Sally Morgenthaler quotes Surowiecki from The Wisdom of Crowds,
“Groups that are too much alike find it harder to keep learning because each member is bringing less and less to the table. Homogeneous groups are great at doing what they do well, but they become progressively less able to investigate alternatives . . .[They spend] too much time exploiting and not enough time exploring … But, if you can assemble a diverse group of people who possess varying degrees of knowledge and insight, you’re better off entrusting it with major decisions rather than leaving them in the hands of one or two people, no matter how smart those people are.”
i just read this quote and wondered is that what has become of the church in america today? we are all so alike we no longer challenge each other and have different opinions. i hope this is not the case. i hope that this doesn't happen to us. this can be avoided by constantly engaging with others and trying to meet new people and share thoughts and ideas with many people.
what are your thoughts??
Monday, January 26, 2009
help me help someone else
how can we reach out to different people who we don't currently know or already associate with? how can we reach out to those that have been marginalized by society or who are in need when we don't even realize that they are people in need? i have been trying to figure out a way to find out who in my community is "less fortunate" or who have been marginalized by our society. this kinda sounds like i don't know what i am doing or that i don't know what in the world is going on around me, but i would say the opposite is true. i am very involved in my community and i try to keep in touch with all that goes on around this town-but we don't have what you would see in big cities-homeless people, people asking for money, or anything like that. our community really doesn't have much to help the people who are in need, but our church tries to do what we can.
i just think that jesus gave us the responsibility to reach out to these kinds of people-notice that he reached out to those people when he walked the streets. too often i think we get caught up in so many other things; buildings, programs, music, and whatever else may come our way that we fail to recognize that we need to be reaching for the people that need help. this doesn't mean that we just invite them to our place of worship, or that we just simply give them a little something and say there now we have done our good deed. it is more than that. it is really getting involved to bring about justice for these people, it is to help them get through their rough spot and helping them get on their feet so they can stand by themselves, it is getting dirty and really looking for ways to help-even if they aren't the kinds of things we want to do. there is so much to so to help people plus along the way we need to introduce these people to jesus, and show them how they can have the abundant life and eternal life with him.
we have for too long overlooked these people and depended on the government to help them and do for them-so much so that we now think it is the government's job to do it. but in reality the church should be doing these things-helping these people. there has to be some simple ideas that we can try to get involved in really helping people-being god's hands and feet. would you share some ideas with me??
i just think that jesus gave us the responsibility to reach out to these kinds of people-notice that he reached out to those people when he walked the streets. too often i think we get caught up in so many other things; buildings, programs, music, and whatever else may come our way that we fail to recognize that we need to be reaching for the people that need help. this doesn't mean that we just invite them to our place of worship, or that we just simply give them a little something and say there now we have done our good deed. it is more than that. it is really getting involved to bring about justice for these people, it is to help them get through their rough spot and helping them get on their feet so they can stand by themselves, it is getting dirty and really looking for ways to help-even if they aren't the kinds of things we want to do. there is so much to so to help people plus along the way we need to introduce these people to jesus, and show them how they can have the abundant life and eternal life with him.
we have for too long overlooked these people and depended on the government to help them and do for them-so much so that we now think it is the government's job to do it. but in reality the church should be doing these things-helping these people. there has to be some simple ideas that we can try to get involved in really helping people-being god's hands and feet. would you share some ideas with me??
Monday, January 19, 2009
some notes of praise
yesterday was a great day of worship and meeting with god. we had a pretty rough week with one of our younger members having a serious health problem, leading to him being taken by helicopter to a hospital in indy for emergency heart surgery. many people were alerted and asked to pray-other churches even got involved in praying for this young man. the first outlook was kinda grim-they said it would be tough for him to survive just the ride to the hospital let alone the surgery that he would need. but god came to the rescue (like he does a lot of times) and this young man made it through surgery and is now doing pretty good and is on the road to recovery. he may even get to come home today or tomorrow from the hospital.
also we have an older lady who is also in the hospital having trouble breathing (she has many medical conditions), but about 2 weeks ago they called and said it didn't look good for her. after rushing up to the hospital it really didn't look very good for her, again we activated the prayer chain and got people to start praying. again god came to the rescue, this has been a little slower process, but she is now in a rehab unit of the hospital so she can regain her strength. it has just been so amazing how god intervenes in our situations and helps us and so often we just fail to give him all the glory for it.
the best part was on sunday morning (we always give people time to share any notes of praise they have) and almost everyone in the place took a turn to talk about how god had worked in these 2 situations and how god was at work in their own situations. it was awesome. another side note i would like to add is that they both were very thankful and praised god when i talked with them. one of them said god had given him 2 lives and he just praised god for it. they both said to tell the other that they would be praying for the other one. isn't that truly amazing and awesome all at the same time.
last night we had our first board meeting of the year and i was very encouraged by what we talked about-the possibility of trying to get a different space to work with (with more room and the possibilty of classrooms) because we are kinda limited on space. also i now have the task of building a church website (which i have been wanting to do for quite some time now), but it has all worked out and now this week i will be able to start constructing it. if you have any suggestions of what needs to go on it i would love to hear from you!
also we have an older lady who is also in the hospital having trouble breathing (she has many medical conditions), but about 2 weeks ago they called and said it didn't look good for her. after rushing up to the hospital it really didn't look very good for her, again we activated the prayer chain and got people to start praying. again god came to the rescue, this has been a little slower process, but she is now in a rehab unit of the hospital so she can regain her strength. it has just been so amazing how god intervenes in our situations and helps us and so often we just fail to give him all the glory for it.
the best part was on sunday morning (we always give people time to share any notes of praise they have) and almost everyone in the place took a turn to talk about how god had worked in these 2 situations and how god was at work in their own situations. it was awesome. another side note i would like to add is that they both were very thankful and praised god when i talked with them. one of them said god had given him 2 lives and he just praised god for it. they both said to tell the other that they would be praying for the other one. isn't that truly amazing and awesome all at the same time.
last night we had our first board meeting of the year and i was very encouraged by what we talked about-the possibility of trying to get a different space to work with (with more room and the possibilty of classrooms) because we are kinda limited on space. also i now have the task of building a church website (which i have been wanting to do for quite some time now), but it has all worked out and now this week i will be able to start constructing it. if you have any suggestions of what needs to go on it i would love to hear from you!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
prayer?!?!
when people call for prayer (activate the prayer chain) i wonder if the people really take time out to pray for those requests? i was just sitting thinking about all that is available to us through prayer-you now that if we ask we will receive and all the power that we have to tell mountains to move over and throw itself into the sea. yet all too often we don't really see great results or know about the great results that happen because of our prayers. i wonder why that is?
have we "shortchanged" god in what we think he is able to do in prayer. we talk like we think he is the almighty one-who has more power than anyone or anything but do we pray like we believe that? sometimes we don't even think to ask for prayer until we have exhausted every other means available to fix the problem. then we wonder why we don't get the results that we want. is it because as james points out that we son't have because we don't ask, or that we don't have because we only want to consume it for our own fat selves.
should god answer our prayers if we only look to him when we are in trouble? is it even right or fair of us to expect god to answer us when we don't normally answer him when he calls on us (not saying any of us are this way). back to the original thought now, when does god actually feel like he should help us or give us what we ask for? i think of the time abraham bargained with god about the cities of sodom and gommorrah-saying would you spare it if there were this many people who were good and god goes along with this. then he allows him to go get his cousin lot and spares his life because abraham asks.
is this the kind of interaction with god we need to have to see our prayers answered? do we have to be in constant communication with god like paul tells us to pray without ceasing? i have heard many great stories of answered prayers and been part of praying when great things have happened, and i know there is no sure fire formula to figure out god and when he does and doesn't answer prayers but i just thought i would put it out there.
if you are part of a prayer chain please pray like you believe that god is awesome and powerful enough to change the situation you are praying about.
have we "shortchanged" god in what we think he is able to do in prayer. we talk like we think he is the almighty one-who has more power than anyone or anything but do we pray like we believe that? sometimes we don't even think to ask for prayer until we have exhausted every other means available to fix the problem. then we wonder why we don't get the results that we want. is it because as james points out that we son't have because we don't ask, or that we don't have because we only want to consume it for our own fat selves.
should god answer our prayers if we only look to him when we are in trouble? is it even right or fair of us to expect god to answer us when we don't normally answer him when he calls on us (not saying any of us are this way). back to the original thought now, when does god actually feel like he should help us or give us what we ask for? i think of the time abraham bargained with god about the cities of sodom and gommorrah-saying would you spare it if there were this many people who were good and god goes along with this. then he allows him to go get his cousin lot and spares his life because abraham asks.
is this the kind of interaction with god we need to have to see our prayers answered? do we have to be in constant communication with god like paul tells us to pray without ceasing? i have heard many great stories of answered prayers and been part of praying when great things have happened, and i know there is no sure fire formula to figure out god and when he does and doesn't answer prayers but i just thought i would put it out there.
if you are part of a prayer chain please pray like you believe that god is awesome and powerful enough to change the situation you are praying about.
Monday, January 12, 2009
aftertoughts
well it is the day after the meeting where we talk about all the things we want to do this year and discuss what we thought went well last year. everyone seemed to be pleased with the things we tried to do last year-i don't know if this is because they didn't want to basically say we disappoint ourselves or if they really felt a sense of satisfaction. i'm pretty sure they felt good about what they were able to do last year. our church for its size really did a lot to help in our community and i give god all the praise and glory for that. i was really suprised as we started naming the things that we were able to do-how many things we actually did. while i was preparing i couldn't come up with nearly as many as they did (now i cheated and looked through my calendar and some other papers to remind myself, but if i hadn't done that i wouldn't have remembered half of them). i was very encouraged as they named off the things we did do.
i also took a short survey asking questions about how people thought our church gatherings were (like if they felt like they experienced god, and if they felt like the messages were useful and challenging). it seemed that everyone thought we were doing good at these things and that they felt like our church was doing good getting out in the community to try to reach people.
then we started to talk about what we want to do this year and many good ideas were talked about-and i was even more encouraged to hear them talking about ways we could reach out in the community not just to try to invite people to church but to really try to help the people. a few years ago i think the results would have been different-the focus of the people when i had the first one of these meetings was all about having a new church building and more space and how we could attract more families-which i don't want to say that it isn't important-but i was encouraged to hear that they were really thinking more about how to minister to people and not the structures. they want to get involved in the community-and i think that is awesome.
i am really looking forward to seeing what we will do this year and how we will be able to reach more people with the good news. god is good!!
i also took a short survey asking questions about how people thought our church gatherings were (like if they felt like they experienced god, and if they felt like the messages were useful and challenging). it seemed that everyone thought we were doing good at these things and that they felt like our church was doing good getting out in the community to try to reach people.
then we started to talk about what we want to do this year and many good ideas were talked about-and i was even more encouraged to hear them talking about ways we could reach out in the community not just to try to invite people to church but to really try to help the people. a few years ago i think the results would have been different-the focus of the people when i had the first one of these meetings was all about having a new church building and more space and how we could attract more families-which i don't want to say that it isn't important-but i was encouraged to hear that they were really thinking more about how to minister to people and not the structures. they want to get involved in the community-and i think that is awesome.
i am really looking forward to seeing what we will do this year and how we will be able to reach more people with the good news. god is good!!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
how can we really b god's hands & feet
in thinking about discussions that will take place in our annual gathering where we talk about what we want to do next year and what we did last year that we thought we should continue to do, i wonder what are the kinds of new things we should be trying to do? i wonder what kinds of things that jesus would involve himself in, and how we can try to involve ourselves in things that really matter in the scheme of eternity. too often we just do the things we like to do or that will get us noticed but we fall short of doing the important things. i know what you are thinking-what are the important things-to which i say i'm not really sure.??. i don't even know what types of things will be suggested this year-we always have a huge variety of things mentioned-the next problem is getting them to happen-and getting people to be in charge of them.
the people do pretty good about getting behind an idea as long as someone else has thought it out and did the planning. so how do you get people to think outside the box and really start to do the things that they think are important?
anyway that is beside the point-i really want to be sure that the things that come out of this meeting are the things we need to be doing-plus i want honest feedback on the things we did last year whether they think they were good-whether they think they were things that god would be pleased with, whether they were things they think are useful in reaching people for the kingdom of god. the big question to be answered is how can we live and be god's hands and feet in our community and world. how can we make a difference in the lives of the people that we come in contact with.
our story for the morning is out of acts where peter raises tabitha from the dead and she had a reputation for helping the poor and for doing good. i want to challenge our church to be known for these types of things (helping the poor and doing good). but how do you get a reputation for doing that? tabitha apparently had made clothes for the people, and i'm sure many other things but it mentions that many of them had coats that she had made. i mean how do you actually go about loving people as yourself-i mean what does it look like in action-more than just the words and fancy descriptions-which we have tried to make some of our own descriptions by doing a number of things. just to name one-we collected diapers and wipes to give to the crisis pregnancy center, or to give to people in need. word got out that there were diapers at my house for people in need and people literally stopped by (people i really didn't know) and said i hear you have diapers for mothers who need them and it was truly a blessing to me to be able to give those diapers to those people (even a few dads stopped by). rather interesting-but i wonder would jesus be pleased with this type of thing (i think so, or at least i hope so).
the quest is always to do something new and exciting to help people with needs that we don't even know about yet-to try to meet some new needs rather than just do the same old thing all the time (there is nothing wrong with doing the same stuff over and over, just people like new and different it seems like). how will you be god's hands and feet this year? would you share some ideas with me (i could really use them)?
the people do pretty good about getting behind an idea as long as someone else has thought it out and did the planning. so how do you get people to think outside the box and really start to do the things that they think are important?
anyway that is beside the point-i really want to be sure that the things that come out of this meeting are the things we need to be doing-plus i want honest feedback on the things we did last year whether they think they were good-whether they think they were things that god would be pleased with, whether they were things they think are useful in reaching people for the kingdom of god. the big question to be answered is how can we live and be god's hands and feet in our community and world. how can we make a difference in the lives of the people that we come in contact with.
our story for the morning is out of acts where peter raises tabitha from the dead and she had a reputation for helping the poor and for doing good. i want to challenge our church to be known for these types of things (helping the poor and doing good). but how do you get a reputation for doing that? tabitha apparently had made clothes for the people, and i'm sure many other things but it mentions that many of them had coats that she had made. i mean how do you actually go about loving people as yourself-i mean what does it look like in action-more than just the words and fancy descriptions-which we have tried to make some of our own descriptions by doing a number of things. just to name one-we collected diapers and wipes to give to the crisis pregnancy center, or to give to people in need. word got out that there were diapers at my house for people in need and people literally stopped by (people i really didn't know) and said i hear you have diapers for mothers who need them and it was truly a blessing to me to be able to give those diapers to those people (even a few dads stopped by). rather interesting-but i wonder would jesus be pleased with this type of thing (i think so, or at least i hope so).
the quest is always to do something new and exciting to help people with needs that we don't even know about yet-to try to meet some new needs rather than just do the same old thing all the time (there is nothing wrong with doing the same stuff over and over, just people like new and different it seems like). how will you be god's hands and feet this year? would you share some ideas with me (i could really use them)?
Thursday, January 8, 2009
tell me what is goin down god!!
how in tune with god are we really? just sitting here thinking about how much do i actually recognize what god is doing and where he is leading. i think we often get caught up in the thought process of what does god want me to do and miss the idea that what we are doing right now may be the very thing that god is wanting us to do. we spend all kinds of time planning and getting ready for the things to come-and fail to even notice what is happening right now. i don't want to sound like we shouldn't ever think about the future or what god may want from us in the future, but there must be some kind of balance.
jesus did say to us not to worry about tomorrow for it has enough worries of it's own-instead to remember that if the birds get to eat then won't he take care of us as well. it is difficult not to think and worry about where this or that may lead us but i think it is important-to trust jesus to lead us. think about this when jesus called peter and the other disciples-they didn't know where it would take them, if they left and followed jesus. they didn't say to jesus wait we better check our calendars and let you know soon. they didn't ask what is the 5 year plan here-or when will this gig allow me to retire (or if it even had a retirement plan). jesus called and they decided to follow-had they known how their lives would have went after that would they have followed? who knows, but they did.
they weren't too concerned about where they would go or stay or sleep or what they might eat (they were concerned about the future in heaven and the coming judgment for their persecutors), but jesus constantly told them not to sweat over stuff, that it would just be taken care of. now as i think about my own situation i am anxious to know what the future might hold for me, sometimes too much and i forget that i just need to trust and follow. it is hard to do without answers and without knowing where each path may lead.
i think we miss out on what god is doing too often because we are worried about what he is going to do in the future. shouldn't we just be ready to follow now and ready to hear his word today rather than looking for his word for the future? shouldn't we just focus on what is at hand and not get ahead of ourselves? god will be here today and he will be with us in the future-but he may not want to tell us everything that is going to go down just yet. i am going to try to be satisfied with just knowing the word god has for me today and then when tomorrow gets here i am sure he will have a word for me then as well.
what are your thoughts?
jesus did say to us not to worry about tomorrow for it has enough worries of it's own-instead to remember that if the birds get to eat then won't he take care of us as well. it is difficult not to think and worry about where this or that may lead us but i think it is important-to trust jesus to lead us. think about this when jesus called peter and the other disciples-they didn't know where it would take them, if they left and followed jesus. they didn't say to jesus wait we better check our calendars and let you know soon. they didn't ask what is the 5 year plan here-or when will this gig allow me to retire (or if it even had a retirement plan). jesus called and they decided to follow-had they known how their lives would have went after that would they have followed? who knows, but they did.
they weren't too concerned about where they would go or stay or sleep or what they might eat (they were concerned about the future in heaven and the coming judgment for their persecutors), but jesus constantly told them not to sweat over stuff, that it would just be taken care of. now as i think about my own situation i am anxious to know what the future might hold for me, sometimes too much and i forget that i just need to trust and follow. it is hard to do without answers and without knowing where each path may lead.
i think we miss out on what god is doing too often because we are worried about what he is going to do in the future. shouldn't we just be ready to follow now and ready to hear his word today rather than looking for his word for the future? shouldn't we just focus on what is at hand and not get ahead of ourselves? god will be here today and he will be with us in the future-but he may not want to tell us everything that is going to go down just yet. i am going to try to be satisfied with just knowing the word god has for me today and then when tomorrow gets here i am sure he will have a word for me then as well.
what are your thoughts?
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