Making the Connection

April 22 TCC

I’ve been meaning to tell you how amazed I was on Sunday morning by Alex Rodriguez and Rene. We had our team meeting on Saturday night, which by the way, I thought was incredible, and I mentioned that Zak and I were going to try and get to the school early on Sunday mornings at 6:30 to start tearing down the tables and get ready for setup. So of course, I woke up at around 5:45 that morning and rushed to get there by 6:30 to beat Zak. When I showed up 5 minutes late, Alex and Rene were already there waiting on us. Unbelievable. Those guys blow me away! So, I’m dubbing them the prestigious "Freaks of the Week"!

Check out the pics to see more of what happened on Sunday.

I hate spam! Don’t you? I’m not sure how it happens, but I get totally bombarded with spam about products I don’t need. There are the warning emails that scare you to death. The “my husband just died and I need to give you his billions of dollars” emails. And then there are the funny emails.  I don’t think people realize the power of the “send” button. Today, we can get the word out literally across the world in a few clicks. It’s a viral thing. That’s the way our message should be “viral.” We can use the same power that sends all that useless junk to our inbox for good rather then to waste time. How? Send out an evite from our website to let people know what God is up to at TCC.

Today, Zak shared an article with me about how to avoid getting so much spam. One reader made these suggestions that I’ve put in italics. We thought it was funny because it sounds like this reader wants to hide from anyone who wants to send him email. These ideas also apply to the way most Christians like to keep “the world” at arms length and avoid getting dirt on their hands and live a comfortable, safe life. Warning: my responses are meant to be sarcastic.

TIPS TO AVOID SPAM:

1. Create an email account that is “impossible” to guess. Nothing is really impossible, it’s just a matter of time. But the more difficult it is to guess your email address, the less likely you are to get spam.

In the Christian life, we do this all the time. We speak our own language that is impossible to translate. By the time they figure out our Christianese, they are much less likely to come to Christ. Churches even name themselves in ways to keep out the unchurched. Some of my favorite examples are: Send The Light of Fargo Baptist Church, Holy Three-In-One Lutheran Church, Fakes Chapel United Methodist Church, and my favorite, Believers United Christian Fellowship (who’s that church for, I wonder?).

2. Don’t share your email address with anyone who uses Windows. This may be extreme, but infected Windows machines are the greatest source of email addresses used for spam lists.

And whatever you do, don’t share your life with people who aren’t Christ-followers. Infected sinners are the greatest source of impurity.

3. Advise everyone you communicate with by email that they should not include you in any mailing lists of stupid jokes, videos, or anything else, or you will block all email from them.

Advise everyone you communicate with they should not waste your time with the things that they’re interested in. After all, it’s all about you. And you are much too holy to be tainted by them.

You might create some bruised egos with the last two suggestions, but if people are going to be good net citizens, they need to learn what is and isn’t appropriate, and be punished when it’s not. They can’t say you didn’t warn them beforehand.

You might never lead anyone to a relationship with Christ by following these suggestions, but hey, at least you’ll feel good about yourself.

Okay, so I’m overreacting a bit, but let’s get real. Even with all the hassles of email, I still check it regularly and try to respond. Sure, some of it is worthless, but we’re able to use it as a tool to communicate with the people we care about.

The same thing is true for us as Christ-followers. We can’t isolate and insulate ourselves, as tempting as that might be. We need to be on the front lines and get our hands dirty. That’s where life-change happens. And if we care about people, we’ll do whatever we can to clearly communicate the message of God’s love. Without spam!

We had Connection 101: Discovering Church Membership this afternoon. The office was packed out with 13 incredible people checking out what TCC is all about. This class was especially cool. I love the way we start the class by finding out what brought people to TCC in the first place and what brought them back. For most people, it was an invitation of a friend that brought them to begin with. Why do they come back? Great preaching! No, not usually. It’s mostly the way they were welcomed and accepted. I love this church. And, after 101, we have a lot of new family members to carry on the mission of being the place where you are loved. When you see these new faces, let ‘em know you’re glad they’re part of the family.

Friday night, Pam and I went to see the Delirium arena show for Pam’s birthday. Aside from the nosebleed seats, it was awesome. Without a doubt, the best "circus" I’ve ever seen. The 26 letters can’t describe the visual experience. They pulled out all the stops and provided some amazing performances. I was inspired and challenged with what can be done with the arts. The music was rockin’ and the band was featured center stage with some really hooky songs. As for the show/plot, it was unintelligible. All we could figure was Delirium meant that it was supposed to be some kind of nutty dream.

And there’s the rub. It always amazes me how people can go to great lengths to communicate basically nothing. While, many churches are content to take the most mind-blowing message and put no effort into creative communication. Jesus never did it that way. His teaching was compelling, and many times he added a visual device to help the message stick. That’s why we do what we do every week during our celebration services. I’m looking forward to this Sunday, when we’re going to add a new element to the teaching. I’ll see you there.

It started innocently enough. I don’t remember my first drink. But over time, the Dr. Pepper took control. Those 23 flavors blended to create that sweet concoction that helped me hang on. In fact, other liquids rarely made it past my lips. I estimate I was doing around a 6 pack a day on average, depending on my activity and stress level. Yes, I was a fully devoted Pepper. I’m almost positive one of those 23 ingredients must have been a drug similar in potency to cocaine. It was the first thing I’d go for in the morning and the last thing I’d have before bed.

The funny thing is, the caffiene seemed to have no adverse affect on my ability to sleep. I was also never hungry. I was always full on DP. I hated it when I would travel outside of Texas where it’s so much harder to find. In fact, it was unthinkable to me that it wasn’t found everywhere, water fountains included.

I had tried to quit many times, but with little success. I decided to stop thinking of it as a reward, and instead consider it the enemy. You might say, why not just drink diet DP? I would almost rather drink anything else.

I had my last drink last year, December 31, 2006. Okay, there was the time a few weeks ago at the movies when I had the Mr. Pibb, but that’s hardly the same. It’s been 108 days, 21 hours and 9 minutes since my last drink. But who’s counting?