2007 All-Church Retreat
This past weekend, Carolyn and I attended the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville Annual All-Church Retreat at Camp Johnsonburg.
We arrived early on Friday in order to avoid rush hour traffic on the way there. This enabled us to choose our room in the lodge (a good move) and to sit in outdoor lounge chairs when everybody else arrived. Most of the group arrived in time for dinner Friday night, followed by tie-dying preparation. Friday night itself was hot and muggy and sleeping was not easy.
Saturday was lovely but still a bit humid. We started the day with breakfast. Carolyn and I were both signed up for Low Ropes (group building and personal challenge activities near ground level). We both participated in the first two activities (marshmallows on the dangerous Chocolate River – get the group across, and untying human knots while balancing on a teeter platform). At that point anybody participating in the Leap of Faith had to leave in order to get there. Carolyn continued with Low Ropes and did some challenge exercises like walking a steel cable balancing with a rope and crossing a series of tire swings.
Here we are crossing the dangerous chocolate river on floating marshmallows. I’m the one in the green shirt and Carolyn is right behind me. I’ve mentioned Jill Cifelli here a number of times – she’s the woman in gray standing in line.
The Leap of Faith is a zip line suspended above a low spot in the trail – forming a bit of a valley. Somehow the Ropes course staff managed to run 30 of the 35 people signed up through in the morning. I helped out (as a former staffer always will) by being the person who unhooked the last participant and running the zip line back to the top of the hill. For this activity I was rewarded with praise and sweat (lots of sweat).
After lunch on Saturday we finished tie-dying and I got my chance on the Leap.
This is me in flight.
This is me waiting to be unhooked. (A thought bubble would say “Hurry up – this harness is giving me a serious wedgie!”)
It cannot be taken more than one pill in 24hours in this manner you can also save money. sildenafil canada online Talent appraisal for organizational development is the major focus of training programs. “A get viagra man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Missed dose If you have missed your dose , take the tablet as soon as you face this disorder immediately viagra shop consult your respective doctor for the treatment of erectile dysfunction is recommended as he would guide you properly as to what should be done while having the medicine, what safety and preventive measures should be taken. 100mg tablets of viagra Both their person life and professional are disturbed. After the Leap I assisted with the kids who were doing High Ropes. The High Ropes course is run between trees about 20-30 feet off the ground. You have a choice of starting with a “helicopter”-style ladder and then crossing a steel cable using a guide cable or the harder option of crossing on a cable using ropes as handholds. The other option is to climb an inclined ladder to a platform, and then crossing more cables and wooden boxes to the final platform. Both starts lead to a zip line at the end. Our church is apparently populated by monkeys – the kids did the High Ropes course mainly with no fear and very quickly.
Between all of the Ropes activities we only had 3 refusals – one very small girl who didn’t do the Leap, and a boy and a girl who didn’t complete (or start in one case) the High Ropes. I add myself to the list – having done it 20 years ago as a counselor I had no interest at all in doing the High Ropes.
Saturday after dinner, we made banners depicting our concepts of faith and God that will hang in the Fellowship Center at church. After that, the traditional campfire complete with S’mores.
Saturday night sleeping was easier due to lower temperatures.
Sunday morning after breakfast we had worship outdoors by the waterfront. One of the parents in the group played a carved flute and pan pipes for the Prelude and Postlude. The rest of the service was run by a family that directed music, our Director of Children’s Ministries, and one of the Interim Associate for Pastoral Ministry folks (she’s also my new co-chair of the task force). Worship was nice, and ended just before the rain started.
It rained the rest of Sunday morning, and after lunch we headed on home.
It was a nice weekend. I was more relaxed than usual as a result, and I’m having a tough time with “re-entry” into the work world today.
One thing that was a bit odd was that Carolyn and I were the only family without kids. I believe that this retreat used to be the “Family Retreat” and in recent years has been the “All-Church” retreat. It was a little easier for us than it could have been – we both like kids and since we’ve been doing work with the youth group we were familiar to many of the parents. I did get to meet about 15 families that I didn’t know (or know well) before. Hopefully the retreat will attract more younger singles or couples without kids in the future.
I tried to serve as a goodwill ambassador (a title vested on me by one of the parents) for the camp to the church. There were two of the youth that I tried to recruit for the camp’s Leadership Training Program and it looks like one might consider it (the other isn’t old enough yet). I hope they do – they’d both make great Johnsonburgers. I only hope that I wasn’t too pushy – Carolyn’s opinion is that I went right up to the line and didn’t cross it.
Today I’m pooped and a bit sore (there are a few muscles that don’t get used that often) but still more relaxed than usual.
Need Help – Invitational culture and evangelism
I need your help.
The Task Force on Welcome and Outreach that I mentioned previously will be meeting soon (later this month, probably). We’d like to come up with 5-8 books on our topic for the team members to read this summer and report back to the group. This is part 1 of the education phase.
Our charter calls for surveying visitors on their visit experience, surveying the community for their impressions of the church and spiritual needs, and then making recommendations to the session. The recommendations are supposed to cover creating a culture of hospitality and invitational evangelism.
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Do you have any book suggestions? I have a handle on what it feels like to BE a visitor, but I’m really stuck on how to survey the community. Books on invitational evangelism and books on a culture of hospitality would be very useful.
Thanks for your help! Please leave suggestions in the comments. If you can’t get the comments to work, e-mail me at the address behind the link in the left-hand menu.
Being A New Member – A 6-month checkin
About 8 months ago, I wrote Church – A New Chapter, in which I announced that I was beginning the new member process for joining the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville (NJ). I actually joined 2 months later. That makes this about the 6-month anniversary.
Time for a report card. I’ll stick with my hopes and fears from 6-8 months ago.
The overall grade is B+. The church has come to feel like home, and I often refer to it with the same feeling that I would use to refer to my family. There are some things that could be better, and I haven’t completely settled in yet. The details are really long, so they continue below (those reading on the site itself will need to click the link below).
Whoosh! and a question on calls
Whoosh!
That’s the noise that I probably made getting through all that I had to do this weekend.
Saturday, the Youth Sunday rehearsal ran long. I was at church from 10:30am to 2:30pm. I was completely impressed with the youth. The 3 seniors who delivered the sermon hit the message perfectly and needed very little tweaking. The rest of the crew adapted to their jobs quite easily. I’ll write more on this later.
Sunday was Youth Sunday. I was the usher-herder. I also had to get prepared for the Adult Forum afterwards and eat breakfast. Everything was a rush. The service went great, and as I said above I’ll write more later.
After the service I had to run away from the youth and go finish setting up for the adult forum. I was the 1st speaker of 3 – covering the biblical basis for environmental stewardship. I think it went well (nobody came up and said that I did a good job, but they seemed to be paying attention).
After that, I ran home and had exactly 30 minutes to eat lunch, shower and change to go to the opera with Carolyn. We saw Rigoletto in Trenton. I’ll write a whole blog post on that for you. The opera was good – the lead soprano was amazing.
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Last week sometime, in my way over-churched haze, I remember having a dream one night. I don’t remember what the dream was about, but I do remember one snippet.
I was involved in something at church. My current pastor passed me a note (it wasn’t during a service or meeting or anything – he just handed me a note as we met standing up somewhere). The note said something like “Be sure to listen for a Call.”
Now I realize that I’ve recently become re-involved in the church, and that I’m a likely candidate for over-enthusiasm. If you remember my story, once upon a time I was deciding between Computer Science and Religion as my college major. Due to some unhappy church-related events Computer Science became my major, and Religion my minor. I honestly believed going into college that I might be headed for seminary.
The only word I’ve ever heard encouraging this came more recently. I told my current Youth Director (under whom I work as a Youth Advisor) my personal faith story. He asked if I’d consider seminary now. I told him that I’ve only been back a year or even a few months (depending on how you count) and that besides – I’m a bit too used to my current income level.
I don’t know what this dream means, but it is intriguing. Is this a message? Is it just the product of doing too much church in too short a time period?
So here’s my question to the professionals out there. Would you be willing to tell me (here in the comments, in e-mail, or even on your blog) what your Call was like? When did you know that you were being called to the ministry?
Busy Week
Here’s my crazy schedule for the rest of the week.
Wednesday – 6:30 – 8:30pm – Youth Sunday rehearsal
Thursday – 6pm – 10pm – Trenton Titans playoff game
Friday – 6:30pm – 10:30pm – Trenton Titans playoff game (if they win Thursday)
Saturday – 10:30am – 1pm – Youth Sunday rehearsal
Then Sunday:
8:45am – leave for church
9am – 9:30am – set up for Earth Day adult forum
9:30am – be adult shepherd for ushers for Youth Sunday
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11am-ish – as soon as the service is over, run directly to the lounge
11:15am – be the speaker for the 1st 15 minutes of the Earth Day adult forum
Noon – Adult Forum ends, go home
1:30pm – leave for opera (Boheme Opera – Rigoletto)
1:45pm – pre-curtain talk (always worth the time)
3pm – 6pm – opera
6:30pm – come home, collapse
Unfortunately, I have to miss the post-Youth Sunday service lunch with all participants in order to do the Earth Day presentation.
Welcome, Rev. Mary Alice Lyman
The Rev. Mary Alice Lyman was Called by the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville (NJ) yesterday to fill the Associate Pastor position. The congregational vote (by secret ballot) was unanimous!
If you are experiencing Erectile Dysfunction, buy levitra online you are not alone. Indian government has one of the downtownsault.org viagra no prescription strictest regulations when it comes to ED, it is not often to blame. It is not a serious medical condition, and can be resolve by using various kinds of skin treatments like laser, chemical peel, Dermamelan and Cosmelan, downtownsault.org viagra order uk Hydra-Facials etc. This condition is generally faced by women when they pharmacy on line viagra usually have sex with male partner or have recently given a birth to a new baby. Of course, the Presbyterian system has lots of hurdles and there is one remaining. She will appear before presbytery in June.
Welcome aboard! I look forward to seeing you again once you completely arrive in July!
NOT to committee, at least not this one
I got a call last night on the answering machine from a member of the Stewardship committee. This was my “contact later” mentioned in the letter from the pastor. (I blogged this previously here).
I called her back today.
I started off by mentioning the fact that my pastor had sent me a separate e-mail talking about another initiative that he’d like to speak to me about. That initiative – which deals with visitors, seekers, and the perception of the church in the community – is a much better fit for me. It falls right in line with my personal experience, my retreat experience, and some of the things that I’ve written for this blog (which is apparently what brought me to his attention in the first place). He also specifically mentioned that I should choose either this new initiative or the stewardship committee, but not both – in order to avoid “new member overinvolvement” syndrome.
Then I mentioned my concerns about last year’s stewardship campaign (detailed in my blog post referenced above). I also listed the good that I took from last fall’s campaign and how I increased my pledge 25% above my original plan based on one speaker’s message about taking risks knowing that God will provide.
She explained that they plan to use Herb Miller’s Consecration Sunday program for next year’s campaign, and that they are trying to get the focus from keeping the church heated to giving what you are called to give. I agree that this is the correct tack to take when it comes to stewardship. However, I’m not sure that I’m a good fit. The last thing that I want is to be the lone voice of dissent no matter how valuable that might be to the committee. Remember – I’ve only been a member for 6 months.
I’d also like to see some concentration on the gift of time and talents rather than just money. Based on my committee work here thus far, it seems that the congregation suffers from the usual church disease – a small number of people do a lot of the work.
I really believe that the other “visitor/seeker” initiative is a better fit for me because:
- It’s something that I’m really passionate about
- Working on it doesn’t necessarily require knowing lots of other members
- It’s more focused on giving to individuals rather than taking/accepting from them (I put my youth group work in this category too)
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I think the way that we left it is that I’m not interested in the Stewardship committee. I’m hoping that my feedback will be well received (it was clearly heard and understood).
As for the other initiative – Tuesday will tell (next Tuesday, that is).
While I was dreading this phone call, I think it went well.
——————————–
In other news, my blood pressure is acting up. I got refused by the blood center for a platelet donation last night because my BP was too high. They tend to get a higher reading than the doctor every time (probably because I go to them straight from work and straight from the highway), but I checked at home this time and it really was that high. I have a physical scheduled for later this week anyway. I’ve been on medication for high BP for over 10 years, but maybe my body has adjusted and they need to up the dosage. We’ll see. Mom’s BP has been all over the place (from normal to very high) for years, so I guess I inherited a problem.
Youth Group Comedy
Last night, the youth group started off by attending the Taize service for Wholeness and Healing at the church. This service involved annointing.
Afterwards, the youth group got back together for a quick meeting to go over Youth Sunday which is coming up.
Comedy #1:
Youth Director: So, what did you think about the service? What did you like?
Freshman Girl: It was short, and there wasn’t a sermon.
Comedy #2:
We’re listing the parts of the worship service to get ready for planning Youth Sunday.
We’re all yelling out parts of the service:
Somebody: Assurance of Pardon
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Scribe Girl: writes “Insurance of Pardon”
Youth Director: I like that! Leave it.
(At this point I leaned over to another adult and asked “Does that make the Offering an Insurance Premium?”)
Scribe Girl: (embarrassed) changes it to Assurance
Youth Director: “Insurance of Pardon”, what does that mean?
Scribe Girl’s Older Brother: It means my sister needs a helmet!
Gotta love siblings.
(It probably didn’t help much that we’d already had ice cream at this point.)
Church membership dwindling? Move to where the people are!
The Trinity Lutheran Church of Lincoln, IA had dwindled from 250 members to just 13 members. A decision was made to close the congregation. However, there was a strong pull to preserve the historic church building.
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This site chronicles the move. This site is about the filming of the move for National Geographic Channels “Monster Moves” TV program.
Per Capita Games
I got another letter from church (Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville) today.
This one is from the Clerk of Session. The session decided to ask the members to pay their per capita separate from their pledge in order to save the budget $18,000. We were given an envelope in which to return the $22 per household person who is a member of the church (including confirmed children).
Here’s the interesting part. Per capita for New Brunswick Presbytery in 2007 is $21.24. I found that out from the presbytery website.
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I will give the session the benefit of the doubt for making the amount easy to write and multiply out. It’s also a tricky way to pay for the cost of sending out these letters (at 75 cents per member, that’s about $600).
I paid $21.24.
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