Dropbox Invites

UPDATE V on 9/19/08:  Don’t know why but they gave me 5 more invites.  They may be easier to find now, but if you want one, post a comment and I’ll send it.

UPDATE IV:  No More Invites.

UPDATE III:  I have 1 more invite left, so first come first served.

UPDATE II:  I have only 2 invites left if anyone is interested, just comment.

UPDATE:  I have 4 invites left so if you stop by feel free to comment, and I’ll send it immediately (8/17/08)

I’m currently testing out one of the coolest ways I’ve yet seen to keep my files synced across computers.  It’s called Dropbox.  It’s still in beta testing mode, and is invite only, but it is well worth trying if you can get an invite.  I managed to scrounge one up, and I currently have 9 invites to give out.  If you’re interested, look up Dropbox, research its magic, and comment here with your e-mail address, and the first 9 that are interested I’ll send out an invite to.  If I already have your e-mail address just ask for it, and I’ll send it.  Follow the link in the invite to set it up, and then give it a try.  It may be a real lifesaver for me working between work and home computers.  No more e-mails to myself, zip drives, etc.  Very fast, almost instant synching.  And almost failsafe backups.  Give it a try, you may enjoy it!

What’s the Deal?

What’s the deal with Peter Ruckman?  Why is he so fascinating?  I admit I’ve been drawn in a little bit from time to time.  It’s like a wreck on the side of the highway, we just can’t help but take a look.  If you don’t know who he is, be careful, curiosity may draw you in as well.  WordPress has a blog stats page that let’s you know some scant information about how people access your blog.  What links got them there.  What searches people used to find a certain post.  No matter what else may be read on this blog, EVERY SINGLE DAY someone searches for Peter Ruckman and stumbles onto a couple of posts I wrote about him.  Really. Every day.

Is it the strange, almost cult like beliefs he has about the King James Bible?  Is it the harsh, diminutive, really abusive tone he often uses to criticize others?  No one ever leaves a comment, which always leaves me wondering if they are searching for information because they agree with him, find some commonality between themselves and him, or whether they are just curious about the sheer oddity of the man’s teaching and manner?  

Sometimes the searches are hilarious.  Someone will do something like go to google and type in “i hate peter ruckman,” or “peter ruckman idiot.”  Sometimes it’s a little milder.  Just “Peter Ruckman” or “Ruckman.” From what I’ve seen, I could really up my blog stats if I would just daily do a post about Peter Ruckman. Sooo, got to keep the rubber neckers happy.  Here’s another Peter Ruckman post.

Prayer Time Perils

A friend of mine from seminary is the Small Groups Pastor at the Church we attended (he obviously still goes there).  His blog recently reminded me of what Sunday School/Small Groups/Home Groups/Whatever Words You Call It, prayer times can be like.  AND, more importantly what they should be like.  Take a peek and ponder how small group prayer time functions in your church.  The pitfalls are well outlined in his post, and he offers some very practical and working suggestions for making it more about prayer and less about talking about prayer.  I’ve been in both.  I much prefer more prayer and less sharing about prayer.  

My 90 year old friend from Little Mountain, and one other man later in years, meet every Sunday morning to pray before Sunday School.  I guess you could say it’s a small group?  We talk for about 2 minutes, and then hit the ground on our knees (you really ought to see two elderly men on their knees before God, and one 30 year old who they can kneel circles around).  The time is intimate, both between the 3 of us and before God.  We stand up (me rather shakily) and are energized for what lies ahead that morning.  I could not function on Sundays without this time.  I’ve had to from time to time, and there is a clear difference.  

I would encourage every small group of whatever name designation to do more praying and less talking about praying.  You will find it will make a tangible difference in the life of your group, and in your own life personally.

A $100 Icy

Today I was craving an icy.  I regularly do in the summertime.  Those great gas station concoctions.  I pulled into a fuel city in a rush, and of course on the phone.  I got out with the phone still in my hand and on my way into the gas station I was throwing away a drink cup from lunch.  The phone was in the same hand.  You can see where this is going, right?  Of course it couldn’t land on some fluffy trash at the top of the can, but instead dropped like a lead balloon straight to the bottom of the big, nasty can.  At first I didn’t realize what just happened, but it dawned quickly enough and so I start digging through gas station trash! When I finally get to the bottom of the can, there is the phone in a pool of some sort of liquid (I’ll tell myself it was water).  

So I get the phone out, and rush to the bathroom, already in a hurry b/c my wife is heading out to a ladies night at a local church with some of our church’s ladies, and I’m baby sitter for the night.  I disgustedly wipe it off with paper towels (the rough brown, rolled out ones).  I don’t know protocol for a water damaged phone so I do what I came to find out was the wrong thing.  I start pushing lots of buttons, trying to turn it on and off, etc.  The screen starts flashing and goes blank.  

I buy my icy for a $1.40, and wait in line for it for probably 3 hours it felt like.  Then I rush home thinking, “I’ll just plug it back in and wait for a charge to come back.”  Searching the net for similar experiences, while trying to feed my 8 month old, make my 2 year old eat, and sort of eating myself, I discover that I’ve done exactly the wrong thing.  You should take the battery out immediately, leave everything uncovered, drying any water you see, and leave it off while the components dry out.  If you’re lucky it will come back on.  My iPod did after a dip in the bathtub.  

I run back to the phone and after removing the cover I notice a pungent smell.  Like hot tires, and hear a slight hissing sound like eggs frying.  ”This is not good!  Not good at all,” I think.  So I call Verizon, of course I have no insurance, and they empathetically tell me there’s nothing they can do.  My only option is to purchase a new phone.  This one is less than 2 months old, but I used my upgrade discount on it, paying $100 (it’s the new Palm Centro for Verizon).  

So after all of this mess, I borrowed my dad’s old Motorola Rzr (which I’d sworn off Motorola after bad battery experiences with the Q).  I’m waiting until my wife gets home to activate it, and hoping and praying that my Centro will come back on in a day or two.  I did try again, and the phone came on, only with no screen.  So it’s not completely dead, maybe?  So today, long story short, I paid $101.40 for an icy, and to top it all off;  It wasn’t even that good.  Not solid enough in its texture.  Friends, the moral of this story is don’t throw things away with the same hand you’re holding anything important in.  AND, when you’re in a hurry to get home don’t stop for an icy.

Vacation Post Edit! (Sorry)

A few of you clicked onto the link I gave for the family blog my wife updates.  It was the wrong blog!  Sorry. Here’s the link to the correct one!

The End of My Friend’s Cancer?

One of my dearest friends at Little Mountain (the church I pastor) is a 90 year old retired pastor.  He’s truthfully, without a doubt, the MOST loving man I have ever met.  He’s a firm believer that God always heals when we pray in faith.  Let me explain it with some caveats, however, b/c he is no health/wealth guy.  When we pray in faith, God will heal, but in His words, “I don’t tell Him how to do it.”  What he means is that if someone is deathly sick, God will heal them in their current body to restored health OR God will heal them by delivering them from this body of death and into His open and receptive arms.  Either way, the person is healed!  Very good way of looking at things.

Today I got preliminary reports that another dear friend of mine is “molecularly cancer free.”  He’s only about 28, has a wife and a brand new baby, and several months ago he was diagnosed with Leukemia. Hundreds or more have been praying that God would choose to heal him of this, allowing his wife not to be widowed, and his baby girl not to be paternally orphaned.  He’s gone through the chemo and radiation, and has been awaiting a bone marrow transplant.  His story is long and winding.  Today he is heading to UNC to be consulted about his bone marrow transplant, but before going he was scanned again to see how things had progressed.  

My wife just received a call from his wife saying that the doctors could find NO evidence of any cancer anywhere in his body!  Just like that we cautiously say, “God healed Him.”  We rejoice today at this, and continue to pray that there will be no relapse, no more disease eating his immune system alive.  He will still have the marrow transplant as a precaution, but I ask that if you read this you rejoice with this young, faithful family.  They have suffered emotionally in ways I can’t really imagine, but have suffered well.  Most importantly they have suffered in a way that brings great glory to God.  

Continue to pray for Cam Wooten, his wife Lynn, and their little baby girl Myla.  They mean the world to us and we believe, with my 90 year old friend, that God chose this way to heal him.  He won’t always.  We’ll selfishly cling to Cam now, b/c it appears that he may be around just a while longer!

The End of Vacation…

Is something akin to the day all the Christmas decorations come down.  For the moments they were up Christmas was still in season, like the feeling of being on vacation.  Taking down the decorations is like the ride home from, in our case the beach.  Once you start you’re on a mission to just do it as quickly as possible, get it over with, and try to move on.  But there’s always a few days of pure letdown.

This vacation was one, like many, I didn’t want to end.  For one week, I actually relaxed.  I actually focused on my family completely.  In case you really know me or my family, and are interested, stop by the family blog my wife keeps up from time to time.  There’s few memorable quotes from my 2 year old, and some other reflections.

BUT, as I rode back to Spartanburg today, I could feel all the weight of the coming month slowly begin to build.  It’s not a bad thing.  It’s my life.  My calling.  I love the work of the ministry.  By Wednesday, I’ll be back in full swing again.  But I’ll keep all the precious memories of the time undivided with my family stored away to think on in the coming months.  Yes vacation is over, but like Lot’s wife, there’s no time to look back.  Don’t want to become a pillar of salt (or sand as the case may be for us).

Pastor Salaries (or I stand naked before you all)

Have you ever had the “naked” dream?  The one where you show up somewhere public only to realize that you must have forgotten to put any clothes on?  I had it for the first time as a pastor a few weeks ago.  I was, for some reason only my dream knows, sitting in the back of the church as the worship service began.  Nothing abnormal, nothing out of the ordinary besides that.  The music starts up and all the kids and youth go into the aisles and start some broadway dance looking number.  I realize I need to get up to preach just after the song, and so I’m going to sneak outside and go back in through a side door near the platform.  As I get outside, I walk past a glass window, it’s sunny outside, and so I see my reflection and realize I’ve got pants on, but I have NO shirt on at all.  Not much else to the dream, really, except that in that moment you feel very exposed to the church.

I guess that it feels somewhat the same to be in the ministry and have a publicly known salary.  By no means am I complaining.  In fact I understand why some churches would want to publish the salaries of their pastor.  My church takes good care of me, and my family is not in need.  So it is not a shame thing.  I guess maybe it’s more a privacy thing.  It takes a little getting used to, having people who know and pay your salary through their tithes.  From time to time there are comments about it.  Never a comfortable thing.  And as budget time rolls around, there is the unenviable position of being on the same finance committee that deals with salary.

Of course you don’t ask for a raise.  But what about a deduction?  What does a pastor say when someone on the committee recommends this?  (This has not happened to me by the way, I can simply imagine how it would feel).  They would be put in the ugliest of ugly positions.  No person in any job in the world wants to have their salary lowered, and no person would say a word if an employee put up a fight about it.  But what would they say if a pastor did not want someone to lower his salary?  “He’s not spiritual.  He’s in it for the money.  If he cared about God’s work he’d do it no matter what the pay.”

People REALLY think this way.  I’ve not seen it in the church I pastor thankfully.  I believe in my heart they desire to care for the pastor and family.  But I’ve certainly heard stories.  There are many ways a pastor feels exposed (READ: NAKED) before the congregation, preaching the chief among them.  But the most uncomfortable one has to be everyone reading your salary.  The Good:  It keeps you on your toes and accountable.  The Bad:  You always feel the need to overwork to justify the salary you do make.  It’s an odd world to live in, but if God calls, you go.  Even if you forget to put your shirt on.

Turning it Off or Not Bringing it Home

One of the most unmanageable parts of being a pastor is being able to separate “work” from “home.”  I wonder what it might be like to work a job where when it’s time to go home, I do not think about my job until I go back again the next day.  Where my conversations at home do not revolve around what is happening at work.  Where the most intimate conversation my wife and I have is not about a new idea for ministry, a nagging problem with ministry, or anything that relates to ministry.

I have not found it easy to to turn it off.  I do not know how to get my mind to stop thinking about it.  There are short reprieves from day to day.  Little periods of time where something else takes over my thoughts for a bit.  Then something intrudes again into my thoughts, and I immediately feel the weight of it come upon me.  And it IS a weight, abeit not a bad one.

The only tip that has given me any ability at all to keep from letting ministry consume me is the knowledge that God can do this without me.  In the big scheme of things I am not really necessary for the ongoing survival of the church!  God has that covered.  It is that day to day revelation that keeps me sane.  The fate of the church I pastor is not me.  When I remember that, I allow myself the down time to think of other things, but make no mistake I have to force myself to remember it.

I would be interested in knowing how other pastors deal with this most likely universal issue.  What do they do to attempt to just let it go from time to time?  If you are in the ministry what do you do?  What advice would you give a young pastor?  Even if you are a young pastor what advice have you been given?  Has it worked?  I suppose if you’re going to work yourself to an early grave there are much worse occupations to do so in.

Sleeping Alone: Our Selfishness Revealed in Marriage

This entire week I’ve slept alone.  Not to worry, it’s not because my wife and I have been fighting, because we hate each other, or in any way because we want to.  I’ve been sick and contagious and she can’t afford to catch it, and then pass it on to our two girls.  So she slept on the couch, while I wrestled with the bed.  Don’t be a hater, I’m 6′4 and she’s only about 5′6 so she fits there fine.  Some people would enjoy this mini-separation.  In fact, a little over 5 years ago before I was married, I would have enjoyed it too.

Before I got married I had a king sized bed all to myself, and I used it, the whole thing.  I slept in the very middle, or on any side I felt like sleeping on.  I got all the covers to myself.  All the pillows to myself.  All 800 square feet of the giant bed I had was mine (technically my parents, but you know what I mean).  So I came into marriage somewhat apprehensive about learning to sleep with someone else in the bed.  Would she sleep on my side?  Would she kick me, punch me, elbow me, knee me?  Would she steal the covers while I sleep?  Would she snore (she doesn’t)?

If you noticed, or if not I’ll tell you, all of those apprehensive questions I had revolved around one thing; ME.  In fact, most of my life revolved around me.  All the questions I had about life centered on, you guessed it, me.  My needs.  My desires.  My well-being.  My perceived happiness.  Even God’s will revolved around me.  My former pastor once told me that the thing he looked forward to the most about marriage was now there were two people to make him happy;  Himself and His wife.  That was for all intents and purposes my view too.  As selfish as it sounds, you probably thought that way to some extent too.

Somewhere in the first few months after our wedding, after I’d kicked her, elbowed her nose, stole the covers off of her, slept all over her side of the bed, and gotten a few sinus infections, I began to learn that marriage reveals something about me that I probably knew but didn’t much want to face.  I was selfish.  Very selfish.  World shatteringly selfish.  And little by little God began to break me of that selfishness (He began it, but it won’t be finished until Christ returns, by the way).  He began to teach me about Himself, myself, and my wife.

I learned that a real man and husband is not first concerned with his own needs, desires, and general well-being.  He is first concerned with (after God) his wife’s.  What does she need?  What does she want?  What will give her a sense of well-being?  As a Christian, I saw that I have the mind of Christ, and that having that means I think Christ-like thoughts.  What is one of the biggest traits that characterized the earthly ministry of Jesus?  Self-lessness and humility (See Philippians 2).  He is my model, as well as my empowerer.

If you will let it, outside of raising children, marriage is one of the greatest God-given means for seeing yourself as you really are, and teaching you that the world does not revolve around you.  So how has all this changed me (knowledge without life change is just trivia)?  Many ways, but let’s get back to one minor one.  I sleep differently now.  Having had a King sized bed (not the same one but incidentally given to us by my parents) all to myself for the entire week, I woke up every morning in the same place;  The side of the bed I fell asleep on.  I don’t enjoy sleeping alone anymore.  I miss my wife, even though we stay on “our sides.”  I just miss her being there.  I’m no perfect husband by any stretch of the imagination.  Just ask my wife.  I simply realize I’m fatally flawed and bent towards myself, and am willing to let God change me through my marriage.  If your marriage hasn’t changed you then what are you refusing to see about yourself?