Well, it is here…SUMMER AND THE HEAT!! So I thought I might share some thoughts about it all. Most are tongue in cheek so just enjoy.

It’s been said that the way to hades is paved with good intentions. The good news it that it’s a government project so it isn’t done yet.

If you think it’s hot now, just wait…

You gotta love people who say, “It isn’t the heat, its the humidity.” NO IT ISN’T, ITS THE HEAT.

You don’t have to worry about the devil during summers in Texas. It’s even too hot for him.

During the heat just be like a kid. Take off all the clothes you can, sun through a sprinkler and eat a pop sickle. Grape is the best.

 Move to Australia. It’s winter down under right now!

Cathy offers this one. She used to do it as a kid. Take your pillow and put it in front of an air conditioner vent. Then lay down on a nice cool pillow.

 David offers filling cans filled with ice and put them in front of a box fan. He calls it Red Raider ingenuity.

Finally, come to church. We turn on the air the day before. Just remember, to come at 9 and stay so that we don’t have to open the doors again until 12. After all, you do want to save energy don’t you?

Peace and grace. Reed.

We love baseball, Cathy and I. We watch nearly every Rangers game. We have seats for several games. She (not me) has Ranger shirts to wear to the game. Get the picture?

Anyway, what if church was like a baseball game. First we would have to get out of the dugout (pew) to play the game. Many of us might prefer one position over another -  like short stop is better than right field. However, we should remember that the coach (God) knows better than we do as to whom will help us win the game.

There may be times when we have to place a sacrifice bunt to move the runners along. But there will be times when we have to swing away. We will have to submit ourselves to the authority of others (umpires) even when we think they are wrong. It’s always dollar hot dog night (truth be known, they are all free!!)  When you score, you come home.

Whenever you do something (big or small), the stands all cheer for you.

About all I can add is like the song from John Fogerty, “Put me in coach. I’m ready to play center field.”

Peace and grace.   Reed.

We seem to love complexity. Remember when we had typewriters and now computers. We had phones (usually on party lines) and now we have cell phones (and if you forward on to your friends and fans , you have well… a party line!) We had between 1 and 4 channels on TV. Now I’ve lost count. We had our favorite cereal. Now we can’t even find Captain Crunch on that wall of choices.

What we want is simplicity.

I have always been a strong proponent of programming in church. Pile it on. The more the better. I even took a class in seminary called “Programming - How to Wear Yourself Out In 5, 10, 15 Easy Steps.”

Some companies get the message. Simplicity is what Apple offers (not to pick one company over anther.” Big box stores one stop shopping may offer lots of choices and you don’t have to travel all over tar-nation to get it all.

I have come to the conclusion that the church needs of offer a more simplistic way to make disciples. Don’t get me wrong, we still need to offer a diversity of missional ways to impact people. We need lots of programs. What we need to have is a simplistic way to help people become deeply committed Christians. Jesus did so with the apostles. Wesley did it with his Methodist Classes. We need to do so in our churches.

While I won’t be here to lead you into that endeavor, I want to challenge you as a church to seek a way to make a simple clear pathway to the job of being a disciple. It will be the greatest thing you can do for yourselves and your community.

Gotta go. Trying to figure out which of 2000 channels I want to watch tonight while I dream of Andy and Barney in black and white.

Peace and Grace. Reed.

Several years ago I met a guy who was going into business. He was a pilot and he and some friends wanted to start an airline to haul packages and letters but not people. I thought he was crazy. We lived in Memphis. He started Fed Ex. His vision was greater than my experience.

My Dad calls and tells me to get into coffee investments. I told Dad Texans will not drink expensive coffee especially in the summer. Dad lives about a hour north of Seattle, home of Starbuck’s. Little did I know.

Vision is a hard thing to grasp and even harder to articulate. That is true in business, life and especially true in the church. What is odd about that is that the church talks about vision and the future all the time given our desire to see the second coming of the Lord and the eventual kingdom of God fully realized.

The problem in the church is that we want to know each other, love each other and be with each other. We think that is vision and it is not. Vision is “seeing” something that is not yet realized and striving to make it happen. Churches fail to cast a vision and act on it all the time.

I want to invite you to visualize this church in 10 years. What would it look like? What would be going on here? What would you want from and for the church and community. Now that you have that image in mind, now share it with others. Share it with your friends here. Share it with those you worship with. Share it with the community. Take time to envision the church and get together and share your vision and then come up with one for the church. It will make a difference.

Oh, and by the way, when I was in high school  a new store came to town. I thought it will never be that big of a deal. I wonder what ever came of that Wal-Mart place?

Peace and Grace. Reed.

After attending the recent Large Church Initiative conference in San Antonio there were a lot of things that I will share over time. There was one that I thought might be interesting to share. It was during a presentation by a church consultant named Reggie McNeal. He asked the following question: WHAT IS TH FASTEST GROWING CHURCH IN AMERICA? What would you answer? The Mormons? The Methodists? The Baptists? Muslims? The answer is…

None of the above.

 The fastest growing church in America is “THE UNCHURCHED.”

Only 1 out of  6 in America attend church regularly.

Only 1 out of 5 men.

Only 1 out of 4  20 to 40 year olds attend.

In the meantime, the church of Jesus is growing like wild fire in places like India where only 1o or so years ago only 2% were Christian and today 10% or China where they can’t count them since the government would attack them but estimates are in excess of 100 million. In Africa something like 83 percent have become a Christian in the most recent generation.

The church is growing like wildfire everywhere but here and Europe. Oh, and we look positively religious compared to the only 2%  that attend there.

I know, I tend to talk about reaching out and making disciples a bit too much. But it is that important.

What we need to do is to change our vocabulary. For us, the church is a noun. It is a building, place to belong to. It is a thing. We need a fundamental change. We need to make the church not a noun but a verb. It needs to stop being a place to belong to and make it something we do.

If we don’t, it won’t be long before a bunch of missionaries from Bangladesh comes over and starts going door to door. After all, we are about to become the biggest mission field left.

Peace and Grace. Reed.

About this time every year I push Church Growth and Development Shares as a way to give a special offering and to help start new churches. Let me offer a couple of reasons.

The I-35 corridor between Ft. Worth and San Antonio is the fastest growing population center in America. We should have built churches like crazy in this area years ago. We didn’t for a couple of reasons. The first was we really didn’t realize how many folks would move in. The second was funding. It costs a lot to start up a new church.

Anyway, that is history. The reality is that we need to build new churches. The reluctance is to question  - Why should we send money off when we have so many needs here? Good question. Let me try and go about it in two ways. First, if you are a charter member of this church, you are excused from buying a share. Now for the rest of us: Someone else built this church so that when we came or when we were born this church was waiting for us to show up. I doubt that we would have enough cash to get it done.

Think about it this way. We are insured to replace the church if we have a total catastrophe. It comes to about $7,000,000. See why we may not have started the very church we enjoy so much? So too in areas where we need to start a church. A new church just can’t afford it.

Ergo, the first reason is that others started this church and paid for most of it so we have a church home. Out of gratitude, we should want to do the same for others.

The second reason is there are only three ways of looking at life. One way is to look with confidence at the future and to be a part of something greater than we currently are. Admit it, don’t you feel good when you can point to something you have done and say, “I did that!!” Imagine driving down a road and going past a new Methodist church and pointing at it and saying, “I helped to build that!!” It will be a legacy that will out live your mortal time here on earth.

Anyway, I want to challenge you to buy a Church Growth Share. I will do so by sharing something I got in an e-mail just yesterday. It may help you to decide. “SORROW looks BACK. WORRY looks AROUND. FAITH LOOKS UP…” Look up and see what God wants us to do and then act as you are led.

Peace and Grace. Reed.

I have this book called “6 Habits of Highly Effective Bosses”  by Stephen E. Kohn and Vincent D. O’Connell. I thought we might share the the 6 Habits today but instead of bosses let’s just see how well they work for all of us.

1. Expand Self Awareness. The idea is to become more aware of who we are and what motivates us. Self awareness is not easy but essential because it helps us to realize how we approach others and different situations.

2.Practice Empathy. This means putting yourself in the shoes of others. Empathy in to connect with the humanity of another in a way that makes them feel like you understand.

3. Follow the Golden Rule. We are aware of that one. It is the basis of Christianity. “Do unto others what you want them to do unto you.”

4. Maintian proper boundaries. For work that means the boss is the boss but in life it might mean that others need their personal space.

5. Criticize Artfully. I take that to mean that when you need to criticize someone, remember they have feelings too.

6. Flexing to different People styles which means don’t become too rigid in how you approach things and be able to listen to others and let them have ownership and input.

You know those are pretty good ideas in all that we do. The Christian faith is all about all of those ideas. Self awareness comes form knowing we are God’s. Respecting others stems from recognizing their worth as God’s children. Over all those are pretty good rules especially the Golden Rule.

 Peace and Grace. Reed.

I am awed by the technology that is available to us in our world. Here I am in a meeting with annual conference leaders for evangelism while writing my article. Then in a moment I will post it and it will go out instantly.  Stop to think about it, this is all done in real time and instantly. However, there is a drawback to all this.

With e-mails, face booking, blogging, and now twittering, if you sneeze about 80 billion people know it.

Here is the problem: It means that we don’t often stop a reflect on the matters and depth of life and faith. We want instant answers and instant responses to life and life’s situations. When we don’t find easy answers and easy solutions, we can become easily become discouraged and disillusioned with those around us and with God Himself.

We don’t just think and reflect. Thinking and reflection and praying and conversing and waiting for God can lead to a profoundly deeper understanding of life and your role in life itself. It allows us to take time to ask the profound questions. One of which is WHY?

It doesn’t have to be in the greatest dilemmas like “WHY did my husband have to die?” It can even in lesser WHYS like why am I here? Why am I a dentist? Why do I have enough kids to keep me broke for the rest of eternity. That one may not concern you but I have been struggling with it but that is a different article.

I want to invite you to take time to just slow down and reflect upon life, your role in it and God’s plans and purposes. Let me suggest a way to do it. Begin by finding a favorite Scripture verse or passage and then spend an entire week of reading that same verse over and over again and then think about what it means to you. I think that be the end of the week you will find you are deeper in faith and life.

 Peace and grace. Reed.

Linus and Charlie Brown are talking in a recent strip of Peanuts. Linus is saying, “I don’t like to face problems head on. I think the best way to solve problems is to avoid them. This is a  distinct philosophy of mine. No problem is so big or so complicated it can’t be run away from.”

Charles Schultz was often profound and often way ahead of his time. I find that to be true even in our church life. Too many times we prefer to turn our backs on “problems” rather than confront them or seek to solve them. Let me give a couple of examples in a different way.

If our school system only graduated 40% of the students, what would we say or do? Probably seek a change of the administration or the board especially if your child was one of the 60% not being educated. What would happen if a local doctor only cured 40% of his patients? How long would they remain in their practice? How about a car company who cars only ran 40% of the time and the rest of the time it was in the shop? That company probably wouldn’t be around long.

Then, if only 40% of our neighbors are in church, are we doing what we are called to do as a church?

When we as the church see a need, a problem, do we try and correct it or do we try and avoid it? Do we sound too much like Linus?

I know that there are times when I like Linus’s philosophy. Especially when it comes to having to confront people or real problems. Avoidance has its comfortable appeal. However, it never really solves the problem.

As a church we need to confront the problem of attracting people to the Gospel of Jesus. We need to become inviting to get them to come. We need to welcome them better when they do. We need to assimilate them when they join.

In the words of those always referring to Charlie Brown’s often goof ups, “Good grief, (Charlie Brown) First Methodist Church.” It is time for us to stop avoiding and time to start doing.

Peace and Grace. Reed.

I decided to check the www. thing under the title of “Reed’s Rambling” and lo and behold, THERE’S ONE OUT THERE besides mine. Good grief, is nothing sacred? I wonder if there are other places that would produce the same results. I mean, I wonder if there is a “Suzie’s Solutions” or a “Fred’s Fantasy.” The truth is that we are all unique and like to think that there is no one like us and certainly we might want to be the only Suzie or Fred on the face of the earth but the truth is that we are not the only one with a similar name, etc.

There are some simple lessons to be learned from it all.

First, while there are others who have your name, there is only one of you. You are unique and special. To that end, there is none like you. God created you to be entirely different and special.

Second, while we are different, we are also the same. We all need love. We all want to be accepted and made to feel we are unique and special.

 Third we are all unique and just the same and God loves us because of it. The hardest we are called to do is to love those who are different than we are. It is easy to love our friends but not our enemies. It is harder to love our selves than it should be. But God loves us no matter who we are or what we think or do.

We forget that. God really had a great plan when we created us and sustained us. From the very beginning He has loved us both for what and whom we are. Just look at the people in the Bible. He loved King David for his leadership and strength. The funny thing is that He also loved David because he was an adulterer.

I want you to realize that no matter who you are and ehat you do or not do, God stll loves you and will always will.

 Now, I wonder how I can get rid of that impostor writing using my name.

Peace and Grace. Reed.