ME: My Name

Names are an important thing.

We are known by them. Some are defined by them. They are certainly special in the Bible. God gave people their names for a specific reason; and so did those who named their children.

I have a secret facination with names, mainly because when I was younger mine was made fun of a lot…but, when I understood what my name meant, I knew I was destined for something more in life. Don’t ask me why or how, I just knew.

My first name, “Tobias” means, “Lover of Jehovah, or Yahweh”. I was teased to the inth degree about it – “You’re a Jehovah lover!” The kids in my hood didn’t have a care for God. Me neither, yet I knew…I knew I did/would fulfill that. It matched up with what the priest who baptized me when I was fourth months old said (they thought I might not make it), “This child will make it, God has something special for him…”

My middle name, “Abraham” means father of nations, and was the name given to Abram by God. Abraham became the founders of the Hebrews. In fact, it was Abraham who was first called “a Hebrew” in the Bible, “Abraham, the Hebrew”. Hebrew means “sojourner, wanderer”. I do not believe I will be the founder of many nations, but I am a sojourner, unsettled, ever-changing, learning, growing, moving from position to position, truth to truth. I do believe God will answer my prayer and raise from me a Neal name that will love him and serve him.

I believe I am fulfilling my name. Little did my parents know when naming we that I would be what I have been named. My name is me.

SERMON SERIES: Decentralize

In December I will be going through a series explaining how Pigeon River is going to go through a decentralization process. I will be explaining and teaching how what we know as “church” will be becoming less and less the center of our lives and in replace of it we will be centering on Christ, Commonality, Cells and our Communities.

One of the main thoughts is that we need to focus, or become centered on what the Bible is centered on. Another key thought is that decentralizing = multiplying.

The metaphor that will stimulate this series will be thinking and living “out of the box”. This series will thusly be called, “The Smell of Cardboard: Decentralized” making reference to how so many Christians love being “in the box” when everything that God is about is “out of the box”.

December 4th – The first message in this series will be “The Smell of Cardboard: decentralized from church to Christ” – detailing how church has taken the place of Christ in many lives, and will look deeply at what it means to be “the body of Christ” and be centered on him.

December 11th – The second message in this series will be “The Smell of Cardboard: decentralized from church to Commonality” – will follow the first message by describing the three things we need to hold common ground on: purpose, places, and processions, and will be detailing the ideas of commitment and connection as God’s community of believers and will set the stage for what this looks like in the following messages.

December 18th – The third message in this series will be “The Smell of Cardboard: decentralized from church to Cells” – this message will begin to put the practicalities of Commonality & Christ together. In this message Pastor Toby will lay out the direction of how Pigeon River will be decentralized from church, and how we will be formed over the course of the next year.

December 25th – The fourth message in this series will be “The Smell of Cardboard: decentralized from church to Communities” – this message will show how as a church decentralization is necessary for being the body of Christ in the communities we find ourselves in and will detail how through Cells, with commonality & Christ at the center, we can multiply our ministries locally and globally.

Smell of Cardboard Webpage

Turkey Tri-fecta

My holiday plans? Try holidays…

Tonight, feasting at my mom’s house (as we brave the fast approaching blizzard).

Tomorrow, feastin here at home, just with the fam – we had some people thinking they might stop by, but they aren’t, so we’re doing lazy family stuff.

Friday, feasting at Carrina’s mom’s house. We didn’t plan on going there because of the move and Carrina having to work her buns off around here the day before, but because we’re settled and then we’re just munchin on anything on Lazzy Family Day, we can go.

Three turkeys. Three days. The Turkey Tri-fecta, baby!

It’s All Good

A long time ago in a land far, far away God created a Garden; he called it Eden. In this Garden God created man, whom he called Adam, and then he created all the animals, and Adam named them all. God then gave Adam completion, and Adam named her Eve. In this Garden God said everything was good for them to eat, accept the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Of course, they ate from it. Because they fell short, we all now fall short — it’s what we know. It is called sin.

Sin spread through the world God made by the people whom God made. These men who fell short of God’s standards took it further than that, they decided to ive their lives in absolute independence from God. These men were once good men, called “the sons of God”, but they soon became evil men and the very thoughts of their imaginations became evil.

God ended up destroying all of them (they left him with no choice). But one man and his family
survived – they were not as the others. They had found grace. They survived this cleansing flood that God sent crashing upon and bursting out of the earth.

When this flood ended, God told Noah that he could now eat all the animals. They were all good. This was new to Noah and his family, but God said it was good, so they partook, and found out he was right!

Many years later God spoke to a descendant of Noah whose name was Abram. Abram was told by God that out of him would come a great nation, so Abram followed God as a sojourner, or as he became to be called, a Hebrew. From Adam God made the nation of Israel.

It was to this nation that God eventually gave his law. He made them his people. He made them his nation. In these laws God told them what they could eat and what they could not. What was clean and what was unclean. What was good and what was not good. And so Israel lived under these laws for many years.

Until Jesus came.

Jesus fulfilled the law. He was the law! And now people live by him.

One of Jesus’ early followers, Paul, taught that everything is good to eat, and nothing needs to be refused as good/bad, clean/unclean, right/wrong, as long as it is eaten in thanksgiving. Paul saw that in everything the goodness of God can be seen, and he taught that people need to look for this and be thankful for what they see.

God is good. The goodness of God can be seen in everything he has made and in everything he has given. Therefore we give thanks to him for his goodness to us and in us. We give thanks because it’s all goof.

Happy Thanksgiving.

House Update: We’re In!

Most of the day Saturday we worked to get everything in order in our new rental house. I worked over ther during the day with Joshua’s help, while Carrina studied for and took an important test. That night I stayed home and played with the kids and cleaned while Carrina when over to the rental and got the kitchen and othe things in order (man, did she get a lot done! I was pleasantly shocked!). Sunday night we finished moving all the odds and ends (thanks again to some of our helpers!) and we stayed at the rental Sunday night.

Carrina and I toasted each other to one chapter in our life that has come to a close and to another that has opened.

I should be getting Charter up and running today, so I will be posting again tomorrow…thanks for your prayers!

House Update: Backbreakers

We’re all moved out, except little odds and ends, thanks to a group of people whom I will refer to as “The Backbreakers”. They are:

Kenny
Brad
Jimmy
Kip
Cindy
Brenda
Scott
Kaleb

Not to mention me and my wife in the midst.

We did it all in one trip with two huge snowmobile trailers, curtesy of of the local Ski-doo dealer.

House Update: A place to rent!

The Lord has given us a place to move into. We’ll be living off Meecher Rd in Gaylord. Meecher runs north and south (the road to the right at the light by Spicey Bob’s…that’s Meecher), and you can get to it off of Murner and Five Lakes (as well). It’s a nice spot, close to Gaylord and just a few minutes by back roads to Vanderbilt.

We got a good deal on it. It’s three bedrooms, with a full basement. One bath and a two car garage.

Anyone wanting to help us move in the snow, let me know! LOL Thanks for your prayers, and praise God for his provision!

ME: I Wish I Was Like This

You all are familiar with our house situation by now…”When it rains…” Well, a good friend called me last night and we chatted for a bit, and I explaned our situation, and we made plans for lunch to chat some more and get back in touch (they had been out of the state for a year). When he got off the phone with me he told his wife about the situation, and she was like, “I’ll find them a place to live in two days!” He smiled and said, “I know you will.”

That was 9pm last night. She called me at 9am this morning and had 5 rentals for us to look at!

Whoa!

This lady is one of the people that gets things done. You want her on your team! Self-sacrificing, doesn’t know how to quit, loving, and just flat out rocks! I envy (“envey not”) her, and people like her. They just have that something special that allows them to see obsticals as challenges, and minor bumps in the road – they just flat go after it and they get it done, on time, and well, if not better than it could have been. They always come through, and they have so many better ideas than you do. I need people like that in my life, and in this ministry!

Tina, if you read this – thanks, you’re one and a million, and as I have said so many times, “I love you and you ROCK!”

Generosity

I was listening to Rob Bell teach the other night and he mentioned this:

“One out of every six verses in the New Testament is about generosity.”

Then he added,

“Some have said that one out of ever ten in the whole Bible is about generosity.”

You can listen to that sermon here.

House Update: When it rains…

Well, our offer on the house did not go through. So, we will not be buying a house any time soon. Which means we are back to plan “A”, which is to rent a modular from some people we know…

…only in the last two days they have had to use it for a relative whose house burnt down, so now we have no where to go. We’ll be looking at the rentals in the paper tomorrow and praying like crazy. We have 18 days to be out of our house…

When it rains…

Reading: Jewish Spirituality

Almost done with a book I received in the mail yesterday: Jewish Spirituality – A brief introduction for Christians, by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner.

All I can say is: wow.

Well, that’s not all I can say. His teachings remind me of how Jesus taught. Very powerful, moving, simple, provoking stories.

I have been reading that book, and many like it over the last couple weeks. I am on a quest to understand the world that Jesus grew up in and the people (Israel) that he was one of. I don’t think I can truly understand the Bible without doing so. I have been picking my way through, Jesus: the Jewish Theologian byBrad Young, and will be starting Desire of the Everlasting Hills (the world before and after Jesus) by Thomas Cahill tonight.

Why not gain insight into the Bible from the people who wrote it? The people to whom God gave it? My understanding of many passages have deepend as a result. The Bible has never been so alive…Jesus has never been so real…mysteries are becoming clearer.

I gotta go read…

"One Another" Living

Our Home Town Article
(Vanderbilt’s Local Newspaper)

For the longest time I have been coming to a deeper realization that “church” isn’t cutting it, and perhaps isn’t what Jesus meant by following him. Church has become a place instead of a people. It has become somewhere we go once a week instead of something we live 24/7. Ideally this life (Christianity) was meant to be shared. It was meant to be lived together.

Read through some of the things the Bible says about what I am learning to call “one another” living, and as you’re reading through it think of what it would look like if your relationships were built on these things…

Here’s what “one another” living looks like at a passing glance.

- Love one another (John 15:12, 17; Rom. 12:10; 13:8; 1 Thess. 3:12; 4:9; 1 Pet. 1:22)
- Accept one another (Rom. 15:7)
- Greet one another (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Pet. 5:14)
- Have equal concern for each other (1 Cor. 12:25)
- Submit to one another (Eph. 5:21)
- Bear with one another (Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:13)
- Confess your faults to each other (James 5:16)
- Forgive each other (Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13)
- Stop passing judgment on one another (Rom. 14:13)
- Do not slander one another (James 4:11)
- Don’t grumble against each other (James 5:9)
- Refrain from “biting and devouring each other” (Gal. 5:15)
- Stop “provoking each other” (Gal. 5:26)
- Stop “envying each other” (Gal. 5:26)
- Do not lie to each other (Col. 3:9)
- Build each other up (Rom. 14:19; 1 Thess. 5:11)
- Teach one another (Col. 3:16)
- Encourage one another (1 Thess. 5:11; Heb. 3:13)
- Admonish one another (Rom. 15:14; Col. 3:16)
- Speak to one another (Eph. 5:19)
- Serve one another (Gal. 5:13)
- Carry each other’s burdens (Gal. 6:2)
- Offer hospitality to one another (1 Pet. 4:9)
- Be kind {and compassionate} to one another (Eph. 4:32)
- Pray for each other (James 5:16)

Think of a relationship where two people lived like this towards each other. Think of a family that lived this way towards each other. Think of a community that lived this way towards each other. What if Vanderbilt was like this?

This is the way of life Jesus came to give us. Living this way, together, is part of the dream of the people who gather as Pigeon River Baptist Church. We dream of living this out, however it looks, in any and all circumstances, for the good of others and the glory of God. We want to value this type of living and then live it!

Note: The content of this article (listing of the “one another” verses) came from an article I found (and shared with PRBC last night) at Bella Vista Church. Here’s the link

HONESTY: An Apology to My Family

I read this honest admission about ministry by iMonk this morning (I almost cried). Check it out. It is long, but it is worth it.

LINK

It has come to my attention that one of the hidden links contained material that is not suitable for viewing. These links were hidden by the maker of this blogskin. I have since changed the link to something else (click on the jelly fish at the far right of the site to find out what…)

Also, I deleted a link to the blogskin designer’s blog, as it contained many links to things not suitable for anyone. I apologize if anyone viewed any of this material unwarranted. I plead ignorance and naiveity.

Sincerely,

Toby

SABBATH

After taking some advice from a Pastor I know and respect (and have read) I have begun taking a Sabbath on Saturday.

A Sabbath is a day of rest. Biblically, the Jews did this on Saturday (the seventh day of the week). That was for the Jews. The principle is for all.

So I take a day (Saturday seems to work best) and I shut off the cell phone and sleep in and plug into my family. It’s a day where no one can reach me. It’s a day when I don’t handle problems. It’s a day when I am not “on”. It’s a day when my family has me to do what they will with me.

It’s a day when I give up control to the One who really is in control.

It’s a day when my world stops, but His doesn’t.

I need the rest.

We all do.

I need the healing. We all need that too…

Time to go enjoy it…So, if you get my cell phone, and I don’t answer, you’ll know why *wink*.