a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

Hello, I Must Be Going....
(didn't I use this header once already back in the day? o well...)

Especially since writing on a Saturday isn't my oeuvre, I'll try to be succinct here. But things being what they've been -- not bad, but busy -- it's easier to get back on the board this way....

Also to say, no musical entries here. I've got a few pretty-good-but-not-"omigosh, I gotta write about this NOW" ones from in the dock, but they'll have to wait a little longer. I'm gonna stick to recapping the life stuff for now. In ascending order from last time:

1) Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and dip my toes in the water with this organization, which works with developmentally disabled adults. Start with setting up and putting out their newsletter, see where we go from there. They want me to join their board but I really gotta have my own relationship with them first. Marion's been teaching them art for the better part of a year now,  but I'm still just the husband right now. They've got a big event planned for November, so by that time we oughta know how deep I really want to get. But this is a start, and it'll still help them.

2) The one that's really sucking up my time right now -- probably obviously by the fact that I'm doing this on a Saturday -- is work. Post-yet-another-re-org (no casualties this time, thankfully, just a lot of age-specific restructuring), I now AM Adult Boy for Group Publishing. Curriculum, small-group materials, and books that supplement that, until further notice (and further notice is probably quite a ways away), I AM the team. Which, so far, has meant a lot more administrative stuff -- a lot more talking with authors and reviewing manuscripts, and dealing with production issues earlier in the process, on top of the standard prototyping, editing, and of course, trying to get my own stuff written (which needless to say has suffered the most so far -- that said, we may be only a couple months from a green light on said project, which our VP is very much viewing as the foundation for everything else we do going forward. As always, no pressure, though. ). Anyway, it's not a bad problem -- I'm just still sorting through how to do all this in the most effective way (being that "I'm Carl and I've been a recovering workaholic for 15 years." "Hi Carl!").

3) Which does kinda make its way back to the group. What started off as a field-test gang of friends has, not entirely unpredictably, grown into something more. To the point that for several (including, not initially but inevitably, us), this IS church. Which threw us into a bit of a dilemma -- what do we do? what do we need to change? What do we call ourselves (i.e., a house church? a church plant? Fred?) Blahdeblah. And so on.

After a lot of soul-searching and the previously mentioned prayer & fasting, we came up with a sort of obvious rhetorical answer/question: If, based on what we've been doing, people who are lot more spiritually mature than myself already consider this "church," do we really NEED to change anything?

Structurally/self-perceptionally, the answer was a clear "no." That said, we did add/change a couple things that were more "major" in content than in time commitment: Specifically, more regular worship (playing guitar and singing more regularly isn't a big jump), a separate once-a-month time to break bread both socially and spiritually (i.e., we'll be doing the Lord's Supper more regularly than the megachurch down the street), and a resolve to keep an eye out for other needs in town we can come alongside (such as #1, and the homeless shelter a couple of our guys are already involved in). And at the same time, recognizing that for some people, the group is still just "group" and that the fact that they go to a more "institutional" church is cool, too (and maybe even someone we could come alongside and help as opportunity occurs).

And as a rather odd consequence, as we've shared with others what's been going on, others are joining us. It's no longer the intimate little group it started out as, but hopefully will be an intimate somewhat larger group. And then? We'll cross that bridge when we get there. But we've decided not to sweat that just yet (you know, having already spent the summer doing so somewhat unnecessarily. )

Anyway, it's obviously a work-in-progress, but at least we're all on the same page even as we have our own circles to travel in. And that's not a bad thing, either.

So that's kind of that for now. Next time, tuneage. I think. 

Posted by: burninglight at 20:32 | link | comments (21)

Comments:

#1  08 September 2008 - 02:50

 

Hi Carl,

Hope your daughters are doing well too. How's the married life for the married one? And the missions trip for the mission one?

Regarding 3, I was thinking about how its kind of rural in your part of Colorado, and was wondering if there might be a lot of sheep-stealing in your proximity. ;-)

BTW, I knew a guy for 9 years from Michigan who was non-denominational and would fly to a pastor's conference in Colorado once a year. Do you guys get people from all over the country at those conferences or no? If so, I'll run his name by you, and you can let me know if you know who I am talking about.

Jim

LDVoyager

#2  08 September 2008 - 14:25

 

Yo Jim: Actually, my part of Colorado isn't that rural at all (now, TIM's.... :o) Loveland's a city of 60,000 right below Fort Collins, which is 120-130,000.

Thankfully, however, they currently look NOTHING like Wayne & Paterson, NJ, which are identical in size (well, Wayne's probably 80-90,000 by now, but....)

That said, ain't NOTHIN' north of here; west is the mountains; and east is nothing besides Greeley, and that's best left undiscussed.... :o

Anyway, the conference thing: While we have conferences here, most of the big ones in the area(which I don't go to often) are either in Denver ('cause it's Denver) an hour south, or the Springs ('cause it's the Mecca of the Evangelical World :)) two hours south, so I doubt I'd know yr guy.

Anonymous

#3  09 September 2008 - 01:19

 

HEADLINES: "Simmons prefers moshing floor crowds, smoke, and glitz over green pastures and still waters. Confesses lifetime addiction to loud noise and neon."




























;-)

LDVoyager

#4  09 September 2008 - 15:18

 

Nah. Green pastures and still waters are cool. Big honkin' silent mountains are even better. :)

But I DO like my noise. :D

Neon? C'mon....

burninglight

#5  09 September 2008 - 16:32

 

Yo Carl,

Regarding your group: I'm leaning
towards "Fred". Seriously, I wouldn't
worry too much about naming or
defining what you're doing, these things take care of themselves. I
say see where it takes you, when you get there, you'll know.

BTW: Did you get to stand on the
Great Divide?

Owoomp!

Rick

Anonymous

#6  09 September 2008 - 17:14

 

Yo Rick!

Yeah, like I said, that's pretty much where we landed (besides calling ourselves Fred, that is). It's all good.

And yes. Yes, I did. Owoomp! :D

burninglight

#7  10 September 2008 - 16:13

 

carl- I am trying to enter the world of blogs- and so thought the best thing is to start reading some. Will try to pop in more than I've been.
Pand L til then
JimIny
(or - the JimstEr!)

Anonymous

#8  10 September 2008 - 17:30

 

Coolishness. Glad to have you, JimSteR. 8-)

burninglight

#9  13 September 2008 - 13:16

 

good stuff, carl, even if i'm late to the party.

the church i am at now is a plant of a fairly large church (we don't have any mega-churches nearby). we're having about 100 on sundays now, and it still manages to keep a small group feel to it. i probably feel more ministered to than anywhere i've ever been.

prayers for the other stuff.....

larryl

#10  13 September 2008 - 14:14

 

Graci, larrimore. :)

Yeah, our last church in Jersey was like that -- after seeing our mother church go from 35 to 600, we decided we'd be in on the next plant. So that one actually started in our house. But that was an actual plant (in which we lost both pastors in the first 14 months and we were the only couple to survive from the original group, but that's a WHOLE 'nother story...). So yeah, we're just trying to play this one where it lies for now. And yeah, please pray for work. It is TOTALLY crazy right now.

burninglight

#11  15 September 2008 - 03:08

 

my church is also a church plant...
love it..

beatmenace

#12  15 September 2008 - 14:46

 

Jim... Rick... JimSTeR... larry... joey...
If nothing else, this post definitely has the honor of being the most diversely responded-to, to date. :)

burninglight

#13  16 September 2008 - 11:12

 

The burninglight blog: a microcosm of American Christianity.

Subtitled: "Divided We Fall" ba-doom-kshhh!!!

Jim

LDVoyager

#14  16 September 2008 - 15:15

 

or more accurately:

subtitled "converging on common ground"

larryl

#15  17 September 2008 - 12:53

 

Well, it would help if Carl would post about more bands we actually are familiar with, once in a while.
:-D

Jim

Anonymous

#16  17 September 2008 - 14:42

 

yea.. because we'd hate to actually be exposed to new, good, music.

lord knows some people here need some decent music, so they stop listening to bob carlisle.

larryl

#17  17 September 2008 - 15:34

 

Are you having a good day today, Larry?

Jim

LDVoyager

#18  17 September 2008 - 17:52

 

best day i've had in a while....

the weather is finally cooling off, the baby seems content to wait another few weeks, like he's supposed to, life is pretty darn good.

larryl

#19  18 September 2008 - 03:07

 

Yeah, I'm sure Tim would agree that Bob Carlisle is just to the right of, say Hitler?

Jim

Anonymous

#20  18 September 2008 - 03:12

 

You're in the same boat as me. My wife is ready to go anytime, but not actually due until Oct. 20. It will be interesting to see which one delivers first.

Jim

Anonymous

#21  18 September 2008 - 13:12

 

i just had to google bob carlisle to even know who he was..........:P
a lot of the bands carl pimps i've heard of since the 80's, but have never really been that much into...
but i like carl... :)

beatmenace

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