Seeing New Light

Our youth group went door to door last night praying for people in the affected area of town, and they received a warm welcome while ministering there. Sometimes, the most meaningful thing you can do for someone is praying for them. We (I will tag along with the youth group tonight) will be serving meals to workers at “the tent” tonight-an actual tent and meeting place by the Alco building and the old Dairy Queen. This should be another rewarding experience. Yet, rest is right around the corner.

This weekend our mayor has called off all work in the tornado zone so that everyone can rest and go to church on Sunday. I know that everyone needs rest right now. In fact, I’ll be away from the computer this weekend, so I’ll upate everyone again on Monday. Pray that our worship services in town will be immensely powerful on Sunday.

Also, please pray for the Ellis family. Lynn died of a heart attack yesterday, and they are practically next door neighbors. This was a huge blow to the community during an already disturbing week.

Our church hosted a NOVA trained crisis intervention team from the BGCT last night. They will continue providing small group intervention today at FBC for individuals or small groups. We had a wonderful turnout, and we shared about the past, the present, and the future of Tulia. Although it will take months for us to return to a normalcy, we have a real sense that the tornado crisis will actually strengthen the vigor and vitality of the community. Pat George, our mayor, did a wonderful job as well yesterday evening getting us up to speed on the recovery efforts. I still can’t believe how quickly the BGCT and other local churches have responded to us. A pastor mostly hears how everything is going wrong or needs to be fixed in either his church or denomination. This has shown me all the things that are going right. By far, the right things are outweighing the wrong.

Tonight, we will just be ”getting back to normal” at church. I like the option of having a normal Wednesday routine today: visits, church supper, prayer meeting, Bible study, choir practice, etc. Although, I haven’t had much time to work on tonight’s Bible study, I know it will be a rewarding time for us.

Pray that the community will continue to rally.

I just have a few moments to update everyone for today. The cleanup effort is moving along wonderfully. Things look a lot better than they did yesterday. The community is really showing its true colors-working and serving together. New power poles have gone up along airport road, too. So, the prospect of electricity being restored up there is very close. I’ve been working mostly with Texas Baptist Men. By the way, if your community ever needs help, call them. This is one of the best organized assistance groups I’ve ever seen (Oh, and they need to be called Texas Baptist Men AND WOMEN. Just thought i’d throw that in). We worked hard with tree removal and things today. I’ll try to get some pictures tomorrow. I did catch the tornado on my cell phone camera, but it really doesn’t do it (or them–maybe two tornadoes) justice. BGCT is also providing counselors for tomorrow and Wednesday. A few of our folks lost everything, so please pray for them as we respond accordingly…makes me feel bad for complaining about a water leak at the parsonage. Also, many kudos to our association, Charles Davenport (our former pastor who has helped me A LOT), and our our church which has stepped up to be the church.

Good tornado/community coverage: The Plainview Herald carried great coverage of the tornado in their paper today. I forget their web address, but I think that it is myplainview.com. If not, google “Plainview Herald”, and you’ll get there…lots of pictures, too, to show you the damage.

Also: video of the tornado is on youtube.com. In the search bar, type in Tulia Tornado. Click on the video from kamrman-the storm chaser from kamr-tv in Amarillo. The video begins is looking to the west down 6th street as the tornado touched down on Hwy. 87 at about Broadway street. The debris in the air began just at touchdown. The wall cloud & funnel had just come over our house about 30 seconds before the debris. A few seconds before that was dead calm and about golfball/tennis ball hail size hail falling, then a huge blast of wind. This was not the tornado, but I learned that it was probably what’s called inflow–the air being sucked up into the tornado for fuel. I’d say it was about 70-80 mph. Some people’s cars died because the air was sucked out of the engines! That’s why they say you can’t outrun a tornado in a car. The pressure dropped quickly, too. The tornado quickly ran up 87 and into the NW side. You’ll get your bearings from the water tower.

Hey everyone,

We’re ok this morning. I watched the tornado from our neighbor’s house hit the NW part of town last night. Things are pretty bad up there, and many members have been significantly impacted. Fortunately, I’ve gotten word from the PD that everyone has been accounted for and there have been no significant injuries or loss of life at this time. The church building is fine, too. The tornado passed about five blocks north of the churches. Please pray for us today. I’ll post when I know more, but bear with us–lots of work to be done.

Since I was a youngster, I’ve been fascinated with how things work, but not to the point of tearing a tape player apart, or anything. In other words, I’ve been fascinated with how things work from more of a spiritual standpoint than from a mechanical standpoint. Case in point: each time one of my cousins (who is an engineer) and I get together, we usually end up in a great ethics conversation. He discusses ethics of bioscience from a mechanical mindset and I from a theological mindset—makes for great family discussions!

Anyway, I’ve been processing the tragedy at VT and continuing to gage the thoughts of our friends, family, and church family. So far, it’s been fascinating to note how things work. For instance, last night the topic for prayer meeting was: “Jesus is Lord: The Kingdom of God.” We talked about free will and the presence of God’s kingdom in both the now and the not yet. By the way–kudos to our congregation last night for a GREAT discussion. Also, I flipped open my Sunday School lesson guide and found the title of this week’s lesson as “Reaching Out to Everyone.” Last Sunday’s sermon was about finding encouragement in the messiness of life. Bear in mind, these topics were issued/chosen months ago in our church planning. I’m thankful that God helps us to ask, seek, and find in times of crisis.

Also…please check out Dr. James Denison’s website, Godissues.org. He has some wonderfully insightful perspectives on the week’s events.

My prayers go out to the folks impacted by the shooting at Virginia Tech. What is it about April and horrible massacres (Columbine, OKC Bombing, Waco/Branch Dividian fire)? What a horrible event. Every once in a while, we have these events which begs an answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good (or other wise innocent) people?” Of course, it’s easy to come up with one or two sentence answers. Yet, I think that an answer lies in the fact that God’s kingdom lies in the now and in the not yet. In other words, in Jesus, we see the in-breaking of God’s kingdom and new covenant. Yet, we still live in a time in which evil exists. In theological terms, this kind of answer is wrapped up in a kind of study termed theodicy. I studied theodicy in a Christian philosophy course at Logdon. Basically, the answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen…” is answered in many different ways by many different people.  While sin drives the bad in the world, a merciful God is accessible and ready to love all people unconditionally. Churches must encapsulate and show this kind of love in a world full of questions, even when we don’t have all the answers. At FBC Tulia, we’ll talk about this answer a bit more at Wednesday night prayer meeting.

On a lighter note, we had a good weekend at FBC. I performed two weddings in living rooms this weekend–quite a new experience for me, but these were significantly meaningul occassions. The church is also actively ramping up our kitchen renovations. We had a great Sunday, too–full of encourament and good fellowship. I think everyone was glad to see the sunlight!

Another book recommendation: try out Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. This is a tremendous read, and makes you see some new light about grace.

Have a few moments to update this week…Hope everyone is doing well. After a couple of tornado scares, it’s back to winter. I forgot about living with the weather in the crazy panhandle! The prediciton is between 1 and 5 inches of snow by Easter morning. It’s always an adventure-but a fun one, nonetheless.

I got an opportunity to write an article which was published in the Baptist Standard this week concerning ministers, members, and money. Here’s the long link.

http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=45 

If it doesn’t work just go to baptiststandard.com, and look in the “Right or Wrong?” section. Dr. Tillman, at Logsdon, gave me much to think about in edits. It was good to talk to him again, even in cyberspace.

The Easter sermon is about Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Lord (John 20). I was hoping to go to Best Buy in Amarillo and get a digital audio recorder to post sermons online beginning with the Easter service. We had a funeral today, though, and with the cold weather–we decided to sit by the fire today and not do too much else. In the near future, we’ll be updating the church website frequently, as well. So, hopefully within the next couple of weeks, we’ll be heading towards the online sermons. I’ll also be trying to update the blog a bit more frequently. It’s a good way to keep up with everyone far away in the nether-regions.

Other news…not much else happening. I’m feeling better after the whatever virus hit a few weeks ago. Went to El Paso recently and I’m hoping to get a mission trip together this summer. There is A LOT of work to be done there.

Oftentimes, I get asked about books I’m reading. Here’s the list for now.

Courageous Leadership – Bill Hybels (lent to me by our youth minister; he has good book recommendations)

Beyond Foundationalism – by the late, great Stan Grenz: a thick, theological read-but worthwhile, especially if you’re interested in where the church has been with fundamentalism and where we may be headed in postmodernity

Solution-Focused Pastoral Counseling – by Charles Allen Kollar: solutions is a good word for church vocabulary

God’s Politics – by Jim Wallace: one to make us think about 2000, 2004, and 2008 (which has already started in 2007!). I’m finding that Wallace especially resonates with people in my generation.

Oh, and I posted a link to the right to Shannon’s myspace. I’m not much into myspace, so this is primarily her thing. Check it out.