Bird-brained farmer

I don't care who you are - a sunflower just has to make you feel like the plant kingdom is smiling at you!

This one was planted by some careless bird at the feeder.

Apostolic Tinkertoys

Just when I thought it was safe to check my e-mail, I got another notice from Strang Media.  Another marvel of an opportunity.

It's called "Businistry Works."  Here's a sampler from their web site:

Let Us Help You Build Your Ministry.

Businistry Works is offering a great package to promote your ministry. It is an all around marketing package that will boost your ministry to new heights. Benefit now from this amazing special that currently runs for $2499.00 only.

I'm not sure I want a marketing firm that finds that last sentence not only acceptable, but desirable to advertise their services.  I definitely want a brave knight to ride in on his great horse and slay the literary chimera, Businistry.  I'm reminded of the Barney Miller episode in which a literature professor tore down an advertising sign that declared some breakfast cereal to be "the crun-crun-crunchiest!"

As to their promise of helping build a ministry, I don't necessarily object to the idea of a charitable outfit raising awareness for their cause through advertising and promotion.  But, it's way too easy to forget that business is not ministry is not business.  Ministry is a one-way transfer of what you need from what I have.  Business is a two-way transfer of as little of what I am forced to part with for as much as I can get of what I want from you.

A friend of a friend once warned, "When you try to build a ministry, you end up ministering to a building."  Doesn't mean that every ministry that should avoid the type of service offered by Businistry Works.  It just means that ministries need to be very careful about how much they adopt of business models and practices.  It's a slippery slope once we agree that we are building a ministry, and that we can buy someone's help to do it.

Be vewy, vewy quiet...

Or not!

If you're a cartoon fan, especially of the Mel-Blanc-voiced genre, check this out:

The Looney Tunes SoundSource

Down in the lower right-hand corner are pictures of the gang.  Click on one and watch the time go by...

I added the link to my list on the left.

Wildflowers and weeds

What I'm finding interesting is that there are some truths that I could not have heard when I was still locked up in industrial church.  Not even when I left the urban ghetto of denominationalism (or demonic nationalism, if you prefer).  And not even when I exited the suburbs and took up residence in the County.  I had to leave it all and hike into the wild.

It was there that I learned a great truth - sometimes the only difference between a weed and a wildflower is where you find it growing.  In an urban vacant lot, or a suburban yard, or the field of an outskirts-of-town hobby farm, that plant with the orange flowers is a "damned weed."  In the wild, it's a desert globe mallow.

So, I am discovering that teachings that could not possibly be true a few years ago are now making sense to me.  And teachings I used to cling to will not take root out here where Wild God prowls.  No doubt the soil of my heart will sprout a few weeds that are noxious wherever they may grow, and I will probably uproot a few flowers that I should have left alone.

But I trust that Wild Father will enlighten me in my gardening errors.  And right now it seems good to me to make these new errors while pursuing him, rather than repeating old errors from a safe hidey-hole.

This left me speechless ... luckily I can still come up with a sermon ...

This morning I got an e-mail from Strang media Group, advertising SaddlebackResources.com, where, they promise, one can "Find sermons written over the last 30 years to help feed your soul and ease your preparation."  In fact, "...the Saddleback teaching pastors will lend you the tools and encouragement to become more effective in your ministry and maybe save you a littel time."  Time that could, perhaps, be spent running spell-check to determine that "littel" is not a word.

But that really isn't my beef with this.  I dearly love to hear teaching that springs from 15 minutes spent in the unveiled presence of God.  And, any more, I can barely endure sermons developed during hours spent in books and online references.  In the past few days this comparison has been especially heavy on my heart.  And then I read this ad.

I am not against study.  I am not opposed to teaching that involves study.  But I am beyond sick of poisonous teachings that do not have their roots in a God-encounter.  But, can't we find God during study of a book?  Certainly we can, if we leave room for that encounter.  But we will almost certainly fall short of a God-meeting when it is our intention to pick up the books and come up with a message.  This is a short-circuit approach, intended to replace the perceived uncertainty of a God-encounter with the comfortable sureness of our study process.  We are even less likely to run in to God when we employ study tactics designed specifically to save a "littel" time.

If we hope to encounter God in our books, then we need to open them with that goal in mind, rather than aiming to simply prepare a message.  Maybe a teaching will come out of the God-encounter, or maybe he will simply say, "Time for you to be still."  Maybe God will plant a word in the good soil of someone else's heart, where it will spring up, flourish, and, given a voice by virtue of our silence, bear much fruit.  Or maybe he will just expect a congregation meeting to silently wait upon him.

And now, here's the kicker - the unintentional punch line to an unconscious joke that is simultaneously hilarious and painful - there is a link in the e-mail that allows you to download a message by Rick Warren, entitled Learning to Hear God's Voice.  That is either the most clueless or most ballsy juxtaposition of ideas I've seen in a very, very long time.  "Visit our site, where we'll sell you sermons to preach, including a powerful message on how to hear from God."  Maybe he should have called it No Time to Wait on the Lord? Let Us Tell You What He Said.  Or, Why Spend Only a Minute Telling Your Congregation That God Didn't Speak to you This Week, When, With Our Help, You Can Take 45 Minutes to Prove it?

Thanks for the offer, but I think I won't be buying any.

What else is in a name?

OK - I've given this name-thing a lot more thought.  Thanks, Ed, for the only response to my cry, my plea, my dying gasp for help.  Guess I know who my true friends are... er, friend is.  The good thing about not having many friends is that when my book comes out, I can lose half of them and still say I only lost a few friends over it. On the other hand, if I only lose a few friends, I'll have to face the fact that I lost half of my friendship base over the book...wait, it seems like I was talking about something else...

Oh, yeah - the name-thing.  I actually like Ed's idea about a fake middle initial - X.  It's kind of mysterious, and I don't think it bothers me at all to sound like "ex-something."  I was also thinking about Miguel de Obispo.  Or maybe Mick.  Yeah - I like Mick!  Naturally I won't use my middle initial, E.

Henceforth I shall be called Mick Bishop.  At least until I decide if the reality is as good as the expectation...

Mick