Jims ThirdSpace

Play Well

Ever been to Lego World at Walt Disney Village?  It’s unbelievable.  There are kids everywhere dragging parents along as they build things from piles of legos, and beg parents to buy them another lego “thing”.  There are millions and millions of legos at Lego World.  These kids love to put legos together to make the “thing” on the box, or to make the “thing” that they see in their mind.  They work together, helping each other.

Starting with only pieces, these kids create their “thing” as they connect the pieces together.  Each little piece snapping onto another, interconnecting becoming part of a larger “thing”.  Sharing ideas, excited, laughing and enjoying each other’s company these kids build community, as they build their  “things”.

Tomorrow starts a new year at my church.  We will have a strong emphasis on building community this year.  Community within the walls and community outside the walls.  Building community is all about building relationships.  Bible Study is a great way for people of all ages to learn and develop through relationships.  God wants people to connect with others.  We are going to expect people to connect with members and non-members as they build their “thing”.

We will be looking at our Bible Study groups to see if they are connecting.  Some of the things we will look for are: are people sharing prayer praises and concerns for others, are they talking about how God is working in other people’s lives, are they getting together outside of structured times, are they serving together outside the walls in the community.

We know if someone is in your church for 3 – 6 months and they do not have 2 – 3 relationships they probably won’t be around for long.  A lot of lives depend on the success of our Bible Study legos.

The creator of legos took the first two letters of two Danish words meaning “play well” to come up with the LEGO name.  What he didn’t know was that one meaning of the word LEGO in Latin is “I put together”.  I believe that God wants our Bible Study to function like LEGOS.  Taking all the little pieces, connecting them together to make a bigger “thing”.  Something He will look at and say “I put together”.

Play well friends, someone’s eternity depends on it.

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Tags: Bible Study, legos

A year of living dangerously…

Brief post to confirm that I’m back “on the grid”.  It’s been almost a year of living dangerously, trying to sort things out, hanging in there,  plan B, plan C, no jobs, five part time jobs, believing and living for a God that knows what His timing is and continues to bless and provide for our family.  So from a blogger’s perspective, I’ve been:

But I’m back. Look for my blog postings to be frequent, be things that will make you: laugh, cry, think, worry, be challenged, make you say WHAT?, and hopefully force you to be more engaged as a Believer in the context of the world we live in.  So let the games begin….

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Tags: off the grid

Bucket-List-of-things-to-do-places-to-go-around-Jacksonville.

This is the second posting of my personal bucket list for greater Jacksonville.  I know several people who have gone on Jacksonville’s own “rails-to-trails” and have loved the experience.  I am a casual biker and have thought about doing this many times.  The whole concept of taking abandoned-seldom-used railways and converting them to biking-hiking-walking trails is a no-brainer for those of us concerned with losing greenspace.

Once a part of the CSX railway line, the Jacksonville-Baldwin Rails to Trails is a thoroughfare for hikers, bikers, and equestrian use. The trail system, includes two separate paths: a multi-use asphalt trail for walking, jogging,  in-line skating and/or biking; and a trail for horseback riding.

Along the greenway, you’ll see a diversity of natural habitats, including pine flatwoods, wetlands, and hardwood uplands.  These areas attract a variety of wildlife such as songbirds, hawks, wild turkey, and white-tailed deer.  The dense canopy that covers most of the trail provides shade on a sunny day and, in certain locations, even gives the illusion of traveling in a tunnel.  Several rest areas with benches are provided along the route. You can make your way on this path from sunrise to sunset.

Here is a link to this fun spot: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/gwt/guide/regions/north/trails/jacksonville_baldwin.htm

Take a Saturday and get outside!

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Tags: biking, Bucket List, rails to trails, walking

Local Bucket List

Remember the movie Bucket List, where a couple of guys had a list of things they each wanted to do before they died?  It was a light hearted yet serious movie that encourages you to “cover your bases” and get some things done before you run out of time.

I’m starting a personal Bucket List of things I’d like to do, and places I’d like to go around Jacksonville (within 100 miles).  There are many hidden treasure spots around town that a lot of people don’t know about.  Even for someone like me that has lived in Jacksonville for years, there are some things that I have never gotten around to doing.  Time for a change!  Put it on the list, get-er-done.

I’m going to share one of the things on my list each week, in the hope that if you haven’t been to “my spot” you might consider it as an addition to your person-Bucket-List-of-things-to-do-places-to-go-around-Jacksonville.

Here’s my first: Cumberland Island, Georgia – http://www.nps.gov/cuis/planyourvisit/outdooractivities.htm

How about you?  Share one of your favorite spots-activities you have experienced around Jacksonville.

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Tags: Bucket List, Cumberland Island, day trip, family get-a-way

Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words. – St. Francis Assisi

How about this for a “Sunday song”?

I run from hate, I run from prejudice, I run from pessimists, But I run too late

I run my life, Or is it running me? Run from my past, I run too fast, Or too slow it seems

When lies become the truth, That’s when I run to you

This world keeps spinning faster, To a new disaster, so I run to you, I run to you, Baby

When it all starts coming undone, Baby, you’re the only one I run to, I run to you

We run on fumes, Your life and mine, Like the sands of time, Slippin’ right on through

Our love’s the only truth, That’s why I run to you

This world keeps spinning faster, To a new disaster, so I run to you, I run to you, Baby

When it all starts coming undone, Baby, you’re the only one I run to, I run to you

Oh oh, oh I run to you

This world keeps spinning faster, To a new disaster, so I run to you, I run to you, Baby

When it all starts coming undone, Baby, you’re the only one I run to, I run to you, I run to you, Yeah

Oh oh, oh I run to you, I’ll run to you girl, Oh Oh

I always run to you, Run to you, Run to you

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Tags: connect with your crowd, Lady Antebellum, opening, Run to you, St. Francis Assisi, Sunday Song

Take a chance

“The only way you can reach someone that no one is reaching is to do something that no one is doing.” Craig Groeschel. Why would Andy Stanley think this is a huge statement?  Because it is.

We have to be ready to present an unchanging message in new ways to connect with new people groups.  What are some new people groups that you have been trying to reach this year?  Have you tried to reach the homeless?  Have you tried to reach unwed Moms?  Have you tried to reach webheads? Have you tried to reach the families on your kid’s soccer team?  How about the barrister at Starbucks that knows exactly what you want to drink?  Successful?  How are you trying to share the gospel?  It has been said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results is the definition of insanity.  Are you going crazy, or are you willing to have people call you crazy because you want people to get IT?

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Tags: Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel, message, Take a chance

Mickey D’s on every corner

Have you ever thought that there was a Mickey D’s on every corner of every city in America?  Back in July when we vacation in the mountains of North Carolina, there wasn’t a lot of civilization around, the kind that wee are used to. BUT there was a MacDonalds with Golden Arches and with WIFI.  I went there several times, not to super-size it, but to hook up to the internet.  Below is a picture that has mapped every MacDonalds in the states as a point of light.  In case you get tired counting them, there are over 13,000 points of light. Oh how those arches glow:

No wonder it’s so easy to have it your way.  That’s true unless you live in the Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley.  There, it is 107 miles from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car! You better not be in a McHurry.

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Playing church, being the church

I’m reading a book that is tough for many Christians to accept.  The book is The Shaping of Things to Come, by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.

Frost and Hirsch have taken a lot of heat on the “professional church” front because they challenge many of the things we do when we play church.  They say believers need to be in the world.

Many churches claim to be missional.  They say they are because they are open to lost people, maybe give an invitation, have an outreach program, or MOPS, or a daycare, or community picnics, or Trunk-or-treat.

Early in this book Frost and Hirsch give their definition of what a missional church needs to be.

One of its characteristics is:

“The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology.  By incarnational we mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the gospel.  Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a society in order to be Christ to those who don’t yet know him.”

Are you a part of a missional church?

Does your church do “attracting events” or does your church disassemble itself everyday and seep into the cracks and crevices of our society?

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Tags: church, incarnational, missional

The man in the yellow jersey

The Tour de France just ended this past Sunday.  I love watching the country side, the fans, the bikers and seeing all the RVs lined up along the route.  There is a nomading community that forms and follows the bikers along for the 23 days that the race takes place.

There are several parts of “the race” that I think give us all an inside look at the way a lot of organizations functions.  First there is the peloton. The fast definition of a peloton is, the main body of riders. This is analogous to your organization’s members.  They work together to accomplish the big goal(s), finishing a day’s stage and the ultimate goal of the race finish, but also against each other, as teams within the peloton are trying to accomplish what is best for their specific team, and/or team member.

There usually are one or two standout teams which determine the ebb and flow of the peloton each day.  The standout teams set the pace, and generally lead from the front.  These standout teams relate to the leaders within your organization.  How fast, how slow, how crazy the peloton reacts is governed by these leadership teams.

Each day the person that finishes with the best cumulative time gets to wear the yellow jersey.  This signifies to everyone that he is the leader of the race.  The person that stands on the platform at the end of the day in the yellow jersey is the leader.  Here’s what is ironic about the man in the yellow jersey.  He depends on his team to get him there.  The Tour de France is not an individual event.  It is a team sport.  No one wears the yellow jersey with his team getting him to the front of the pack.  The team protects him from attacks from others in the peloton.  The team creates a wind shield in front of him.  They let him ride on their draft, pulling him along, until the end when he comes dashing to the front, or near the front, but always so he can get on the platform and raise his hands, wearing the yellow jersey.

While the media focus cameras on the yellow jersey.  The people that know biking, know its a team sport, and without those on the team doing a lot of hard work, the man in the yellow jersey wouldn’t be there.

Many teams only last a season.  Some last for years. Those that endure are the ones with mututal respect between the yellow jersey leader, and those on the team.

What kind of leadership do we need?  One with mutual respect that lasts, or one that recognizes only the man in the yellow jersey?

There is always a team behind the man on the platform

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Tags: peloton, tour de France, yellow jersey

Thank you, thank you, thank you

In blogging you’re always looking at your hit count.  How many people are going to your blog?  Are you connecting? Are you scratching an itch?

Of course the numbers get skewed downward by RSS readers, cross over postings that appear as notes on Facebook and other places, but you still watch your hit count.

June was an all time high for my hit count. WOW! It was a great blessing to me. So thank you.

We’re taking a few days away using a family condo at the beach over an extended 4th of July weekend,

but I’ll be back the first of the week, talking about things that I hope are real in your life.  Not theory, not something rehashed from a textbook, but real relationship building, in the world, community relevant stuff.

See you in community, where Jesus needs to be shared.

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Tags: condo, hit count, in community, relevant