Tomorrow at 2:30am (yes you read that correctly), I head to Monterrey, Mexico with a team from Riv. We will be working with Back2Back Ministries, an awesome organization we have been developing a relationship with the past few years.
Please pray for the following:
Our group’s unity and teamwork.
The orphans we will be meeting / hanging with.
Health and safety for our team as we travel and work.
That our hearts would be broadened to have a worldwide vision for Jesus.
Gospel opportunities.
I will try my best to blog / post pictures from Monterrey, but I am not sure how much internet access I will have. I won’t be Twittering much because my wireless charges will kill me.
However, Back2Back will be posting photos two or three times throughout the week. Please enter the Photo Code # _14907___ into the “View Trip Album” box at the bottom left of their webpage (www.back2backministries.org).
On Facebook yesterday, someone asked what podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. It wasn’t until then that I realized that my Link Love area was terribly outdated because I only update my podcasts in iTunes. So, I figured I’d post a list of my favs here in the order they appear in iTunes.
Francis Chan - Wicked smart pastor from California who teaches with a brutal honesty and a big smile. Infectious to watch and challenging to listen to.
Coverville - If you know me, you know I love cover tunes. Nuff said.
The Gospel Coalition - I love this sentence from their “Who Are We” page: “We want to be robustly biblical, richly theological, constantly elevating what God himself in his own Word makes central.” Yeah buddy.
In Our Time - This is a BBC broadcast on the history of ideas. Good stuff to chew on.
Mark Driscoll - Pastor from Seattle who people tend to love or hate. I love his faithfulness to the Word and his keen eye on culture.
Mashup Town - If there’s one thing I love more than cover tunes, it’s mashups.
Erwin McManus - Very artsy pastor from California. I love how he is such a great story teller.
Radioclash - Another mashup podcast, this one focusing on long 1 or 2 hour shows instead of single songs.
Rocketboom - Eclectic news and special interest stories presented in a very unique fashion.
Ted - Fascinating interviews on all kinds of different topics.
So, what am I missing? Who / what should I be listening to that I am not?
This morning, I was reading today’s Bible passage at Text.RivChurch.com and one verse really jumped out at me:
Ephesians 5:10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.
It was the first two words that really struck me: “carefully determine.” I tend to be a person who makes quick, snap decisions. I live that way, I lead that way, it’s how I’m wired. The best thing for Riv is that we have other leaders who are better at “carefully determining” and they keep me from taking the church off a cliff.
But they don’t live my Christian life–that is between me and God.
And so it is my responsibility to “carefully determine what pleases the Lord.” To me, that is a reminder that I need to take time on a regular basis to stop, slow down, and reflect on my life and ministry. One of my friends takes an hour a day, a day each quarter, and a week each year to do this sort of thing. I remember hearing him talk about this and wanting to do the same, but not wanting to slow down at the same time. Reminds me of the flesh v. spirit battle Steve talked about this weekend.
In light of last weekend’s teaching on work, I thought this was an interesting article
Michael Van Gorkom was laid off by Yahoo in late April. He didn’t panic. He didn’t rush off to a therapist. Instead, the 33-year-old Santa Monica resident discovered that being jobless “kind of settled nicely.”
Week one: “I thought, ‘OK . . . I need to send out resumes, send some e-mails, need to do networking.”
Week two: “A little less.”
Every week since: “I’m going to go to the beach and enjoy some margaritas.”
What most people would call unemployment, Van Gorkom embraced as “funemployment.”
It’s been a few weeks since I have heaped praise on a Riv team member, so I thought I’d do so again today.
This week’s victim is Shelley Hrapkiewicz. Go ahead…try to pronounce her last name. Want some help? “Rap-KEV-Ech” Try saying that ten times fast. Or even worse, try spelling it one time slowly. I’m just delighted there is someone at Riv with a harder to work with last name than me!
Shelley has other redeeming qualities besides her last name. Namely, that she is our Operations Genius around these parts. She is an accountant by trade and that’s what we initially hired her to do. To our benefit, she quickly outgrew that position and she now helps keep all of Riv’s expanding Operations aimed in the right direction. Here are some interesting facts about Shelley:
She once had to fight to keep from giggling while telling our staff we were cutting the budget.
Her idea of leisure reading is the “2009 Clergy Tax and Compensation Guide”
If you want candy, just wander into her office sometime.
Kids wander into her office all the time.
She is really really really into good food. Did I mention “really?”
She makes me cowboy coffee.
She once turned a two-page food policy document into a better 3 two-sentence food policy document.
She is always down for a good practical joke, usually done from a human-resources angle.
One of my favorite things to do as a pastor is to connect with other people doing ministry around the world. The next week for me is going to be a lot of fun, because I’m going to get to hang with people from two groups we are stoked to be affiliated with:
GCM is an organization that trains, employs and serves missionaries around the world. Riv’s entire campus team is on staff with GCM. Today I am in Indianapolis at the GCM board meeting. Please be praying today as we review GCM’s last six months of work and plan for the future. Also, please pray for me as I lead our partnership committee which connects with other churches, networks, and movements.
Acts 29 is a church planting organization that hopes to plant 1000 churches in the next 10 years. Next week, Grace and I will be in Vail, Colorado with a couple hundred Acts 29 pastors and their wives. Please pray as we connect, relax, pray and play with these guys. The main goal of this time is to network, chill, and get a little R&R. I’m super excited about this since I have rarely been to this part of the world and I love getting time alone with my wife.
Hi, I'm Noel and I'm a recovering
hypocrite. I spend the majority of my time pastoring and teaching at
Riverview, surfing the internet on my iPhone,
being obsessed with Jack
Bauer, and hanging out with my smoking hot wife and four wildly talented
children. I plan on spending the rest of my life figuring out how to vicariously
plant hundreds of churches without ever leaving my church.
Oh, and even though I work for Riverview, everything here is my personal
opinion and nothing more.
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