Human Nature

achaan-wanOver the last two weeks, I have spent meaningful time with six different pastors who live 12 time zones away from me.  Each is uniquely gifted, varied in experience and have completely different assignments.  In the course of that time, I’ve seen and heard some things, learned some things, observed some things.  Here’s a sampling:

  • Each pastor has his own unique model or approach for ministry.
  • Each is convinced his ministry model is the right one, at least for him.
  • Each has questions or concerns, if not open criticism, about other models of ministry practiced by others.
  • Nearly every one of them has been hurt pretty deeply by people in Church World.

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From Robes to Rags

by Andy Wood on April 9, 2009

in Five LV Laws, Principle of Eternity

ragsRag.  Now there’s an every-day word.

Unsophisticated, earthy, almost guttural – rags are blue-collar, made-for-dirt, hidden-from-company kind of stuff.

We all have them, but some people go to considerable lengths to deny it.

“It’s not a wash rag, dear.  It’s a wash cloth.”

“Oh.  Yew not from around heah, are ya’?”

That t-shirt or those shorts you’re wearing?  Rags in the making.

I grew up with wash rags, shop rags, shoeshine rags, snot rags (my dad’s term), and dust rags.  “Dust cloths” were the property of Yankees and people from other parts of town. [click to continue…]

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(A Turning Point Story)

Glavine

Glavine

It was something out of a Looney Toons episode.  The kind of thing you’ve heard about happening, never assumed would happen to you.

It happened to me.

I had gone away on a far journey and entrusted all my worldly goods to my wife and three kids, telling them we’d settle accounts when I got home.

Well, not exactly.

September 13, 2001 – Do the calendar math.  It was a surreal and vulnerable time. I was actually out of town on a consulting trip, when I got a call fairly early in the morning.  My twin daughters were calling, breathless with excitement.  Somebody had gotten the bright idea to leave a cardboard box in front of our house with two kittens inside.

“Daddy, can we keep ‘em, pleeze?  We’ll take care of them, and feed them, and clean up after them.  We promise.”

I wanted to kill them. [click to continue…]

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billboard.jpgHave you ever wished God would just make it easy?  That He would fly over your house in a blimp, or sky-write His will so that it was plain and obvious?  Have you ever envied the angel-set – those seemingly lucky (ahem – “blessed”) souls who had Michael or Gabriel drop by for tea and prophecy? 

A few years ago somebody in Jacksonville (I think) started a nationwide conversation with a series of billboard messages supposedly from God.  I’m sure you’ve seen some of them. (Example: “Which part of  ‘Thou Shalt Not’ do you not understand?” -God).  They were clever, sometimes convicting, sometimes sarcastic and funny.  But in case you were wondering, it really wasn’t God Himself who designed the ad campaign.

What if God really did rent a billboard?  Would it be easier, simpler, clearer to hear His voice?  I doubt it.

[click to continue…]

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Because He is Risen

by Andy Wood on March 19, 2008

in Five LV Laws, Principle of Eternity

He puts smiles on the faces of little boys.
He sprinkles sweetness on little girls.
He gives dignity to solemn vows, and sacredness to relationships.
He brings purpose and satisfaction to the striving and seeking of your life.
And it is this life of Jesus that brings healing and peace into the broken life.
I live – I live – because He is risen.

Those words, from a musical titled “Living Witnesses,” profoundly impacted my life more than 30 years ago. So much so that we had them printed on the cover of our wedding brochure in 1983. And on this week in which all over the world we pay attention to the fact that Jesus lives, I find myself thinking of them again. Read them again, slowly. Deeply.

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Road Rage – The Next Generation

by Andy Wood on November 28, 2007

in Gamblers

Antique CarOn November 25, 1907, the Mobile Press Register printed the following report:

“Yesterday afternoon about 2 o’clock Jim Wilson , chauffeur for Mr. Louis Forcheimer , while driving the automobile of Mr. Forcheimer to the garage on St. Joseph street, passed the Bienville Hotel corner at a rate of speed which (he) himself said was not over ten miles an hour, when the speed limit is eight. He narrowly escaped running over a little son of Mr. George Hervey , who was crossing the street. … The complaint was made to Steward Jack Dair , who located (the driver), and Wilson was placed on the docket to answer the charge of furious driving.”

How’s that for road rage? Needless to say, we’ve changed the rules. It makes me wonder what “furious driving” will look like a hundred years from now:

• “Driver arrested for flying too low. Insists it was his clone.”

• “Wilson cited for hovering in a school zone.”

• “Forcheimer and Hervey purchase Bienville Hotel; Wilson appointed to oversee new helo-auto docking stations.”

• “Chauffer crashes car when Great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of George Hervey sends a holographic image into St. Joseph street. ‘Revenge at Last!,’ exclaims little Georgie.”

Regardless of how technology changes, human nature will still be, well, naturally human.

There will always be somebody testing the limits.

There will always be somebody moving at a different pace (either faster or slower) than you.

There will always be somebody putting themselves in danger without realizing it.

There will always be somebody who will want to cite you, charge you, humiliate you, or lock you up whenever you do something “furious.”

There will always be somebody to announce your issues to the world – if not the press, somebody in your network.

There will always be somebody saying, “It’s not my fault.”

And a hundred years (or days, or hours) later, there will be somebody – like me – who thinks the whole thing is really funny.

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