I know it’s been a few days. Took the weekend off from running and basketball to rest. We did walk 5 or 6 miles at the NC Zoo so that was a good workout. Friday night, me and a 200 hundred of my closest NC East friends attending the Bobcats-Heat game in Charlotte. It was a close game and we got to shoot on the court afterwards. There was a game of knockout, but I missed, ok I airballed, my only 3 point attempt. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Saturday afternoon, I ran sound and video for a wedding. Sunday morning services were great and we watched Rob Bell’s Everything is Spiritual video at Supernova Bible study. During our leadership team meeting, I got a call from Karen. She told me that the twins had both asked Jesus into their hearts! They were talking about Easter and what it meant, and she shared her story of asking Jesus into her heart. The girls both said they wanted to do it and they did not want to wait until daddy got home! It’s pretty cool. I know they don’t understand it all(hey, does anyone), but they understand what they understand. Heading to Chapel Hill for my Tar Heel conversion tonight to watch the championship game. Trying to find U2 tickets right this second. Busy day. Lots to do. Thanks for your prayers and I’ve got to run 5 miles sometime!
What’s your workout music?
Most of you know I just started training for a half marathon in June. You can view my progress above under “The Race”. Here’s what playing on my ipod for today’s run. I know I need to update some of my Tunes so help me out. What are you listening to when you exercise?
1. Thunderstruck-AC/DC
2. Sabotage-Beastie Boys
3. Gonna Fly Now-The Rocky theme
4. Born in the USA, The Rising, Working on a Dream-Bruce
5. God of this City-Chris Tomlin
6. Life in Technicolor-Coldplay
7. A little less conversation-Elvis
8. Happy Day-Fee
9. Into the Mystic-the Once soundtrack
10. Crazy-Gnarls Barkley
11. Your Name High-Hillsong
12. Hold My Hand, Go and Tell Him-Hootie live in Charleston
13. Jump Around-House of Pain
14. Beautiful Girl-INXS
15. I won’t Back Down, I’ve Been Everywhere-Johnny Cash
16. Jenny was a Friend of Mine, All these things I’ve done, Human-The Killers
17. All I can do is write about it-Lynyrd Skynyrd
18. Don’t Wait for Daylight, More Time, Haley-NeedtoBreathe
19. It’s the End of the World as We know it-REM
20. Just Me-Sevenglory
21. Great DJ-The Ting Tings
22. Beautiful Day, Where the Streets have no name, Stay-U2
Twitter Etiquette
Well, after a few months of prodding and even a few posts about not wanting to do it I opened my Twitter account on Saturday. Here are a few things I’ve noticed so far.
1. Comments on my Facebook status have tripled since linking it to my Twitter.
2. Twitter is a lot like blogging in the sense that many people start but far fewer keep it going.
3. I think I’m already getting twitter spam in the form of followers who are selling something.
4. Is it impolite to not follow someone that follows you?
5. Already had one do over where I forgot stuff went to my Facebook page, but it did stir up some conversation on my wall.
6. There are several people people following me who are in ministry whom I don’t know. I do know that many of these people are involved in movements of God around the globe and that is one very exciting thing about Twitter.
7. One of my personal heroes is following me. I think he’s trying to weed out fakes and stalkers. I hope I’m neither.
8. It only took me two days to turn off the phone updates with only 1 or 2 exceptions. I had intentionally turned them on for almost all of the 2 dozen people I was following, but that was waaayyy too much.
9. I think the @ is trying to take over the world and I think @l gore is behind it. I’m trying to figure out if it means people are quoting someone else’s twitter or just referring to them. I think it clutters it up and makes my head hurt. Hopefully, my twitter feed(on the right over there) doesn’t appear cluttered. If it does you can @clutter @heathmullikin.
10. Just as crazy Myspace names are driving me off of it(oh yeah, I will be shutting my account down this week after copying and pasting all my old blogs) Twitter also gives the freedom to let people give themself an unrecognizable name. Many people use their nickname which is okay and one clever fellow even uses his name spelled sdrawkcab. As for me, I have enough identity issues as it is.
Birthdays, Fridays, Sickdays
Well, Monday and Tuesday I walked/ran around 3 miles. Then Wednesday came, and I quickly discovered that it will have to be my rest day as it is the busiest day of the week for me. Yesterday was Karen’s birthday and after taking the girls to school I returned home and immediately…fell asleep. I don’t know what happened. I woke up around 11 and we went and got her some running gear for her ipod, and saw the new movie, “Duplicity”, last night. Hopefully, it was a good bday for her as I presented her with a signed, notarized contract saying that I will train for and participate in a half marathon on June 6. So, due to me not feeling well, a busy day, plus rain I did not train yesterday. Then I woke up today looking forward to a free day with the kids who are out of school. Same thing as yesterday. Woke up, fixed breakfast, fell on the couch and slept until 11. My head is about to explode and I don’t know if I took drowsy medicine by mistake, my body did not like running/walking, or if I really have a bug. Needless to say, I will walk this afternoon because I fear if I don’t that I will never get over the hump. Had a major breakthrough in some prayer things the other day. I had been praying specifically for a vision and God just layed it out there that some things I was working on and planning were going in the right direction for the vision He has for us. It was a cool moment that came at an unexpected time. Here are a few links for your enjoyment/betterment.
1. This firefox add-on will help you stay off time killing sites during work.
2. I won’t be trying this sermon illustration any time soon.
3. Baseball stat guru and Red Sox consultant has figured out how to tell when a college basketball game is really over.
4. I found some info on blocking all the headlines on the new facebook layout. When I get it working, I will share it with you.
5. Two prayer requests: Karen has 3 business opportunities right now. Pray that she is able to get them all up and running soon! Pray for my health and training for the race in June. Pray that God continues to give me vision and the path to fulfill it.
Putting the Wesley back in Wesleyan
First off, I ran a mile and walked about a mile and a half yesterday. I must’ve streched and iced my shins properly because I woke up with minimal soreness this morning. Either that, or I wasn’t trying hard enough yesterday. I feel very invigorated this morning and can’t wait for the is afternoon’s trek. Now, onto the topic….
This will probably be an ongoing thought series, but what would Wesley say about our denomination and churches today? Wesley called his ministers to preaching for conversions, discipleship/accountability, and personal holiness. I do think our Spiritual Formation department has it right with the heart, head, hands, habits mantra. I think Wesley would wonder why it costs so much for our ministers to get an education, why they don’t receive more hands on ministry and preaching experience, and how slackers make it through the program. I think if Wesley met a student who couldn’t keep at least a B average, who scoffed at taking Greek, and couldn’t spell “accountability” then he would recommend another career to them. I think if he saw pastors(sr., youth, worship, children’s, etc.) who hadn’t read a book(or the Bible for that matter) to better themselves then he would ask them why, but I’m sure the answer wouldn’t be sufficient. I think if he saw an overweight pastor like me he would be disgusted. I think he would tell me that holiness starts at home. I would offer him a Mountain Dew and after tasting it he would ask,”This did THAT to you? Are you out of your mind?” He would ask pastors when they had their Sabbath and what they prayed and read that day. He would ask how God spoke to us during our times alone with him. I wouldn’t want to be the sucker to sheepishly raise his hand to tell Mr. Wesley that most of us are too busy for that. I think he would ask why people don’t bring their Bibles to church, but I think it would help him understand why many of our parishioners are the way they are. Would he ask,”Are there enough Bibles for everyone? Is that why so many of them are without?” I think he would drastically reformat Sunday School to make it a more understandable Bible study and less time taking prayer requests. He would probably turn Sunday nights into just a prayer meeting so the pastor doesn’t have to wing another sermon and no one has to pick 3 or 4 random hymns to sing(if the pianist shows up). He would then wonder why only about 25% of the people from that morning came on Sunday nights. To this I would reply, if it’s not important enough to plan then why would it be important for people to come. He would probably look at our expanding waist lines, shrinking times with our families, sermons thrown together at the last minute, and realize we have made too many things a priority so that nothing has become a priority. At this point, he would probably need a break. He would look at me and ask,”Where’s that Mountain Dew?”
A Few things the church could learn from the business world
I’ve been reading Jack Welch’s book, “Winning”, and have been taking furious notes. In talking about mission and values here are some values he shared from a business he was studying. I have applied these to the local church. They are all interlinked.
1. Leaner is better-“You can get input from anywhere-and you should listen to smart people from every quarter. But setting the mission is top management’s responsibility. A mission cannot, and must not, be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it.”
2. Eliminate bureaucracy-this would be a board forming a committee which would then form a subcommittee
3. Cut waste relentlessly-every ministry should look carefully at its spending at the end of each year and make tough decisions(I remember a youth pastor spending over $100o a year on Wednesday night snacks. If it’s bringing kids in or keeping them then fine, but if it’s not building the kingdom then cut it.)
4. Operations should be fast and simple-while large expenses may need to be approved it shouldn’t take months or a board to approve it(I’m talking about TV’s, etc. not buildings and land)
5. Value each other’s time-do you observe the one hour rule in your meetings? If not, then is every minute of the meeting supporting your team and your mission.
6. Invest in Infrastructure-if you don’t have a good organizational chart, flow, idea when your church is small then you won’t be ready when God brings the blessing. Do you think God hasn’t blessed our churches because we’re not ready for it?
I will be posting some more thoughts on why I think God is blessing the growing number of megacurches and what the Wesleyan church needs to do to become a growing denomination. After all, if something isn’t growing it’s dead. Personally, I think it starts with putting the Wesley back in Wesleyan, but that’s for another time.