Turning on Word Verification for Comments

Hi! Welcome back and thanks for stopping by.

This is mostly a post as a matter of information. Due to the recent advent of comment spamming on my blog, I'm turning on word verification for the comment feature. It simply means that if you want to comment, it'll take you an extra 5 seconds or so to do so because you'll have to type in the letters you see in the bottom of the window that pops up for your comments.

Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but I guess it's a necessary evil for the moment.

The World is Flat

I saw this book a few months ago while browsing around at the local Barnes and Noble. The title intrigued me, and I made a mental note to check it out at some point. My birthday brought me some extra cash (thanks to anyone reading this who contributed to that...) and freed me up to buy some books - something I hadn't done for quite some time.

Friedman's topic is globalization, what he calls the flattening of the world, creating almost unbelievable partnerships that are unlimited by the boundaries of nations and states. He writes in a pretty accessible way considering the depth and breadth of his topic, and I've enjoyed my reading to this point.

He writes about the ten forces that flattened the world, ranging from political events (the destruction of the Berlin Wall) to economic principles to technological advances. One of these in particular stood out to me - he calls it "Open-Sourcing: Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities". I couldn't help but think about how much that sounded like what the church was supposed to be. And then as I read this particular section, I came across this great line in which Friedman is quoting some guy I've never heard of before (Irving Wladawsky-Berger): "This emerging era is characterized by the collaborative innovation of many people working in gifted communities, just as innovation in the industrial era was characterized by individual genius." (Emphasis mine)

Going back a couple of months to my musings on synergy, I kept hearing a description of the church in those phrases. What if we were known as a place where the collaborative innovation of gifted people was always taking place? What if when people heard the word, "church", they thought of that image rather than of a place that valued standardization, conformity, and uniformity?

I was so excited when I read this. Here's a guy writing a book about globalization in the 21st Century, probably mostly for an audience of people interested in how their business is going to fit in this new flat world, and I'm hearing echoes of God whispering to me about what the church could be. It's amazing how people validate through their research and study things that God has been saying for a long time. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 12 that "there are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but it is the same Holy Spirit who is the source of them all...a spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church."

If the world is flat, then the church should be the organism best suited to lead the way forward into the 21st Century. Can you imagine if Thomas Friedman had to write his next book about the ways that the church is leading the movement of collaborative innovation among individuals participating in gifted communities?

Turning 30...

Ok, I'll admit, my recent posting to the blog has been, well, not recent at all. Sorry for that, I'm going to try to do better.

Today's my thirtieth birthday. Thirty years ago today my father tells me that Luis Tiant was pitching the Red Sox to a victory in the first game of the 1975 World Series. Actually, The Baseball Almanac tells me that Dad's memory is off by one day. In fact, on Sunday October 12, 1975, Bill "The Spaceman" Lee was pitching, and the Sox lost 3-2 as the Reds scored two in the ninth - it was all downhill from there. Recorded in my baby book in my mother's handwriting is the simple statement, "1975 - it was the year the Red Sox almost won the World Series."

Boy, a lot of rain has fallen since that rainy day 30 years ago, and much water has passed under many bridges (including, of course, the Red Sox immortal triumph in the 2004 World Series). And I'm left here pondering my mortality.

I've recently been wondering what it is about this transition, this epoch-marking passing from 29 to 30 that feels so significant. I'm left to think that this past decade has involved some of the bigger changes in my life. In 1997, at the ripe old age of 21, I stood at the altar of a West Virginia church and took vows to love, honor and cherish the joy of my life. A year later I graduated from college, and got my first "real" job; working as an Assistant Pastor in a great church in Rhode Island. A little over a year after that I left that church to become the pastor of New Life Assembly, the place where I currently serve as pastor. In January of 2002 Jacob was born, and then a short year and a half later Aislinn arrived in the world. A lot has changed from 20 to 30.

All of those changes have, in fact, been for the better in my life. My wife has made me a better man. My children are teaching me patience day by day. The church in which I serve has been so gracious and generous with my youthful enthusiasm (and let's be honest, youthful errors as well). God has been at work in some major ways in the last decade of my life. I trust that he's got more planned for the next decade as well.

I'm left today, on a dreary autumn day in New England, thinking that more than ever I want to make my mark for the Kingdom of God. If it takes another decade of huge and significant changes, I'll embrace them knowing it moves me closer to the place God wants me to be, and to the person God wants me to be.

Here's to 30! None of this perpetually 29 stuff for me. This last decade has taught me much of who I am, now it's time for who I am to, by God's grace, make the difference I was called to make.