- Little yappy dogs.
- Spicy hot food.
- Putting up Christmas lights.
- Hockey.
- Tank tops.
- Movies involving the occult.
- Stupid subdivision rules, like you can’t have a shed.
- Prepositional phrases.
- Fussing over biblical prophecy.
- Winters with snow. I loved living in Arizona.
- FOX News (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bush Administration).
- People who chew with their mouth open.
- Splash pages on websites.
- Upscale Christian colleges. Like the Bush Administration, they broaden the gap between the rich and poor, haves and have-nots.
- Drummers who try to sing (Ringo, Phil Collins, Don Henley…).
- Clams.
- Nancy Grace. Like fingernails on a blackboard.
- People who drive Hummers. They shouldn’t be allowed to breed.
- Obnoxious ringtones. The cuteness factor wore off years ago.
- Mail-in rebates. Don’t make me jump through hoops to get a discount.
- Dress shoes.
- Blood tests. I’m a wimp.
- Anything but the aisle seat on airplanes.
- Dress shoes.
- Singing choruses over and over.
- Tomato juice.
- Restrictions on how women can serve in a church.
- Choosing teams. Requires that someone get chosen last.
- Gas stations that make you pay inside. I won’t use them.
- KMart and CVS Pharmacies.
- Hotels with outdoor access to rooms.
- Pipe organs.
- Email forwards which still contain all the header crap from previous senders.
- Call waiting. It’s just plain rude.
- Taco pizza.
- Attending Sunday school in a church I’m visiting.
- People who talk on cell phones in restaurants.
Things I Don’t Like
Book: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day
Mark Batterson gave the opening keynote at the MinistryCOM conference I attended in August. He started National Community Church in Washington, D.C., a ministry that now includes three churches, all of which meet in two movie theaters and a coffeehouse. It’s a very innovative church. Batterson had some great stuff for us.
He has written a book with what has got to be the best title ever: In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. It will be released on October 1, and you can buy it at Amazon, which is something I recommend, based on reading the opening chapter (he sent it to me for review purposes).
The title is based on Banaiah who, according to 2 Samuel 23, “chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.” Batterson fills out the story in a very entertaining way. Imagine Benaiah and the lion coming face to face, then the lion–not the human–turns tail and runs away. And Benaiah chases it. The lion falls into a pit with snow on the ground, and Benaiah stupidly jumps into the pit and kills the killer cat. This is not a story I learned in Sunday school, for some reason.
Batterson says we often equate holiness as the things we don’t do–holiness by “subtracting something from our lives that shouldn’t be there.” But in what he calls “opportunity stewardship,” he thinks God is more concerned with the things we don’t do, but should have done. “You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right. Those who simply run away from sin are half-Christians. Our calling is much higher than simply running away from what’s wrong. We’re called to chase lions.”
He also points out that not every lion chaser kills the lion. Sometimes opportunities don’t work out. But you were still chasing a lion. I think of some church planters and missionaries I know who gave up everything to pursue God’s calling, and things went bust. But I still admire them. They jumped into a pit on a snowy day and at least tried to kill a lion.
So that’s what Mark Batterson’s book is about. And I’m looking forward to reading the whole thing.
Anchor’s First Block Party
On Saturday, Anchor held a “block party.” We sent invitations to over 100 homes on our street and on nearby streets, passed out flyers, and used a big banner out front to invite neighborhood people to a free chicken BBQ meal (Nelson’s pit BBQ!). We also invented students from the Literacy Alliance, a group which meets at Anchor on Monday and Thursday nights to help people obtain their GED. We rented a Moonwalk outside for the kids. We didn’t know how many would come, but it seemed like a good thing to try.
I consider it a huge success. I figure probably 40 people came. I got the chance to sit down and talk to all but two of them (the two in the picture that Pastor Tim is talking to). The people were very appreciative that we would do something like this. Some attended church, some didn’t. We weren’t intending to hit them with the gospel or some hard sell. It was just an chance to get acquainted, and to thank our neighbors for putting up with our very loud concerts (with concert-goers eating up all of the street parking).
I talked to one family yesterday that lived on our street. They had a junior high girl and a high school boy. Seemed like nice folks. This morning, the girl came, by herself, to the 9:00 (early) service. She was sitting by herself at one of our tables in the back of the sanctuary, so when the music was done, I made a point of sitting there with her. I even remembered her name, which is a rather stupendous accomplishment for me.
Perhaps more folks from the block party will trickle in now and then. I talked to two young boys, as they devoured the chicken, asked me when we would do this again. I told him we would probably do it again next year. One of them told me, “I think you should do it” (and he paused to think) “three times a year.” So I guess he liked it.