Catching Up...

Sometimes I REALLY like how a promo-picture comes out. This one is one of my favorites. I like the feel, the color, the and the "upwardness" of this slide (coming to a website and morning announcement slideshow near you). I need to thank Matt Buckner for opening the world of Photoshop to me. Thanks, Matt!
I don't have a sermon series slide to show you. This Sunday's sermon is a stand-alone. I'll be preaching on Ichabod, a character from the Old Testament. His name meant, "God has abandoned us." I think that's a pretty lousy name.

If you have a favorite name (good or bad) please share it with me (you can leave the comment), it might make it into the sermon. There is only one requirement: you have to have actually MET the person you name, or be able to point me proof that the name really exists. I don't want a bunch of Lemonjello and Orangejello comments! I already plan to mention Trivia Riddle, Will Power, Ivan Odor, and Harry Pitts (Harry is a minister in Lebanon, Indiana). Now to various fun things that happened this week. I had the opportunity to speak at Milligan's College's fun fresheman day at Doe River Gorge. They end the day with worship. I'm always a little intimidated when I speak to an all-college crowd, but things seemed to go well. They were warmed up by a David Butzu led worship time (David is the worship guy at Hopwood Christian Church, he's in the above picture). He did an amazing job of bringing various worship cultures together in a fresh setting.

On Sunday night the church gave me a little celebration for the completion of the D.Min. degree. Tom Root sang some Root-Originals for us and Buddy and Becky Swain made us all smile with their rendition of a My Fair Lady inspired spoof on my doctoral work. Buddy played the part of me while Becky played the part of Eliza DoVeryLittle. They are amazing.

See. They made all of us smile.

On Wednesday Cindy and I celebrated our 20th Wedding Anniversary ... a little bit. It's a bad week for people who work at Milligan to have a wedding anniversary. Once all of the students get back and settled we'll have a better chance to celebrate!

Big Picture Draws Nigh

School, for most young'ns, is back in session. Milligan freshman are arriving this weekend. And my summer sermon series is drawing to a close tomorrow. I have really enjoyed this series; not sure why. I'm kind of sad to see it go. It's 6:15 on Saturday night and while the sermon is mostly formed, I'm still working on it because it needs more pop. I hate for the series to go out with a whimper.

Why am I so late finishing the sermon? It's a combination of things. Work is full of little details these days and I'm trying to do a good job of getting to them. The counseling load is higher than it used to be. AND, I'm having motorcycle trouble. Today Ross Russell helped me with the fixing of the bike, but more needs to be done before I can attempt to ride to Indy. Motorcycle? Sermon? Hmmm. Sometimes even clear choices can be tough!

Speaking of tough, this has been a week of sad news. Our former minister of administration has been in the hospital this week. A painful back has turned into a much more serious diagnosis. Please pray for John and his family. I normally don't post medical information on the blog because of privacy issues. If you want more information, come to church tomorrow or email me privately.

Well ... back to work. Thanks for letting me take a little blog-break to clear my mind.

Feeling Relieved

For those of you who didn't happen to be at Grandview on Sunday morning (you can download the sermon HERE once the sermon is up on the website), I need to give a little background for this story. The subject of the sermon was the story of redemption ... the BIG story of redemption. I was arguing that the story of faith/redemption involves an almost unending series of question marks, followed by exclamation points. Will God deliver? God delivers! I began the story with Abraham and too briefly continued the pattern through the story of Israel, the life of Mary, and the life and death of Jesus [Cross (?) and Resurrection (!)].

To aid the telling of the pattern I used a visual aid. I had an 11x17 piece of paper with a question mark on one side and an exclamation point on the other.

After the first service our own Dr. (2b) Heather pulled me aside and said, "You need to know about a punctuation mark called the interrobang. It's a question mark and exclamation mark all in one!"

I thought that was really cool. I even mentioned the interrobang during the 11am service. I didn't, however, mention in the Table service. Why? Because I was overtaken with the fear that Dr. (2b) Heather was PULLING MY LEG!

What if she made it up, as a joke, and then I went up in front of a room full of people and started babbling about the "INTERROBANG?!" Fear seized me because it would have been an exceptionally funny hoax.

Thankfully Dr. (2b) Heather is a kind person. Her witness has now been confirmed by other witnesses ... and I have a new symbol for faith!

Take Your Pick

You can't tell much from the picture because my iPhone has no flash (no flash bulbs, nor does it handle webpage flash!), but this is a picture of Slade and Mihail in the burned remains of their home that caught on fire this past week. The house is in rough shape, but (as you can tell) the most important things are fine.
The sermon has come much easier this week. Redemption is so much more pleasant than Sin. I wrote a short fictional story for this sermon. I haven't done that in awhile. It was fun. I wish I hadn't gotten out of the habit.

Globalscope missionary Nathan McDade was supposed to lead our pastoral prayer this week, but he has been detained in Atlanta due to poor health. He has some flu-like symptoms, but NOT H1N1. Thanks to Mark Pratt (The Table) and Bob Hall (9:30 and 11) for stepping into the void. Here's a link to Bob's prayer: LINK TO BOB'S PRAYER.



One more thing, for those of you with time to kill. I've made two slideshows for the Update: State of the 'View event on August 16th. I'm not sure which one to use. The main difference is the songs, not the pictures. The first is a tobymac version. I like the feel of it, but there are some lines in the song that just don't work for the occasion ("My dad always said that I wish I was black."). The second version is our own Isaac Schade Band. I like the words, but the mood is a little more serious than celebrative.

I'll let the blog-followers decide. Vote in the comment line and the one you choose will be the one I use. If nobody votes then I'm not sure what I'll do!










Or this one:

Sin.

I'm blogging right now because the sermon isn't finished; at least, not the sermon I'm preaching tomorrow. I've written two this week, but neither of them were any good. The problem is that in my attempt to preach on the Big Picture of our faith, I've come to the sermon on sin and the fallen humanity we inhabit. And as of 3:15 pm on Saturday, I have no sermon (as indicated symbolically by the above picture).

I focused the first sermon in the series focused on hope. If we yearn for things that are not possible, we don't have hope; we have despair and depression. If, however, we yearn for things that God can and has accomplished, then we have hope. So ... that was the starting point. That can make for a happy sermon, one that even Joel Osteen would find appealing.

The second sermon in the series focused on creation; specifically, on why God created (and continues to create). I believe that creation is (as one has put it) an act befitting God's nature. I also believe that humanity is God's most excellent achievement in creation. After creating humanity and giving us our purpose on earth God said "It is very good," as opposed to the "it is good" statements he supplied after the other stages of creation. Sermons on how magnificent humanity is can leave people feeling really good, too. Joel could flash his handsome smile over that sermon.

The third sermon, though, is about sin, the fall, and evil. Man, oh, man...THIS one has been tough. The biggest problem is that I feel like I'm slitting peoples' wrists and then leaving them in the pews until we get to next week's sermon on redemption.

One of my problems is that I have too much material, personal and otherwise, from which to work when I talk about sin. The pulpit is no confessional, but a preacher dare not pretend he's not infected and afflicted with sin. Also, I've been haunted this week by a story out of Aleppo, Syria that four young men, ages 14, have been accused of raping a four-year-old girl. The story is tempting to use because there isn't a person I've met who could believe that such a thing could be classified as anything except sin and evil. But the story is too heavy and would make the rest of the sermon go unheard.

That's why I'm taking a break for blogging. I'm hoping that the solution will come to me as I type these thoughts.

Preachers ... it's late ... do know where your sermons are?

Thankfully, Bob Hall has finished his prayer preparation. If you're interested (and you really should be!), you can follow this link: Bob's Pastoral Prayer.

Finally Here!

On Wednesday of this week my diploma from Asbury Theological Seminary finally arrived. It was a big moment for me because there was always a chance that something wasn't quite finished; that a problem would arise; that the school would shut down (I don't know, I'm just a pessimist about things like this).

Now I'm bona fide! I've got the diploma. If Asbury ever calls me and says, "There's a problem. You aren't really finished." I'll just pretend my iPhone dropped the call (something so plausible and common that I may not even have to pretend).

Blog-filler

I've been a bad blogger, but some weeks are just busy (with stuff that isnt' blog-worthy).

But here are a couple of the fun things that happened last week. Our Four By Four group went to a Johnson City Cardinal game and I was able to hunt down the mascot for a picture.I also turned 42 last week, but I don't have pictures of anything. I ate more pies and cakes and tiramasu than a 42-year-old should eat. Ooohhh the suffering!

This weekend my brother and his family came to town. We had a great time with them, especially at Lake Watauga where the weather was perfect. Here are his four children checking out the Butler Bridge as we approach.

Special thanks to Captain Blowers for providing the boat!

That's all I have time for today. I hope tomorrow to put up a picture of something that arrived at my house yesterday. I was more moved by its arrival then I expected!

Sneak Peak

I got to see the newest Grandview baby. Here is Jack's big sister, Olivia, holding her new brother and wearing her new big-sister-dress. Mom and Dad both look great. Welcome, Jack!

The Return

Here's the trip to Spartanburg/Greeneville, South Carolina to retrieve Meghan. We were all smiles on the way down there (although, I should probably be paying more attention to the road).
Oh, did you think I drove the family van to the airport? No. No. No.
(okay ... the limo was just there, but we can pretend)

Sisters purchased similar scarfs while apart. Slaves to fashion!

That's more like it!

Katy's luggage didn't arrive yet, but we're all happy anyway. It is great to have everyone home.
Dad's artful posing of the Wymer women.

Tomorrow's Offering

I haven't put much up about my sermons lately. We're in the midst of "The Big Picture" series. Tomorrow I will focus on "Creation" as the beginning of the story that defines us. What we believe about creation matters (in particular, who, how and why).

As I worked on the sermon this week I felt the need for an artist's input. On Friday morning I sat down with our own Tom Root and asked him to riff on creation and the artist's response. It was time well spent (any time chatting with Tom is well spent). The fruit of the discussion informs tomorrow's sermon.

Tom wasn't pleased with me when I took this picture, but he'll get over it.
If you want to read the pastoral prayer for the 11am sanctuary service, you can follow the link to Bob Hall's prayer blog. He has it finished and ready:

Bob's Prayer Blog
http://prayersofthechurch.blogspot.com/2009/07/prayers-of-church-71909.html

Long Time No See--NACC

Sorry for my blog-absence. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. But here are some pictures from the North American Christian Convention in Louisville. The NACC is a yearly event that helps Christian Churches stay (get?) connected to one another.

The NACC gets a fair amount of bad press for its ... its ... convention-ness (I think that's the right word). I quit being hyper-critical of it a few years back when I realized that I enjoyed catching up with folks I hadn't seen in a while and that EVERY thing didn't have to be to my liking.

The main sessions look like this:

The music is pretty loud and drifts from worship into concert. That bugs me as much as anything else. When the lead singer starts holding out notes and bouncing them in R&B fashion, I kind of want to tell him to get a day-job. Be a "performer" or worship leader; you can't be both at the same time. Okay ... enough of the whiney complaining. I don't want to lead that kind of blog.

Max Lucado preached the final session on Friday morning and then our own Ben Cachiaras (senior minister at Mountain Christian and former Grandview minister) received the gavel as next year's president of the NACC. The big event will be in Indy. Check it out if you can.

In the below picture you see a street preacher preaching the gospel to Christians walking from the convention to lunch. I wanted to tell him that he was preaching to the choir ... then I realized that's what some of the main convention speakers were doing, too.

This is our view from our hotel room.Here you see Rob Castens and Ethan Magness (Ethan is our former youth minister) as they explain the Milligan College/Mountain Christian partnership for internships. Very well done. Ethan is doing good work up there (between Mountain Christian Church in Joppa, and First Christian Church in Johnson City, it's amazing we have any staff left at Grandview).

The Kentucky Visitors' Center was almost in the lobby of our hotel. I couldn't help but get a picture with the Colonel.
This interesting photo is one I took while Dr. Hull was introducing me as the speaker at the Emmanuel breakfast. I like how it came out!

This is a picture I took as the breakfast was starting. Everyone was digging into their "support Emmanuel" breakfast.

My talk went fine. I enjoyed being asked to do it.

Here is our own Bill Greer, preparing to lead his workshop. I paid a guy in the audience $10 to ask, "Why do you drive an SUV?" incessantly until the session was over. It was the best $10 I ever spent!

Meghico Update

The youth group is, of course, back in the good ol' U.S. of A. I don't need to update you on them. But Meghan and Katy remain in Mexico, so I thought I'd include a few pictures of her today. Tomorrow I will review the NACC.

Here is the youth group with storm clouds gathering. Here is Meghan during her visit to the monastery.

I like this picture from the Dallas Airport.

She looks like she's having a rich time.

Cindy and I talked to her last night. She sounds good. Host Erin is now on bed rest as she awaits the birth of the McBaby. I think this experience has been an important one in her formation. We're proud of her and we're glad Katy is there with her. They make a good team.

OSRP Update (Orange Shag Removal Project)

With the youth safely home (more on that when I get pictures) I want to report a monumental occasion for me and my ministry here at Grandview. I've been here 11 years and I STILL haven't eradicated the orange shag carpet from Grandview's decor. However, as of last week all orange shag has been removed from the Grandview floors.

I promise to press on to rid the church of the one final patch of orange shag (the old stairwell has orange shag on the wall beneath the hand railing.

Below are the pictures. I'm sorry my iPhone doesn't capture the fullness of the glory of the orange shag, but if you've seen it then you remember it. You don't even need pictures.

Orange Shaginator: Neal Voke

A crew of volunteers arrived on Sunday night; just one week ago. They moved everything out of the library, foyer, and Fireside Room.

The professionals moved in on Friday and removed the old brown and the orange shag.The concrete floor in my office was able to breathe again.

Then the new blue took over. Welcome, new carpet!

Puebla Update #5

Short and sweet.

It's been an amazing day and an amazing week. We can't wait to tell you all about it. We'll see you Sunday night.

Thanks
Ryan


I don't know how much more information I'll get from them while they are traveling home. If I hear anything I'll be sure to post it, though. I'm sure the cell towers will light up once they land in Baltimore.

Puebla Update #4

More From Ryan (sounds like things are going great!)

We worked a half day today, but we worked hard while we were at it. Most of us got after the large wall we've been painting all week and those combined efforts got us near the finish line. There's also been a good deal of indoor painting going on with Larry leading that charge. They completed their second room today. So needless to say, we've got some painters on our hands. They've done a great job.

Meanwhile Jim Dollard and I, with a little help from Logan, built a swing in the front yard that many of the students at El Pozo are pretty excited about. That was a lot of fun. The blocks to complete the driveway project also came in today and that will be the item on the top of tomorrow's to do list.

After our morning of work we all took cabs to downtown Puebla to eat lunch and walk through the market. Lunch was great, but I don't remember the name of the restaurant. Everyone had a good time at the market and I imagine many of you reading this will be the beneficiaries of some of the purchases made today. Enjoy. We also took a quick look through the Church of San Francisco, Mexico's biggest Catholic church. It was quite a site to see.

After worship and dinner our group spent a relaxing evening at the campus house playing games and telling our favorite jokes. It was a great night. It's hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day, but it's been an amazing week. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. We'll look forward to sharing all of this with you when we get back on Sunday night.

Buenos Noches
Ryan

Puebla Update #3

This morning's report from Ryan:

Wednesday was another good day here in Puebla and one characterized by weather that you might expect in Mexico. The sun was up early and the day was hot. The big project of the day was getting after the big wall. Most of the group was employed either painting or scraping parts of the wall. Now you should know that painting this wall was a project most of the El Pozo staff (as well as most of our leaders) did not expect to get done this week. However, by the end of the day today, most of the wall was covered with one coat. Work will continue as a second coat is required, but things are progressing nicely.

Work has halted on the driveway project, however, as there has been a delay in the delivery of the bricks. Nathan and Heath (another staff member) have a phrase for episodes like the one surrounding the delivery (or lack thereof) of the bricks. "TIM" they'll say; "this is Mexico". We are,however, hopeful of picking up that project tomorrow.

Today was the day for my group to go the orphanage so I can say a little more about that. It's a state run orphanage kept in a nice facility near downtown Puebla. The children, of course do not speak English which presents an interesting challenge for gringos and gringas like us. It was a pure delight though to interact with them and see our own students work through the language barrier to play with and love on the kids. You had Meghan carrying on a conversation with a four year old on the swing, Sydney playing house with two little girls (playing house by the way entailed Sydney being locked in a playhouse and forbidden to exit. She was a good sport), Logan and Jeremy with little boys on their shoulders all day, Xander playing frisbee and Josh changing his first diaper in the nursery. Logan also took the time to convince the little boys that my name was "Careful" which made for some interesting exchanges throughout the day. All the students did a great job and really enjoyed our time there.

Tonight we all went out to eat. Half the group went to a restaurant called "Las Flautas" while the other half went to "Munchis". My group was at Flautas and the food was amazing. Tomorrow we'll try Munchis while the other group will try Las Flautas. It's been a lot of fun to interact in the Mexican culture.

One thing the kids keep talking about is how wonderful it's been to interact with the Mexican students who attend El Poza and are around this week. There's Betty, Carlos, Yuyo, Steph, Mario and others. They are all kind and outgoing and our students are really developing friendships with them that will make a difference any time the McDades are mentioned at Grandview in a pastoral prayer or otherwise. El Pozo is no longer just an idea but a place with faces that we know. We'll look forward to sharing their pictures and stories with you when we return so you too might know El Pozo not just as a place but as a group of people striving to follow the same God we follow at Grandview.

Contine to pray for us. God is at work

Ryan

Update #2a from Puebla

I'm out of synch! In order to keep things simple, I'm calling this report 2a (that way future reports will be labeled the same on the church website as they are on my blog).

Here's the latest:
1) One of the two biggest projects is the stripping and repainting of the concrete perimeter around the campus house property. This is probably a fifteen foot high wall that totals well over a hundred yards in length surrounding the property. It has to be scraped and washed and repainted. Almost everyone has had their hand in this project at some point during the week, and painting began today even as preparing continues. This will be a nice improvement to the property and a great accomplishment when it's all done.

2) The other big project is the installation of a concrete brick driveway in the drive up to the parking lot. The current drive up is comprised of loose dirt and very little gravel and is susceptible to washing away, particularly during Mexico's rainy season in the fall. This job has entailed digging down about six inches over an area of about 250 square feet. Once the ground has been graded and leveled the bricks are installed by hand. We made a lot of headway on this today and are awaiting the delivery of more bricks with hopes of finishing tomorrow.

3) There are a number of construction projects going on that a number of our guys and gals are assisting in. These include the installation of a bathroom closet and the construction of some benches in an outdoor eating space. These I've been less involved in but I do know that a number of kids have gotten to wield hammer and saw.

4) There are a number of other miscellaneous projects going on, some of which I may not be aware of. The encouraging news is we're making head way on many of them as the kids enthusiastically pitch in to help. Pray that this continues.

Today was surprisingly cool and a bit rainy in the morning. By mid-afternoon things had cleared off, and we got to experience some good old Mexican heat. However, come rain or shine...

If you're praying for us, be praying that that these students would be as attentive to and excited about what God will teach them through this trip as they have been about their work here in Puebla. We've got our hopes set high.

The days are long and the nights short, but we'll continue to try to keep you updates. Be well.

Buenos Noches
Ryan

Puebla Update #2

(Zander Murry in the pic above as he tries to disguise his excitement about heading to Mexico!)

From Ryan Bader:

We are all here safe and sound, but Sunday certainly was a long day. It began at 3:00 in the morning when I took 10 folks to the computer. After some check in excitement, they made it safely to New York and then to Mexico City. They arrived here at the El Pozo campus house by 5:00, almost perfectly on schedule. They second group took off for the airport around 6:45. Both of those groups made it out of Baltimore and into Dallas safely and as scheduled. That's when the waiting began. Long story short, we finally arrived here at El Pozo at 2:30 in the morning local time (3:30 body time), but still in good spirits.

Yesterday was a great day. The morning was spent in orientation. We experienced many of the things that the Mexican students would take part in during a normal week here at the campus house. It was a great way to be introduced to the ministry and understand what our place in it would be during the week. After lunch, we started working, and the kids did great. We got some prepping a wall to be repainted, others working on putting in a driveway, and still others installing a cabinet, cutting back trees and doing all sorts of other work around the house. Today will be a full day of work and half of our group will go the the orphanage in the afternoon.

The evening was spend in worship, followed by an incredible meal of Mexican tacos. Last night was an interesting cultural experience. We attended Lucha Libra, the Monday night Mexican professional wrestling main event. It was, as we say, quite a hoot. We'll tell you all about it.

Everything's going great. Thanks for the prayers. I'll try to find more time to update again later.

Report #1: Thanks to Carla and Larry

Here it is:

Everyone is at the campus house safe and sound.

The last of the group got to Mexico City about 9 pm according to the airline website and then to Puebla about 2 am due to the accumulation of several delays.

Today's activities included a delicious breakfast, a brief overview orientation of the campus ministry's weekly activities, a delicious lunch, and then working on projects at the campus house -- yard work, cleaning, painting . . .

Tuesday and Wednesday: 1/2 the Grandview group will go to a local orphanage and 1/2 the group will stay to work at the campus house. The next day, the groups will change places and the group that stayed at the campus house will go to the orphanage.

The McDades have evening activities planned and I'm sure we'll hear about them as the week goes on.

Larry says that it is not too hot - 70's - 80's with a breeze.

The guys are staying at the campus house. The gals at the home of a staff member.

That's all I know for now -- From the background noise, it sounded like they were having lots of fun together.

I Know Nothing

Hello faithful parents and friends of those traveling to Mexico for the youth mission trip.

I'm supposed to report their progress to you. I'm supposed to be the very hub of information in order to keep our tight little community up to date.

I'm sorry to report that I know almost nothing. No emails. No texts. No updates on facebook. No twitters. No phone calls.

Carla did get a call from Larry and the first group arrived in Puebla about 8pm last night. I don't know who was in the first group, though.

I'm sorry everyone. I make a lousy hub of information.