I'll let you know which store I'll be working at when I know.

No Need for Dog Dish

No Need for Dog Dish
Originally uploaded by Frodo242.

Samson chooses freshly fallen & puddled rain, even though his dish is full. We currently have about an inch of rain on our back patio with much more on the way.

Samson: Strolling in the Rain

Samson: Strolling in the Rain
Originally uploaded by Frodo242.

To give you an idea of what we're experiencing I am posting these two photos of Samsom our lab. He is the only one "brave" enought to go outside right now.

Stir Crazy in SoCal

For those of you outside of Southern California you may think I am only whining and complaining about something you experience all the time. And you're right. But one of the reasons I choose to live in Southern California is the weather. When the rest of the country is cold, wet, and miserable, we tend to have beautiful weather. I am quite accustomed to wearing shorts and tees all year-round. This has all changed in the 2 weeks following Christmas. It has rained almost non-stop and the while the sound of rain is always fun and somewhat a novelty for us, I'm ready for it to be over. My kids are stir crazy. Mimi and I are stir crazy. We just want to get out and enjoy ourselves. Well, if nothing else we are able to empathize a little more with others of you out there.

Any reports of animals congregating in pairs in SoCal?

LOTR-Week 1

Tonight we met for dinner, prayer, and discussion around the theme of humanity based on the Lord of the Rings and Scripture. The purpose of our blog tonight is to continue our discussion virtually. We didn't quite have enough time to get through everything we intended to...so what's new? I will try to summarize what we discussed tonight and to fill in some of the gaps of what we missed out on. Whether you were here or not or have seen the films or not, you are welcome to join the discussion. Your input is appreciated. So let the comments begin!

Scene 24 Gandalf & Elrond Discussing men
Gandalf sees mankind as who Middle Earth must put their hope in.
Elrond saw the strength of men fail with Isildur when he had the chance to destroy the ring.
He sees the free peoples of middle earth as divided and leaderless, not unlike Jesus' assessment in Matthew 9. He sees the people as distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.
Gandalf speaks of what might be...there is one who could unite them.
Elrond speaks of what has been.

It is an interesting dialogue. I am reminded of Paul and Barnabas' differing views on the usefullness of John Mark. Paul had seen and experienced John Mark's failure. Barnabas had also seen it, but chose to give him another chance. Barnabas was able to look past what was, to what could be.

Another example from Scripture that fits in this arena has to do with Jesus entrusting his Church to a bunch of knuckleheads. The original 12 were not the great heroes of the faith. They were fishermen, tax collectors, a zealot, and other regular guys. This is remarkable and reminds me that it is only because of Christ in me that I can do anything. It's that John 15, vine and the branches thing. Jesus says "apart from me you can do nothing." Pauls words to the Philippian church here may be helpful. "You can do all things through Christ who gives you strength." It's God in us and through us that does good.

Jesus implies levels of goodness in Luke 6:33. "And if you do good only to those who do good to you, is that so wonderful? Even sinners do that much!" If I get this right, sinners have a certain level/amount of goodness. Those who are righteous/followers of Jesus have another level of goodness. And of course God and Jesus would be on yet an entirely different level from any of us. This of course must be put in balance with Luke 18, where Jesus asks why he is called good. He says only God is good. And that is true in the ultimate sense. But there is goodness in us according to this other passage.

Scene 43 Boromir approaches Frodo to "borrow" the ring and alleviate Frodo's suffering
"I know what you would suggest and it would seem like wisdom, but for the warning in my heart."
We are all spiritual beings and Frodo here seems to indicate that his knowledge was one of a spiritual nature...or at least good intuition. How is that any different? When we are led by the Spirit of God we have a sense that is beyond explanation or intuition. We have the mind of Christ. Too often I am guilty of not responding to the warnings in my heart...either for good or for ill.

Scene 44 Boromir's honor restored
Boromir is an entirely different man in this scene. He has fought bravely to protect the hobbits. He is felled in battle. He humbly confesses his failure to Aragorn and asks for forgiveness. Aragorn not only forgives him, but blesses him and allows him to die with dignity and honor. He promises to protect the people of Gondor and the great city. Boromir pledges his allegiance to Aragorn and calls him friend, captain, and king. This scene is a beautiful picture of Christ interceding on our behalf. Aragorn could have condemned Boromir for trying to take the ring from Frodo, but instead he blesses him for his bravery and resolve. In the same way, though we deserve God's wrath, we receive restoration when we confess our failure and commit ourselves to following Christ our King.

These three scenes and the scriptures we looked at gave us a taste at what it means to be part of the human race and how God views us. We certainly didn't exhaust the subject, but we are off to a good start. Speak freely and add your 2 cents to the conversation.

The Lord of the Rings Starts Tonight!

Tonight our community is beginning a series looking at major themes in the Lord of the Rings and how they relate to the Bible. We start with dinner at 5:30 PM, sing, pray, and have discussion with clips. If this sounds interesting to you tonight or any Thursday in the next coming months, stop on by. We meet at our house. Email me for directions if you don't know where we live.

Peace,

Bob (Frodo)

Brant & Bob hard at work, yeah right?

DSCF0025_6
Originally uploaded by Frodo242.

We worked for two days solid to build this behemoth of a play set. We really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, which is probably the only reason we tried in the first place:) All that said, the kids have a great play set that should last until they are grandparents!

Church Planting & Building a Play Set

For Christmas my wife and I had a great idea: "let's build the kids a swing set and fort." The excitement was building when our neighbors decided they too would build their kids a play set. So we were off to spend dozens of hours online and visiting hardware stores, pricing kits and lumber. We were extremely discouraged that our dreams and visions were way out of our price range. When we were just about to either give up or fork out a bunch of cash we didn't have God stepped in, through our neighbors, and we found the perfect one at 75% off! Step two was hiding it from the kids for three weeks before Christmas. My buddy Rob hid the slide in his storage facility and I threw a couple of tarps over the extremely large boxes in our garage. Fortunately, Natalie (4) and Becca (2) are clueless when it comes to things like large boxes in the garage. They never even thought anything when Daddy sanded and stained the wood for 2 days. It wasn't until we started building it 3 days before Christmas that Natalie began to suspect something was up.

It took the better part of two days to complete the project. My father-in-law, my friend Brant and I tackled the project with vigor and enthusiasm, but with less than satisfactory plans. We had to start over after putting up the first two walls because the plans failed to mention which way the posts were to be placed. We had left over lumber because the plans failed to mention the proper spacing for the floors and walls. And we had lots of left over parts, which is always scary when the safety of your family is at stake. None-the-less, we completed the project 2 days before Christmas. The kids love it and it is build rock solid. The only problem is: we are having the biggest rain storm to hit California in decades, so they haven't had much opportunity to play.

How does this relate to church planting? Well my plans for what are and what will be are mostly faulty. We often envision things turning out much different than we actually experience. Take our Christmas party/gathering for instance. We had invited lots of friends and neighbors, and for a change they all said they would be there. We were so excited! But as it turned out, most everyone was detained for various reasons and purposes out of our control. Isn't that always the way it is? But God...isn't that a great phrase? But God had other plans for us.

We took the party on the road to bless a family who desperately needed some holiday cheer! God blessed us through the encounter and we are praying that more and better blessings are coming soon. We started out a bit frutstrated at "having to start over, after building two walls," but in the end the results were better than we could have "planned" on our own.

Now we are just praying for some better "weather" so that we can play as God intends for us to play!