I hate spam… not the canned and potted meat but the useless email. I’m trying a new spam filter to try and make my life that much easier. I love Spam… the canned and potted meat.
- Dude, I am so tired from camp! You would think that a week on houseboats would be relaxing and re-energizing, but dog-gon-it; I’m tired!
We had a great opportunity to speak to students but more than just speaking to them, we had the great privilege of listening to them talk. If you’ve ever worked youth/student ministry, you know the blank stare that comes with it. At times it feels like no one is listening and that your words and preparations aren’t getting through to anyone. But those that do student ministry do it for those few moments of response when someone lets you know what they really think, or what’s really going on inside their head and heart.
Anyhow, camp was good.
- Of note, I’ve been bragging about how many Facebook friends that I’ve made this week and I’ve gotta say, it’s pretty impressive. What’s the point of telling you this? No point, just bragging.
- A new class has started and this go around we are dealing with Systematic Theology. Yup, it’s a doozy. Among the first assignments for the class is to write out a theological autobiography. Talk about a story that most people haven’t written before let alone thought of! I can’t think of a reason to write on that topic unless it was for a class! Continue reading
Unless you work the camps! I’m on my way to Houseboat Camp Monday morning with eight students from our church in Fremont. This will be the second (and final) camp for me this summer.
I’ve really enjoyed the camp experience so far this year. It makes me think about all of the times that I went to camp when I was a kid. There are a handful of really good memories of friends, flirting with girls, learning new things about the world etc. mixed in with a handful of heartbreaks owed to camp loves gone wrong. When we’re young our lives revolve around family life; anything we do, learn or believe is closely tied to what our family knows, learns and believes.
For some of us, it’s at camp that we step out away from our families and we begin to explore ideas on our own. Sure our perception of new things will have a flavor of our parents and siblings influence over us but in the mind of a camper, they are on their own; an explorer or adventurer seeing the world for the first time. A solo hike could reveal a new species of flora or fauna. The slowly flowing and easily swimable section of a river is a wild rapid that stands between a wild horde and safety.
Camp is a place to let your mind roam and visit the outer limits of imagination because at camp we aren’t brought back to earth by “real life”. Continue reading
Wouldn’t you know that as soon as I get an actual URL I’d fall off the face of the internet.
Guess I’ll get back to posting in a week, I’m up for Houseboat Camp and that should be a blast.
See you all soon!
Out of many, one. It’s printed on our money and it holds meaning for a lot of people throughout history.
For our church, it’s part of the mission and a definite direction that we’re moving in. We are multi-lingual/cultural and we are expanding just how “multi” we are everyday.
We like that we are able to speak spiritually to different cultures but still operate as one Christian church. However, the ultimate goal of this church isn’t to have our worship separated by our inability to speak multiple languages fluently. One thing that we always have to be mindful of is the fact that we are all getting older and eventually we will have to pass the baton on to the next generation.
The question we constantly have to ask is, “What do we pass on”? Do we simply pass on the same template of side-by-side multicultural ministry that we are doing right now? Will that work in 5 years? 10 years? 30 years? Continue reading
Usually that’s said around Christmas.
In my house (or at least in my head) the most wonderful time of the year is right about now. There are two truly great things that took place on consecutive days. First, the Christian church celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. At our church in Fremont, we try to celebrate this with as many people as possible and so we hold an Easter Egg Hunt every year.
Yes I do realize that eggs have symbolic roots in “pagan” times. Yes 8,000 years ago people thought that eggs were a sign of fertility. No that bother me at all. In fact what bothers me is when people think they have an academic edge on everyone about what is spiritually acceptable and not. Man, all it takes is one kook to dig a little bit deeper and find that something was “pagan” and that should ruin everything.
Quick poll: Honestly who looks at eggs and thinks “pagan ritual”?!
I know that every time I look at my plate of eggs over medium that is what’s going through my mind! Anyhow the Saturday before Easter Sunday we celebrate the ancient paga… No, we celebrate with our non-Christian friends, family members and neighbors with a fun event. We gather a ton of plastic eggs, fill them with candy and hide them all over our front lawn so that kids can run around like crazy and put them in a basket. Some of the eggs have Christian messages on them but for the most part the Easter Egg hunt helps us to remind the neighborhood that we are a positive part of the community and we aren’t an exclusive group. Anyone can share in Christ with us.
This year we put out a lot of flyers and put up a new sign on the front of the church property and we got a big return. There were upwards of 80 hunters with a slew of parents, grandparents and other assorted relatives. That’s a really good turnout for our church. I’ve written before about how we are a small church and that we are growing in the right direction but when we have 170+ people coming to an event that we hold, well doggonit! That’s a good turn out for us!
That “good times feeling” went right into Sunday morning when we held our Easter Sunday services. Easter really is a special time of year for the Christian Church. If you don’t know what it’s all about, you can read up about it in the Gospel of Luke or John (Thats in the Bible… Second half). John Chapter 20 tells the story of what went down after Jesus died on the cross. To make a long story short, he came back to life and having defeated death became the ultimate sacrifice for us. We can receive his love and grace and spend an eternity with him in Heaven if we only accept it.
Easter is the day that we celebrate the ultimate sacrifice and the moment the Christian Church had its foundation completed. It’s on this that we are united even to this day.
Oh, and that other thing? Continue reading
For those of you that don’t know, I am an associate Pastor at a church in Fremont, CA. My title is Missional Pastor which means that I focus mainly on outreach, service and future ministries. Those aren’t my only jobs but that’s the general thrust of my ministry here in Fremont.
Somedays, doing this type of a ministry is really frustrating. Let’s be honest, we don’t see many returns in outreach and service aside from the knowledge that we are doing good things. So you really have to be focused on the service of people and trust that you’re making a difference. Continue reading
Here it is, the new URL. The intentional conversation now resides at www.theintentionalconversation.com. I’ll be updating here instead of at the old site ( http://nazareneblogs.org/robbie) so make sure to check in here. I’ll be working on the format and the look of this site so please hang in there with me while I try and figure all of this stuff out!
Talk to you all soon!
Twitter: @RobbieShreffler