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Last September I had a video shoot for some promo material. As I storyboarded out the graphics, I had put down a railroad overpass as an interesting background. The old bridge has some history to it - Patton's tank troops used it to breach their way across the Main River, in order that they might attack the city of Aschaffenburg in spring of 1945.

While shooting the footage, I found an interesting inscription in the sandstone bridge entrance. Remembering the carving, I implemented it into a video promo for an outreach project to take place in June 2011.

Watch the video and it will probably make more sense. It does make me wonder whatever happened to ol' Barksdale.

 

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The year after I arrived in Germany in 1983, a man classified as a personal prisoner of Hitler, Martin Niemöller - Lutheran pastor - died in Wiesbaden. This interesting man, known for his often controversial remarks, as well as his commitment to pacifism, was equally known for his bravery.

What interests me today is a remark made by Max Lucado:

Martin Niemöller was a German pastor who took a heroic stand against Adolf Hitler. When he first met the dictator in 1933, Niemöller stood at the back of the room and listened. Later, when his wife asked him what he'd learned, he said, "I discovered that Herr Hitler is a terribly frightened man." Fear releases the tyrant within.

Max Lucado, Fearless: Imagine your Life Without Fear, pg. 9

Interesting. How much anger is really a cloak for fear? Fear of change. Fearing loss of control. Fearing damaged expectations. Fearing loss.

Good point, Max. Good observation, Martin.

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When a light beam is driven through multiple prisms, forcing it to become narrower and sharper, then it becomes so intense that light itself becomes a tool with incredible uses. It becomes a laser.

A church will have to determine what kind of impact that it would like to have. It does not become more effective by adding additional programs and varied outreach efforts. What that does is diffuse the focus. Saying no is never easy, but it is essential, if focus is the goal.

Lately we have been working on just that - what is our heartbeat, along with the felt needs of our community, focussed on the parameters of scripture. Meeting with many people and spending many hours working out the details, we are getting closer to something that describes who we are and what sets us apart from any other church. It is necessary. It is the tool that we use to determine how well we are doing. And we desperately need to analzye that from time to time.

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Reading a book that is well-written is simply a pleasure. Unbroken, from Laura Hillenbrand, is one of those books.

It is the compelling story of Louis Zamperini, an olympic runner in the 1936 Berlin Olympics (along with Jesse Owens), who subsequently becomes a POW in a Japanese prison camp. His harrowing story of ditching a rescue plane at sea, the 47 days adrift in a couple of flimsy life rafts with two other survivors, their ultimate capture, torture and malnutrition will have you longing for the next chapter.

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It was on Christmas Eve 2004 that we moved into our new digs - tripling our floor space and giving us a capacity of a few more seats than 300. Things were still rough for that first service - no carpet, three building phases lay in the future.

Time flies. Our stage design team has done well in creating topic driven sets that aid in graphically supporting the message.

  1. Baptism December 2010