the life of Christ written across the pages of the Old Testament

Deuteronomy 21:23

“Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse…”

I read this the other day and thougth – wow – can I find more… more of the life of Christ in the Old Testament…so I began my search.

I believe every day of Christ’s life He knew a narrow road – a road of suffering for you and I was ahead of Him.  To my amazement (and perhaps yours)  the Old Testament is full of detail – in fact more detail than what is in the New Testament. In fact – the New Testament the actual death, the actual crucifixtion is described only in 4 verses.

1. Matthew 27:35
2. Mark 15:24
3. Luke 23:33
4. John 19:18

The actual description we are given in church and told about comes from the Old Testament – as well as the wounds pointed out – After Jesus had been Resurrected.

So I go on my search …

• He will be scorned and mocked – Psalm 22:7
• Soldiers will gamble for His clothing – Psalm 22:18
• None of His bones shall be broken – Psalm 34:20
• He will be accused by false witnesses  – Psalm 35:11
• He will be betrayed by a friend – Psalm 41:9
• He will be given vinegar mixed with gall to drink – Psalm 69:21
• He will pray for His enemies – Psalm 109:4
• He will be spit on – Isaiah 50:6
• He will be rejected by His own people – Isaiah 53:3
• He will be silent when accused – Isaiah 53:7
• He will be buried in a rich man’s tomb – Isaiah 53:9
• He will be crucified with criminals – Isaiah 53:12
• He will be sold for 30 pieces of silver – Zechariah 11:12

Christ while on the cross recited Psalm 22 vs 7

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Interestingly enough – the chapter of Psalm 22 seems to show David was given a divine insite into the death of our Savior.  Some scholars argue that Christ recited the entire Psalm but we cannot be 100% sure – (until we reach glory)

Isaiah writes

“After the suppering of his soul, he will see the light of life”  -Isaiah 53:11

Jesus was born to die – His path was foretold long before His physical birth… Each hardship, Each step Christ took – He knew He was to die – so that you and I could have life – everlasting life.

Thank God for His saving Grace – for there is nothing I could do to become sanctified – to be Holy… without the saving Blood of Christ.

google Analytics A Sure Buy (and Free !)

I believe every ministry should install and use Google Analytics on their site…

A simple Vote of Yes from me.

What draws me to this conclusion is the simplicity of the system, as well as the price . FREE

To start with – Google Analytics provides 3 reporting views – Executive, WebMaster and Marketer. Each view has its own set of reports – as well as additional reports available.

By using a simple calendar widget, a user is able to set a date range (daily / monthly etc.) for all reports. Users can also set an hourly view, which displays the data by hour within a particular daily date range. The default setting is the daily date range.

Although there are many reasons – a Pastor, WebMas ter, and WebTeam should use Google Analytics – here are a few :

- the breadth and power of the old Urchin Company (Best of Breed @ one point)
- for most webmasters, virtually unlimited hits/pageviews/visitors logged – this translates into more quality reporting
- integration with Adwords – ability to do ROI (Return on Investment) reporting
- the basic reports offer an opportunity to learn about your site, its visitors as well as the ability to begin using more advanced options.
- FREE. What an awesome price – Free. – and a powerful Freeby application @ that.

Now – I have to tell you what I do not like about Google Analytics

1. Lack of real time reporting - While the software is free – its worth notating other options are able to provide this option at the same cost. Sometimes it helps to be able to see what is going on Right Now.

2. Accuracy. While the application is decent – it is not 100% dead on. More on this @ http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1290

3. Google may use your details to beef up and sell advertising – even to your competition. (At least in the church market – this is not that bad of a deal perhaps…)

Overall – I would say sign up your organization for Google Analytics – Both the cost as well as the information provided justify the entire 5 minute procedure to sign up and implement.

1/3 of all churchgoers are not loyal to their congregations

Research conducted for Facts & Trends magazine shows one-third of all American Protestant churchgoers feel less than positive they will continue attending the same church in the near future. And if they do switch, only about one out of four would only consider another church in the same denomination.

Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research, noted that their recent study may help pastors think about and understand their own congregation a bit more.

“In the typical Protestant church, about one out of every eight people in the congregation has been attending that church for less than a year,” Sellers observed. “What should this mean for the typical church? Does the church have a strategic plan for involving newcomers in the life of the congregation? Does the church leadership make the assumption that everyone in the church knows how the church works and what it believes? These things are very important when so many relatively new people are in the typical congregation.”

Brian Slezak, a personal friend and avid blogger on the Appian Way asks

Where does your church apply the significance of worship? The process, or the expression? Are they doing church, or being the church?

In helping churches create a marketing plan, in helping churches create an identity I find many are unwilling to let go of their traditions.

In the words of one church council member

“I refuse to allow that youth chapel to have a television, to have anything more than a bible and the candles. Kids today need to learn how to worship properly. They need to come to God on His Level and not their own.”

Kids today need to learn how to worship properly – Wow … What a statement. If they continue down this path – the church will be empty – no young families, no teens – and soon – no future church …

Brian continues and states:

I’ve heard at least one pastor explain this as, “They aren’t able to explain what they want.” That baffles me, as I’m pretty sure I just saw human beings who speak the same language converse about what they want. This ends up sounding like the modernist saying they are open and willing to improve the worship experience, as long as they don’t have to change anything about it at all. Why can’t you just be happy with the way it is now?

If we as a church are going to reach the unchurched – going to make a difference – and do WithReach vs. inreach we need to begin by understanding times have changed, people have changed, the way it is now – is not working…

The following statistics for the Greater NJ Annual Conference should get our pastors, our District Superintendants as well as the Bishops in all our conferences thinking (as these #’s are close to the same across the denomination)

¤Since 1993 – The NJ Annual conference has lost 17.60% of its membership base.

¤Since 1973 – The NJ Annual conference has lost 40.66% of its membership base. Thats 6 people per day.

¤Since 1993 – The NJ Annual Conference has added 2.06% in attendance numbers ! (Good move to the right direction… if the goal is just attendance #’s )

¤Since 1973 – The NJ Annual Conference has lost 11.44% in attendance numbers !

I want to pose a few questions of my own here:

¨Are you ready to build and execute a plan to market your Community of Faith?

¨Are you ready to let go of traditions in order to reach others who do not follow or understand the old ways

¨Are you ready to be an Evangelist ?

¨Do you have the Courage to Introduce others to Jesus Christ?

anyone marketing on the web should watch.

Thanks – Cliff – from the Appian Way — for this

elephant with a Donkeys head…

While I am a Republicat ( if there could be a such thing as an Elephant with a Donkeys head…. )  I must admit that I have voted very close to the Republican lines the past few years.

While watching The Colbert Report earlier this evening – I watched an interview with Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists.  Colbert asks Hedges “What would be the harm if we became a Christian Nation that obeyed the laws of God as these Quote unQuote American Fascists want.”   

Hedges states that the Christian right has “Perverted, Destroyed and hollowed out the heart of the Christian Religion.”    He goes on to state that James Dobson, and others run despotic 3rd world  theiftons taking millions of dollars from others. 

“these people don’t speak about compassion, don’t speak about the poor, perverted the gospel…”

My heart sank listening to this person speak on and on and on.  

I personally have to thank Focus on the family – have to thank Family.org for the work they do Nurturing and Defending family values, Christian Values.   The website Family.org has valuable insight on what I, a man who grew up without a father figure, without a mother figure, basically fending on my own, finding (what I thought was) love in the arms of a young energetic girl in my school,  needed to know in order to begin raising children,  to become a loving husband.  

I learned compassion from the many resources of the “Christian Right” – and the left for that matter.  

While some have been able to become financially successful while offering these morals and values – it seems Hedges believes it is wrong – to be rich and be a Christian – as if the way to enter the Kingdom is by emptying the wallet.

Another statement which made me cringe: 

“They condemn other ways,  they are constantly blasting Islam, nominal Christians, liberals,  it is a message that is deeply anti-Christian and I think its filled with a lot of bigotry and a lot of intolerance.”

I must be becoming part of the Radical Right – while I love others – I do not believe tolerance should mean sacrificing our values, subjecting our children- or ourselves, to what we believe to be wrong morally and spiritually.

I do not advocate on using tricks and unsavory tacktics to witness the Gospel – where some Radical right – and the Liberal Left do…  perhaps I am stuck somewhere in the middle…

Baby Have we got news – Baby …

Greetings  in the name of Christ –

I trust this finds you in good health.

Just wanted to pass a small piece of news -  The Kelley Family is pregnant yet again.

Although we are not sure – what sex the blessing will be @ present – we know we are blessed to have another child on the way. 

Mommy Kelley states

” I can’t do morning sickness yet again…”

 Kerianna – in her age 6 wisdom wants to

do everything she can to make sure the baby is a girl – “just like last time”

 Benjamin – age 5 states

” I wanna Baby Brother – cause girls are just weird…”

 Eileen – age 22 months

has no clue she is about to be upstaged ….  

 And I – well – I am thankful –

 This past year I have been able to be used by God to help many churches around the nation build and maintain websites that actually make a difference .   

New ventures this year include growing the business VineHosting.com as well as a few other projects for the Foundation For Evangelism – including helping the Greater NJ Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church add 150 additional churches online website ministry projects underway.

As for the Baby – well –

I have made it this far being a daddy – and am happy God has blessed us yet again with another child on the way – I can still relive my childhood through all of their eyes

 I would love to hear from you guys – been a while –

Parachurch vs Church: A False Dichotomy

The popular definition of a parachurch group is any non-church based Christian entity or ministry.

Ok forgive my ignorance – as I am just a member of laity – and perhaps have a huge misunderstanding here…

how can a Christian entinty or ministry be non-church based?

 Have we forgotten who the church is ?  

It doesn’t matter where people are gathered together for minister or what structure they take on, they are still “the church,” God’s called out people ministering in the name of Jesus.

The biblical ekklesia always describes a people.  The Church is not a building – the Church is not a Place.

How is it that we can seperate Church from State -

If we vote those into office w/ the values and beliefs we hold true – we cannot expect them to seperate from the fold… and not be the Church…

the current definition – the popular definition is all wrong..

I believe a better definition is:  a parachurch ministry is an entity or ministry that unites Christians from various congregations for a particular ministry purpose.

examples:

Youth For Christ

Foundation for Evangelism

Web Empowered Church

Campus Crusade for Christ

Traveling Evangelists

Christian Wrestling Federation

So it’s the church working together beyond the typical boundaries of their local congregations for a particular ministry purpose.

In short – ParaChurch is “the global church working together”

Missional vs. Maintainence

The Blind Beggar Blog has a great post on asking the right questions… towards becoming missional in practice.

He makes the differentiation between a Missional Church and a Maintainence Church (THIS IS GOOD STUFF!!)

1. In measuring its effectiveness, the maintenance congregation asks, “How many visitors have we attracted?” The missional congregation asks, “How many members have we sent?”

2. When contemplating some form of change, the maintenance congregation says, “If this proves upsetting to any of our members, we won’t do it.” The missional congregation says, “If this will help us bless and touch someone outside of our faith community, we will take the risk and do it.”3. When thinking about change, the majority of members in a maintenance congregation ask, “How will this affect me?” The majority of members in the missional congregation ask, “Will this help align our activities around the missio dei — the mission of God?”

4. When thinking of its vision for ministry, the maintenance congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our past.” The missional congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our future.”

5. The pastor in the maintenance congregation says to the newcomer, “I’d like to introduce you to some of our members.” In the missional congregation the members say, “We’d like to introduce you to our pastor.”

6. When confronted with a legitimate pastoral concern, the pastor in the maintenance congregation asks, “How can I meet this need?” The pastor in the missional congregation asks, “How can we meet this need?”

7. The maintenance congregation seeks to avoid conflict at any cost (but rarely succeeds). The missional congregation understands that conflict is the price of progress, and is willing to pay the price. It understands that it cannot take everyone with it. This causes some grief, but it does not keep it from doing what needs to be done.

8. The leadership style in the maintenance congregation is primarily managerial, where leaders try to keep everything in order and running smoothly. The leadership style in a missional congregation is primarily transformational, casting a vision of what can be, and marching off the map in order to bring the vision into reality.

9. The maintenance congregation is concerned with their congregation, its organizations and structure, its constitutions and committees. The missional congregation is concerned with the culture, with understanding how secular people think and what makes them tick. It tries to determine their needs and their points of accessibility to the Gospel.

10. When thinking about growth, the maintenance congregations asks, “How many Christians, who aren’t currently members, live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?” The missional congregation asks, “How many unreached people groups live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?”

11. The maintenance congregation looks at the community and asks, “How can we get these people to come to our church?” The missional congregation asks, “How can we go and be engaged with these people?”

12. The maintenance congregation thinks about how to save their congregation. The missional congregation thinks about how to plant new missional communities to extend the Kingdom of God.

suffering from a failure of theological nerve…

“Mainline Protestantism seems to be suffering from a failure of theological nerve. Our trumpets suffer from our uncertain sound. The bland leading the bland.Courage to speak arises, in great part, from the conviction that God has given us something to say.”

A brief quote from the Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church – William H. Willimon

I could not agree more. I have been visiting church after church lately – listening to different preachers – all who seem nervous to make the point which needs to be said.

I have had a pastor tell me – Glenn – you should be an evangelist. You don’t care who hears the message… I am nervous as this is a new charge for me – shaking the boat here is rough…

I am so happy to have you come here – and speak the Message of salvation.

I wanted to scream – instead I gave him a copy of the Barbarian Way…

Leander Keck (in a debate on the most effective sermon styles) said “When the messenger is gripped by a Message, the messenger will find the means to speak it.”

So why is the MESSAGE not gripping this pastor?

Walter Brueggemann once said,

“If you are a coward by nature, don’t worry. We can still use you. You can get down behind the biblical text. You can peek out from behind the text saying, ‘I don’t know if I would say this, but I do think the text does’.”

Imagine that – Hiding Behind the Word of God – Using the Word of God as your sword !!!

I love reading this bishops blog — perhaps you will as well:  http://willimon.blogspot.com/

looking different

I have yet to settle on a look for this site -

I may end up changing the template almost as much as I do my shoes -…