Mondays are for Final Four Ramblings….

Throwing it hard off the rim

After an unexciting round of 16, the Elite Eight lived up to the hype and gave us some great games this weekend. Villanova’s last second win over Pitt was the highlight of the weekend. Four great teams in Detroit next weekend. I have UNC over Nova, UCONN over Mighigan St. and then a real toss up between the Huskies and the Heels. UNC wins if they can score on the interior. Hansbrough had a hard time scoring against Oklahoma and most of the time he was guarded by the shorter Griffin brother. Tyler will have a huge problem battling the athletic bigs on UConn. The Huskies will win if their guards can score. Price and the freshman from the Bronx (can’t remember his name) have to score and penetrate to punish UNC. My heart says UNC finds a way to win, but my head keeps saying UConn. Let’s go with the heart this time and call it a UNC victory- 72-68. UConn gets us early, UNC rallies to take the lead, pushes it to double figures and UConn rallies to make it close.

Did you see the play where Tyler tried to dunk the ball over Griffin and he ended up throwing it at the hoop from like 4 feet out? That is the funniest play I saw all season. If there was ever a question of Tyler being athletic enough to be a good pro Blake’s domination of him and uberathleticism should remove any lingering suspicion the Tyler’s game will translate well to the NBA.

Kingdom Gardening

This week had two elements of gardening for God that stuck with me.

The Seed’s Mission

In John 12 Jesus tells those who will hear that he has come to be a seed. He has come to die and be buried so that a great harvest can grow from his death. Even though I have read this passage numerous times that idea of taking on the life of a seed had never really stuck with me. It is a powerful image to be a seed. Seeds have a purpose, to be fruitful, but can only do so through their death. We must die to our old lives to see the great harvest of abundant life Christ offers us.

This was the challenge I issued our congregation yesterday, that we intentionally commit to dying to self. We even did some planting of seeds to help us commit and visual this commitment. If we take this idea  step further maybe we can look at the areas of our lives and our churches where we bring forth no harvest and ask ourselves if we are really being planted, if we are giving up control to God and allowing him to bring new life through us. We must die to live. Jesus says it time and time again and yet we have such a hard time with this idea.

At least we find out in this same passage that Jesus did too. He say, “Now my soul is troubled and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Jesus felt the weight of what awaited him in Jerusalem, but he did not turn back. Giving up our lives is no small task, but like Christ we must set our faces towards death and allow God to give us new life instead. We must claim our mission as seeds.

Fertilizing the Branches

In the book Church Unique, which I have been reflecting on for several weeks now, there is an interesting analogy about fertilizing and the church. No, the analogy isn’t about how much fertilizer pastor’s throw around in sermons. Mancini suggests that it is easy for us as pastors to focus on the branches of our ministry instead of the roots. The roots take long sustained growth to build up a great foundation for the future. The branches bear fruit, but without the roots that fruit will be short lived. He suggests that building the redemptive passion of our people is tied into the roots of our ministry, while things like staffing, parking lots, buildings, and programs are the branches.

I am not sure about how well the analogy actually works, but in an effort to focus on what is the highest good, it is appropriate. It is so easy to look at all the easy things to fix and think that if we do those things eventually they will lead to real change in the hearts of our people. This may happen, but if we change the hearts of our people and give them a passion for the lost all of those other things will probably take care of themselves or be realized for the lesser things that they are. As a pastor in a new church that has plenty of branches that need to grow or be pruned I constantly feel this pressure to focus on the easier task with quicker results, but I know that the future of our church is completely tied to our ability to find and live into a redemptive mission in our community.

A better praise band, better website, more permanent worship space and less debt can help us live into our mission but they won’t help us find it. They also won’t prepare us to see that mission or be equipped for it. My prayer is that I will have the courage and determination to dig deeper and grow my understanding of God’s desires for my life so that I can lead others to do the same.