Timothy Paul Kirkpatrick

1. How did ministry/sermon prep/planning ever get accomplished without the Internet?

2. The internet has been down at church this week, and I’ve actually seen how much I can do ministry wise without being at the church.  How much time would you spend at church if the internet wasn’t free and unlimited?

3. I can’t believe how un patriotic Australians are. They don’t want to celebrate the 4th of July. What’s up with that?

I’m sitting here watching The Footy Show, a night after the Rugby State of Origin game.  Basically, it is as close as rugby gets to the Super Bowl here in Australia.  It is a best of 3 series between two states, New South Wales and Queensland.  Wherever the player first played a game (their state of origin) they return and play for their state.  It would be the equivalent to all the professional NFL players going back to their home states and playing. Like Texas vs. Louisiana, or California vs. Florida. A great concept that might need to be brought up.

But something interesting was just said on the show.  For the most part Queensland has won more games and just sealed up a 4 year in a row triumph.  A commentator from NSW pointed out with Queensland the traditions, the coaches, the players and the culture has been handed down from day one.  While with NSW, anytime a coach changes the entire culture or mindset of the team changes.

This is interesting, one attitude is to fix it if it’s not working. No matter how many times you need to start over and go back to the drawing board.  After 29 years of playing, they went back to step 1 this year.  While the other approach is to build on values rather then a key man person.  Over time people adapt and follow the values of the team rather then any one person trying to start over. So after 29 years, there is grow and success.  The fruitfulness came as a result of the faithfulness. 

It’s an interesting thought for me with church leadership. But I think it could and does work in business and in families as well.

As I write this post, I’m sitting in a McCafe in one of the northern suburbs of Brisbane.  I’m using the free wi-fi and a snazzy macbook.  10 years ago, this week, I was visiting Australia on a missions trip.  I wanted to jot down a few things that have changed over the last 10 years. Feel free to add to the list.

• Gas in America (speedway on 82nd/i-69) was .77cents/gal. It is now about $3/gal.
• Petrol in Australia was .77 cents/litre (3.7 litres=gal). It is now about $1/litre.
• Everyone was excited and somewhat scared about what would happen with the new millenium & Y2K
• The .com revolution was taking off and about to crash.
• The USA (and maybe the world) was enjoying a time of peace. We have since been involved in 2 declared wars, along with tense stand-offs with N.Korea, Iran, some bombs in Pakistan and a cultural civil war with ourselves.
• “Wear Sunscreen” was a popular song/speech by Baz Luhrman, to the graduating class of 1999. I graduated H.S. Some friends are working on their PhD’s and I’m still waiting on the whole university thing to work out.
• In the last 10 years, I have moved homes 11 times.
• Nokia cell phones were the big thing…I did not have one. 
• But I did have a pager!
• The iPod was 3 years from production and the G4 iMac had just came out.
• I was happy to have spent $1000 on my HP desktop from Wal-Mart with Windows Me and 100mb of RAM and 14 GB of hard-drive (this was fall of 2000)
• Napster was just being devised, and provided one of the main reasons why I did not do well my freshman year of college. Too Busy downloading FREE music!
• First heard DMB version of Long Black Veil (lyrics start “10 years ago…” hence the title)
• Had yet to meet my wife, but I was pretty sure she’d be hot, southern and could cook. Go with your gut feeling. I was interested in a lot of girls that weren’t southern or couldn’t cook. Thanks Heath, Matty and Josh for helping me out over those years and for introducing me to Katie.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Church lately. I guess it is O.K. to think about the Church, since I am a Christian and life long card carrying member of the beloved Bride of Christ. But beyond the general body of the Church, I’ve been thinking about leadership. I myself feel God has called me to a certain level of leadership in His Church. To what degree and extent I do not know. I’m with the Psalmist who says “I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God rather then dwell in the tents of the wicked.”

I have been reading a book lately that is really good. Yet the man who wrote it had an affair about 4 years after his writing. As I was cleaning out a church library a few weeks back, I was surprised at how many authors I had recognized for unfortunate things in their lives. Yet here they were writing about holiness and disciplined living and the good things of being a Christian.

It leads me to thinking further about the role, responsibilities and rapport of a local church pastor. Paul explains that an elder/overseer/pastor must be “…above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers, not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunk or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.” Why does he list these? Because “There are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers…they are upsetting whole families by teaching for selfish gain…they profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.” (Titus 1:5-16)

Again, I do not claim to be anything special. It seems like anyone who is publicly pronouncing their faith, or staking claim to their corner on a certain fail safe method then set themselves up for a fall. However, I want to get out an idea and I want to hear some feedback on this.

It’s been mentioned before about consolidating churches for sake of finances or location. What about for sake of discipleship? Do we really want to risk a watered down Gospel preached by watered down pastors? Do we want what will be birthed from that mangled mess? We look at men and women of old, the Finney’s, Wesley’s, Booth’s, St. Francis’, and wonder how they did it and how they had such great results. The results I believe came from their faithfulness in loving God and loving people.

I read of another pastor this week who removed himself after an inappropriate relationship. I wonder about the pastor’s who might need to be removed because of arrogance, pride, anger, and greed. I wonder what would happen if the tree was shaken a bit. Would the good fruit (fruit of the spirit, not numbers) remain?

Would you rather serve (by serve, I mean attend, not necessarily working full-time) in a “successful” (numbers, finances, etc) church, or a church that might not have the glitz and glamour, but there was the fruit of the spirit there?

I enjoy thursdays. You know the week is coming to a close so there is an excitement, but for those in the ministry I feel like Thursdays are the top “tick, tick, ticks” of a roller coaster right before it is about to go over the apex.  We have a rockin’ night on for tomorrow with Youth Alive holding a huge brew ha ha. Saturday, a few parties, and then of course Sunday and Sunday night.

But other then the roller coaster effect, thursdays are usually when some good things happen.  I found out today my good friend (legitimate friend, not just a friend of someone I knew) and his band won Hard Rock’s National Battle of the Bands and will play with the likes of Dave Matthews, The Killers and some guy named BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN in London’s Hyde Park.  Now I am a fan of all of these bands, especially DMB and Bruce.  But I really do enjoy listening to Rudy’s work.  I have since about 5 years ago when I heard some of his older stuff like “Shores of Geneva” and “Wise Men.”  He’s very talented.  I remember talking with him and his family over lunch at the 96th St. Cracker Barrel after I had fled Hurricane Rita.  They had just gotten back from a tour of Europe and the Sistine Chapel.  He said to me “I want to create that with music.” He didn’t know how it was going to happen, but he wants God to use him to create something original.  That’s awesome. God is the creator of the Original. And I think asking God to use us to help create something new for this world is still as relevant today as it was for Michelangelo.

So good on you Rudy! Check out his music here

I’ve thought about this for awhile. But I finally made the switch today. My good friend Paul Kind, put me onto Bloglines about 2 or 3 years ago now. I’ve been faithful to them and they’ve been faithful to me. However, it’s time to step it up. I’ve known Reader is much better for a while now, but was too lazy to make the switch. I thought about the hour of my life it took me to setup Bloglines, and I just don’t have that to set up another blog tracking system.  But it was SO easy. All I had to do was export my subscriptions from Bloglines and import them into Google Reader. Easy as that.

I was even able to nix some of those subscriptions I really don’t read any more.  Nothing like simplifying.

So check out Google Reader. You’ll like what you see.

I’ve been talking to a few people lately and this is what I’ve come to realize:

Confession is a good thing.

Whether it is confessing your sins/faults one to another as the Bible suggests, or simply getting some frustrations off of your chest. It is GOOD to get out what you feel in the way you feel it.  It’s good to talk to someone who will listen, give you advice if you need, but will mainly just listen.

Some people do that with a priest, and some confess to websites and blogs, but I think the best is to have a friend. Not like a Teddy Rumpskin or My Buddy, but an actual person.

What do you think?

Katie and I are reading a book, Ordering your Private World (I’m re-reading it after about 5 years) and it’s really challenging, reaffirming and helping us in a lot of areas.

A few things I’m working on is going to bed and waking up at set hours. This sounds pretty easy, but we’re taking a different approach. Going to bed roughly the same time every evening. Then setting our alarm for a specific and easy time to wake up. After 3 days we move that time up 10 minutes for the next 3 days. The goal is to find your fatigue time. I’m hoping I can work up to waking up at 3am in order to do all the spiritual disciplines, work out and make a great breakfast. OK that last little bit might be exaggerated, but I am hoping to gain an extra hour or two on the day.

More than anything chapter 7, Recapturing My Time, hit me pretty hard.  Check out these 4 places our time goes: When I don’t plan out my time (and stick with it):

1. My time flows towards my weakness.  What I mean by this is, if I am a 7 at discipling (which I am not) and a 3 at administration (which I am), then why do I spend 75% of my time trying to become a 5 in administration, when I should spend the majority of my time honing my strengths.  When I focus on my weaknesses, I continue to get frustrated with myself and tend to rely on my “talents” to get me through. I see good speakers, who have the potential to be great speakers do this all the time. They try to administrate or disciple, which is ok, but they need to focus on what God has gifted them at and bring others along who can help in their areas of weakness. (by the way, since I’m better at discipling then administration, I brought someone in during the week, we spent 3 hours and planned everything for children’s,  youth and young adults over the next 3 months.  I was discipling, he was helping plan, that’s how it works)

2. My time will get taken by the dominant people in my life.

God loves you and has a plan for your life. This is true. What is also true is if I don’t have my time planned out, the dominant figures in my life will also have a plan. Now this doesn’t mean that we don’t serve and help our leaders. But many times someone who is a dominant figure will make plans for me that don’t work with my schedule, but because I don’t have my act together I can’t say I am not free or we need to reschedule.  I’m not saying every minute of every day needs to be planned out to the tee.  However, if you have control of your time (which is different from planning your time) then you’ll be able to set the hours of meetings that suit your time best.  Trust me, when this happens life won’t seem as “urgent” as what others make it. Which brings us to # 3

3. I am forced to submit to ALL emergencies.

Let’s face it, true emergencies happen all the time. But most 911 (000 in Aus) calls to a pastor aren’t emergencies. Crisis’ maybe, but not emergencies. Asking questions like “why is it we need to meet right now?” and explaining that maybe because your schedule is full on (Saturday night before a sermon, or on your day off) that maybe your mind won’t be 100% to help them. See if they can schedule a time to meet during a normal day/hour. Most people will agree to this, and it will help sort the “emergencies” from the real emergencies. It will also help protect your family time.

4. My time will go towards thing that gain public attention.

This is one I/we don’t really want to admit. This isn’t always why I blog/FB/Twitter, but I’ll admit that I have in the past spent time I didn’t need to, doing these things because I knew that publicly (ok like 10 people) would respond or read or notice that.  It’s so weak in the grand scheme of things isn’t it?

What are you called to, what are you gifted at, and what is your purpose?  That is where our time should go.  It’s logical that we should spend most of our time doing what God intended us to do, honing what he’s gifted us at, and enjoying life with the people he’s put around us.

When getting away for a day off, I highly suggest going somewhere and spending the night to fully enjoy the effects of waking up where you want to spend your day off. We got to the beach about 10:30 last night, after a long weekend of youth, kids, adult and young adult church services and activities. We woke up rested and ready for the day ahead. Which has included:

• Reading (Bible, Ordering Your Private World, Church History in Plain Language)
• Writing, correspondence with Peter Youngblood on our common ground and differences in the Church
• walking on the beach
• Eating
• Drinking Tea & Coffee.
• Blogging

Young Adults

That phrase has so much attached to it. Young tends to = immaturity, juvenile, undeveloped (U.K. Thesaurus). Adult has other connotations: old, fully developed, responsible, sensible. The two do not necessarily go hand in hand, yet they are thrown together in a collision not unlike some of our feelings as young adults.

I want to have fun, stay up/out late, not be held accountable for my actions. But at the same time I am torn by wanting to be accepted and respected as an adult. I want my opinions and actions to finally matter to this world. Being young adults we all feel or have felt at one time these emotions. We want to live in our own place, drive a nice car, have nice things from IKEA; but we don’t really like to work or see a huge need to work. We don’t desire the responsibilities of adulthood, yet we almost crave the benefits and recognition.

Part of what Katie and I have learned as those who are Christian young adults is that God loves us enough to have this time in our lives be a transition from our youth into being who God fully intended us to be.

The reality is most of what has been taught and learned, opportunities experienced and missed over the last 10 years of our “youth” will not really affect the next 40 years of our lives. What will affect the quality of the rest of your life is your 20’s.  Statistics show who your core group of friends are in your 20’s are who will be lifelong friends. What you sow (investments or wild oats) in the next several years, will be a part of the harvest you will reap in your 30’s and 40’s.  It’s a lot to think about and grasp, yet it is crucial to our growth as individuals and as a group.

Who do you want to be? What do we want to become?

Katie and I are here to help guide us all along during this transition in life.  Part of that transition and growth will happen when we meet weekly for a time of equipping (small groups). The rest will happen day in and day out.

One more thing, young also means fresh. A fresh view, perspective and insight. I like the idea of an adult like that. We are looking forward to this journey.