2006 » SteveDennie.com - Miscellaneous inconsequential musings from Steve Dennie

A Good Example from Arrogant America

Posted on February 15, 2006 by Steve
Posted in The Denomination

We Americans can be pretty arrogant and condescending toward the rest of the world. Our current president has certainly exemplified that attitude. But I’m not here to dump on George W. In the church, in our missions efforts, we’ve certainly been that way, too. Our attitude toward churches in other countries has been, “We have things figured out. We’ve written tons of books on church growth and evangelism and everything else regarding what the church should be. Let us come to your country and tell you how to do it. We’ll train your pastors right. We’ll bring programs that will work in your country, because they’ve been proven effective in God’s favorite country, the US of A.” And so, when Americans go overseas, it’s usually to be teachers and trainers for ignorant Third Worlders.

Having visited United Brethren churches in several other countries, I’m well aware that they, too, have people who know what they’re doing. Good, godly people. People who could teach us a lot, especially about sacrifice and commitment, even though they haven’t written books or earned advanced degrees or keynoted major conferences.

This is why I’m thrilled with the example of my denomination’s church in Fowlerville, Mich. This is one of our premier churches. They do have a lot to teach. But when a group from Fowlerville went to Honduras recently, they took the role of servants. The Hondurans were holding a leadership conference. Did these Fowlerville people hold seminars and Q&A session at the conference to dispense their profound experience and knowledge? No. The Hondurans planned and led the conference, and they were fully capable to doing that. The Fowlerville people, instead, assumed the role of servants, taking care of support and background roles. They cared for the children, helped with clean-up, did food preparation, etc. This freed the Hondurans to focus on the goals of the retreat.

I tell you, this type of humble spirit, coming from Americans, warms my heart. Fowlerville “gets it.”

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Why “Alias” Betrayed Us

Posted on February 14, 2006 by Steve
Posted in TV

Pam and I have watched the TV show “Alias” since it began. Now the show is wrapping up its final season. But with only a few more bites to eat, I can’t do it. I’m full of Sidney Bristow. Because I think this show has played very unfairly with us viewers.

Time and again, people get killed off–CLEARLY killed off–and yet they return, alive and well. Now, I read that a number of people who have been dispatched–Vaughn, Francie, Anna Espinosa, Irena, and others–will be making a comeback. Somehow, they’re actually alive. We saw Vaughn riddled with bullets…but he’s ALIVE.

Sorry, but this isn’t fair. The latter years of X-Files were the same way. The writers jerked us around while they tried to figure out where in the world they wanted to take the show. My fear is that “Lost” will go a similar route. So I’m done with Alias. Only a few more shows to go and I’ll have seen the series. But no, I’m quitting here.

I trust you have been spiritually edified by this post.

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Mustang Sally Comes to Church

Posted on February 13, 2006 by Steve
Posted in Anchor Church

The guitarists on the worship team, Tim and Terry, are 70’s rock-and-rollers, like me, but they also have a real interest in the blues. Sometimes at practice, we’ll just jam with a blues progression. It’s fun, and you can do all kinds of things instrumentally.

A couple weeks ago, in a moment of whimsy, I downloaded a bunch of versions of “Mustang Sally” from the iTunes store. Probably ten versions. Then I burned them all onto CDs and gave them to Tim and Terry. Just for their listening pleasure. The next week at practice, Terry was playing some cords, and I immediately recognized “Mustang Sally.” Before long, we were all jamming to that particular cord progression.

Last Thursday at practice, we were batting around various ideas. I suggested that one of them rewrite the words of “Mustang Sally” to give the song a Christian slant. Both Tim and Terry are very talented at doing stuff like that (in addition to writing original music). Then yesterday, as we prepared to practice in preparation for the first church service, Terry told me he had written new words to “Mustang Sally.” In the place where you sing the title words, he now had “I found Jesus.” He worked in a verse telling about his salvation experience.

Then Tim arrived. He said he had written a Christian version of “Mustang Sally,” too. He, too, used the words “I found Jesus.”

We’re gonna have to do BOTH versions one of these days, maybe as a prelude or offertory. We’re gonna jam the blues, and it’s gonna be a blast. And people will love it. I’m delighted that we can get away with stuff like this at Anchor. At most churches, Mustang Sally would be barred at the door.

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A Self-Indulgent Study of Church Names

Posted on February 10, 2006 by Steve
Posted in Religion in General

Being a simple guy, I find church names to be interesting. When I did my Masters project, a Promotion Manual for Local Churches, I did a little personal study of church names and categorized them. One of the few original-with-me things that I did. Now I’m going to inflict it on you.

Location Names. The location might be a street, residential area, township, city name, valley, or geographical region. In the United Brethren church we have Zanesville UB (town) and Atlantic Avenue UB (street). Location names can also describe the setting. In that case, we have the Lakeview UB and Countryside UB churches (both in Michigan). Location names work well because they tell people where to find you. That’s a good thing. But many churches are getting away from the location name, evidently deeming it too restrictive in this age of large regional churches.

Legacy Names. This name might refer to a religious leader, past or present. Or it could refer to a person important to that church’s past. William Otterbein was a founder of the United Brethren church. We still have two churches called Otterbein UB (Pennslyvania and Kansas); a few years ago, we also had Otterbeins in Ohio and a second one in Pennsylvania. My favorite UB church name was Boring Chapel, a small church in Ohio which, I was told, was named after the Boring family. The name has either been changed or the church has closed, I can’t remember which. But Boring Chapel is gone.

Biblical Names. These can be divided into several categories. First, there are biblical people, which are popular names among Catholics (St. Peter’s, St. Mark’s, etc.). Then there are biblical places. In that category, there are United Brethren churches bearing these names: Calvary, Gethsemane, Bethel, Bethany, and Jerusalem Chapel. We have biblical concept names: First Love, Living Water, Trinity, Grace, Faith, Agape. And then there are general biblical names: Good Shepherd, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, Shepherd of the Valley, Pentecost.

Concept Names. This is the popular category today. These names are abstract, and tend to convey something about the essence of the church: Fresh Breeze, New Hope, Friendship, New Life, Fellowship, True Love, Open Bible, Maranatha. The popular “First,” as in “First Baptist Church,” could fit in this category, for want of a better place.

In my lifetime, I’ve attended UB churches with these names: College Park (location), Devonshire (location), First (concept), New Hope (concept), Emmanuel (biblical), and now Anchor (concept). Three of them have changed names in my lifetime. New Hope used to be Etna Avenue (place). First recently changed its name to Hilltop Community (location). And Anchor, until 1998, was Third Street (location).

In recent years, many other UB churches have changed their names, and most go to concept name. That’s the hot category right now.

Two churches in Rockford, Ohio, merged (Calvary, biblical, and Otterbein, legacy), and are now New Horizons.
Two other nearby churches merged (Willshire‚ location, and Zion‚ biblical) and now call themselves PraisePoint.
Trinity (biblical) became Living Hope. Maple Hill became HomeFront. Shepherd Street became Crossroads. Prescott Avenue became Lighthouse. All concept names.

Biblical names remain valid options. Grayston Avenue and Greenfield UB (one in Indiana, one in Ohio) both adopted the name Good Shepherd (biblical). Banner Street became Banner of Christ (biblical).

In Ohio, Redeemer UB church became Living Word, switching from one biblical name to another. Sometimes, any change seems good, I guess.

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Enough Said

Posted on February 8, 2006 by Steve
Posted in Pop Culture

BlogDog
Yeah, we bloggers do a lot of that. But are we like that sometimes in the church–throwing around our nice teachings and familiar platitudes, while the world ignores us with courteous indifference, considering our multitude of words to be irrelevant to their lives? Geesh, that was a long sentence.

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Our Impromptu Super Bown Party

Posted on February 7, 2006 by Steve
Posted in Anchor Church

It’s great to have friends, and that’s one of the things Pam and I most appreciate about Anchor Community Church. We’ve got plenty of them. People we can get together with on the spur of the moment. Not that we do that a lot. But we could.

Like Sunday night. After church that morning, Mark and Tami were talking to Gary and Hop, and I walked up. “Wanna come over?” Mark said. They were throwing together an impromptu Super Bowl party, and wanted to know if Pam and I would join them. Sure we would.

So we showed up at 5:30. Gary and Hop (who was among the Vietnamese boat people) were already there, along with some of Hop’s egg rolls, the best I’ve ever had. She made them one Friday night at the youth center, and I couldn’t get enough of them. Brought an immediate smile to my face and an eager rumbling in my stomach. Then Tom and Kathy arrived. Just the eight of us. The guys and Kathy ended up in the living room watching the game. When a commercial break came, Mark would yell out “Commercial!”, and the gals in the kitchen might–or might not–come watch.

I guess we liked the Fedex dinosaur commercial best.

It was an enjoyable evening. None of us were emotionally invested in either the Steelers or Seahawks, so we could just watch the game without having any hopes and dreams dashed (they were dashed three weeks ago when the Colts bowed out).

So that was our evening. Nothing fancy. Just Christian friends getting together in a nice, cozy home to enjoy each other’s company. Meets a need for Pam and me.

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Something That Bugs Me. A Lot.

Posted on February 5, 2006 by Steve
Posted in This or That

I’m an editor. Been one for 27 years. People give me stuff to publish, and I work it over, some people’s stuff more than others. Because it needs it. And that’s what I do. Sometimes I break the rules taught by fuddy-duddy English teachers of years past and present. Like not using complete sentences. Or starting sentences with “and.” Editors follow the rule, “Know the rules so you can violate them wisely.” That is my all-time favorite rule. I like it better than the thing about not ending sentences with prepositions.

So, I kindly fix things in other people’s writing, in an effort to help them communicate better. But some things just drive me nuts when I see them. And the biggest offender is putting two spaces between sentences.

Often, when someone sends me an article or news item or report, one of the first things I do is a search-and-replace to eliminate the two-spaces-between-sentences error. We learned this rule in typing class. Unfortunately, nobody was around at the advent of the computer and proportional type to say, “Okay, you don’t need to do that anymore.” I try my best to educate people on this all the time, but ingrained habits are hard to break. I know, because this is one I broke for myself about 25 years ago, and it was only a few degrees easier than removing your own appendix with a butter knife. Though, having never personally tried the latter, I could be wrong.

This rule didn’t exist before the typewriter, and it only–only–applies to the typewriter. Find me any commercially printed book that uses two spaces, and I don’t care how old a book it is. I dare you. Likewise with magazine articles. It’s always just one space between sentences. The two-spaces rule arose ONLY to apply to typewriters, where every letter takes up the same amount of space, whether it’s an “i” or a “w.” Somebody, with his mind stuck in the moment and no thought to long-term ramifications, decided we should use two spaces to help readers better know when a sentence ends, because readers are too stupid to remember that that’s what a period is all about. And so, a rule was born. And long may it live.

My pastor, who is taking seminary courses right now, told me that for one of his papers, he applied my admonitions and put only one space between sentences. As a result, the professor penalized him for it, marking him down. Even though I’m sure he printed the paper using a proportional-space type like Times Roman, where each letter takes up a different amount of space; the only monospace font on most computers is Courier. This news immediately stained by perception of this finely-reputed, otherwise progressive seminary. I guess things move slowly in academia. If Kate Turabian’s infallible style guide still includes the two-spaces rule, then you better do it, because in educational circles (including my alma mater, at least when I was a student), Kate is a goddess.

I think of the First Century Jews who grew up with hundreds of legalistic rules based on interpretations of Old Testament Scripture. Jesus came along and said, “Those rules are now invalid.” I’ll bet those Jews had a hard time NOT following those rules. Like my Mom, who grew up being told that playing cards, with Kings and Queens and Aces etc., was sinful. She knows it’s a silly rule, but she can’t get herself to hold a deck of cards in her hands (unless it’s Rook or Uno). Probably the same applies to people who now hear that two spaces between sentences is invalid, but they still do it because a high school typing teacher said it’s the law.

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I Resent These New People

Posted on February 1, 2006 by Steve
Posted in Anchor Church, Sports

Because of sickness and miscellaneous conflicts, I haven’t been to the Three Rivers Table Tennis club since December 27. I finally made it last night. Turns out that the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette newspaper ran a big article on the club, and it caught the attention of lots of ping pong players.

There’s a difference between “ping pong” and “table tennis.” People play ping pong recreationally in their basement or the church fellowship hall. People play table tennis as a sport. The latter are snobs. They consider themselves better, more serious, than mere ping pong players. I’m a snob.

Anyway, the place was packed last night. We have nine tables, which means 18 people can play at once. Rarely is every table busy. But last night, they were all busy, and there were a dozen or so people waiting around for an empty table. Probably half of the people last night were newbies. And I resented their presence.

Last week, when I attended the cluster coach training in Hillsdale, Mich., some of the pastors talked about the attitudes of regular church attenders toward newcomers. One person said that soon after he became pastor of his church, his wife and kids sat down on a front pew and another lady in the church asked them to move, because that was her pew. Another pastor told of a parishioner asking some first-time visitors to move, because they were sitting in his place. Visitors can be such a nuisance, huh? They don’t know how things are supposed to work.

Well, last night at the table tennis club, I felt the same way. I’m on a first-name basis with most of the guys and enjoy chatting with them. But last night, I didn’t get a chance to chat with the regulars. These new people were sitting in places I normally sat. They didn’t know the proper etiquette (walking behind a table to retrieve a ball while a point was in progress, for instance), and didn’t know the rules (11-point games, alternate two serves at a time–none of this serve-five-points, 21-point game stuff). Because they were cluttering up the neighborhood, I didn’t get to play nearly as much as I normally do. I had to be courteous and helpful to these new people–that can be such a strain–and play guys who provided little or no competition. What a burdensome hassle. My comfort zone had been invaded by the primitive Mongol hordes.

I wish they would go away. It was much more enjoyable when our club was small and we knew everybody.

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More Cowbell

Posted on January 30, 2006 by Steve
Posted in Anchor Church

The Anchor Church worship team is a big fan of the Saturday Night Live “More Cowbell” skit. We have a copy of it on the computer we use for projecting Powerpoint slides. For Christmas this year, Pam got me the “Best of Christopher Walken” SNL DVD, which includes the cowbell sketch.

The skit is really famous among the younger set. I’ve run into many college kids who can recite some of the lines, like “I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.”

Yesterday, we did a jazzed up version of “This Little Light of Mine” as part of the music package. As we practiced before the service, we decided to add an instrumental verse in the middle of the other verses. The drummer used the cowbell during the instrumental. And then a light came on in my eyes. Instead of showing just a blank screen during the instrumental, how about if we flashed for a few seconds the words “More Cowbell”? We all smiled at the idea.

And we did it. During both services, as we did the instrumental, the words MORE COWBELL flashed on the screen for about three seconds, prompting the drummer to use more cowbell. Did the people in the congregation get it? Did they know what the words meant?

A few did during the first service. A few more did during the more-crowded second service. Last night during a meeting, I talked to a couple of 50-ish adults, asking them if they knew what the “More Cowbell” slide was all about. They didn’t. Probably most of the adults didn’t get it. But a few did, and most of the younger adults and teens “got it.”

I’m just glad it’s something we would try at Anchor. We brought some smiles to people’s faces, including my own as I stood at the keyboard.

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Tom and Paula, Engaged

Posted on January 28, 2006 by Steve
Posted in Family

Tom and Paula This morning I received a call from my niece, Paula. “I have some good news. What do you think it is?”

I immediately assumed she was engaged. It’s something we’ve been waiting on, knew was most likely coming. She and Tom are a great match. Tom’s a great guy. I totally approve. But yet, I was afraid to guess and say, “You’re engaged?” So I hemmed and hawed, while Paula said, “Oh come on, you know.” Finally I said, “Did you get a ring?”

“Yes!” And she then proceeded to tell me how and where and etc.

Tom and Paula have been dating for a couple years now. Last summer, Tom was part of our family vacation in Gatlinburg (to celebrate my parents’ 50th anniversary). The picture above shows Tom and Paula on a trolley the day we all went to the Aquarium in Gatlinburg. In front of them are Stu and Joyce, Paula’s parents (Stu is my brother).

One evening Paula asked me, “So what do you think of Tom? He says you’re kind of hard to read, and he’s not sure what you think of him.”

I told Paula, “I’ve liked Tom from the moment I met him.” And it’s true. I think it’s great that he was interested in the approval of me, a mere uncle. He’s a good Christian guy from a good Christian home, a hard-working fellow, and I’m sure he and Paula will have a great life together. And I’ll enjoy having him around.

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Yearly Archives: 2006

A Good Example from Arrogant America

Why “Alias” Betrayed Us

Mustang Sally Comes to Church

A Self-Indulgent Study of Church Names

Enough Said

Our Impromptu Super Bown Party

Something That Bugs Me. A Lot.

I Resent These New People

More Cowbell

Tom and Paula, Engaged

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