Monthly Archives: July 2007

Quick Prayers

We on the Anchor worship team once had a habit of saying to the congregation, “Let’s all bow for a quick word of prayer.” Or something like that. The important word was “quick.” Pastor Tim told us he would prefer that we not use “quick” and “prayer” together. It sounded like we wanted to rush through “prayer” to get to more interesting stuff. And he was exactly right.

And so, for the past couple of years, we’ve tried to wean ourselves away from that, and we’ve succeeded pretty well. But it’s fascinating how easily the word “quick” wants to keep inserting itself.

  • “Before the service starts, let’s get the worship team together for a quick prayer.”
  • Prior to a potluck: “Let’s all bow for a quick prayer, and then you can line for up for your food.”
  • “Before we launch into our board meeting agenda, Bill, would say a quick prayer for the meeting?”

Tonight, eight of us from Anchor went to the Union Chapel United Brethren church for a performance of Godspell by a group from Huntington University (my alma mater). It was very good. My brother Rick saw it last week and wrote on his blog that he enjoyed it, but found one of the performers to be annoying. Several of us were on the lookout, but couldn’t determine which one Rick was talking about. None of the cast members struck us as annoying.

Chris Kuntz, Anchor’s former worship leader, is now worship leader at Union Chapel. He introduced the group, and when they finished, he came up again to say a few words before the group did one last number. And Chris said something like, “In a moment I’m going to say a quick prayer, and then we’ll hear one more song.” Tim Bauman and I made contact and just smiled. Chris, who had, with Tim’s promptings, helped us nearly eradicate “quick” from our prayer lingo, had relapsed. He was still doing “quick” prayers.

Pastor Tim would be appalled.

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Summer Movie Round-up

Pam and I have seen five movies this summer. Didn’t realize it was that many until we counted them up. We go the first four months (at least through April 15) without seeing any movies at theaters. So all five of these have been in the past six weeks or so.

  • Shrek the Third. Pretty good. I’m afraid the whole Shrek thing may be losing its appeal for me. The first Shrek was great, the second one very good, this one…still plenty of laughs, but as if I was laughing at jokes I’d already heard.
  • Oceans 13. Pretty good. Not as good as Oceans 11.
  • Evan Almighty. Very good. We laughed a lot.
  • Live Free or Die Hard. Very good. Of course, we’re Die Hard fans, as well as Bruce Willis fans. And we love high body counts. And Justin Long is the Mac guy in the Mac/PC commercials, and we’re most definitely Macintosh people. So of course we loved this movie.
  • Transformers.Okay. We saw it this afternoon. Kinda cheesy, but some good action. If they do a sequel, I’ll skip it.
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Lucky 7 Day

Today’s the perfect day: 7/7/07. The 7th day of the 7th month of the 7th year. Two months ago at my grandma’s funeral, my Aunt Ruthie said she was holding a party on this day. She was inviting 7 guests, I think they were having a 7-course meal, and I’m pretty sure the starting time was 7:07 pm. She was really building on the “seven” theme.

Lots of people are getting married today, adding a bit of Lucky 7 to their vows. Whatever works.

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Bacteria in Carts and in Office

Here’s a fun fact for you: 60% of grocery carts harbor the type of bacteria normally found on toilet seats. Think about it. The last person to use the cart sat a little kid in the basket, complete with drool-covered fingers. This is where you now lay your lettuce.

And a fun link: “How Cheney Abused His Power in War on Terror”, from Britain’s Sunday Telegraph. I’d already seen most of this, but never such a complete collection of Cheney’s Vice Dictator shenanigans.

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Strategic Sense in Anchor’s Neighborhood

We’ve got something pretty neat going on with these other four churches in our neighborhood. We held joint Sunday night services during Lent, and did a neighborhood Vacation Bible School a few weeks ago (the Mennonites hosted it, but Marsha from our church was the director).

Today we had a picnic in the park a couple of streets over from Anchor. Four of the five churches participated. Grace Presbyterian headed this up. They rented a big grill and organized a variety of games. It was nice. I’m thoroughly enjoying getting acquainted with these fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Fundamentalists fear being somehow contaminated or theologically compromised if they collaborate with other churches. I think there is some of that among us United Brethren–not fundamentalists (though we have our contingent), but conservative evangelicals. We’re leery, at least people “in the know” (as in, mostly ministers). Fortunately, this isn’t an issue at Anchor. Nor, I think, is it generally an issue with the rank-and-file UBs, who don’t “know enough” theologically to erect barriers between themselves and other Christians.

Not that Anchor would link arms with just anybody. We’re talking about just five of the churches in our zip code; there are more than that. Five like-minded local congregations. Church of Christ, United Methodist, Mennonite, Presbyterian, and United Brethren. There are other United Brethren churches in our city, but none in our neighborhood. Strategically, it makes sense to link arms with these four other churches. And so, we are.

More United Brethren churches need to do this type of thing. Larger churches don’t “need” to, from a strategical standpoint, or at least don’t think they need to. They have the resources to do things themselves, and have more of a “we can do it ourselves” mentality. In general. But for smaller churches, like Anchor, it makes a huge amount of sense.

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