I really think I remember when this happened.
Some time just after 9/11 (two months after, it turns out), I remember somebody saying, “Hey, I just saw on the news where some guy ran through a security point at Hartsfield. Now nobody’s flying over like half the country.”
Some guy…
“Some guy” was Shane Lasseter from Gainesville, GA. I’m sure he would love that I’m bringing this back up, and that the AJC has decided to bring it up again as well. His tale was again rehearsed this Monday in their “whatever happened to” feature.
Lasseter’s 15 minutes of fame was not the kind you’d want. He had a colossal, public, lapse of good judgment.
The UGA fan (nope, I’m not saying anything) was on his way to see the Bulldogs play at Ole Miss. He never got that far, and more than his weekend was ruined.
Like an old-time O.J. Simson-luggage-hurdling-rent-a-car commercial, Lasseter tore backward down the “up” escalator.
He flew, in reverse, right through a security checkpoint --- all in an effort to retrieve the camera bag he’d left behind. His ticket remained behind in the pocket of a travel bag at the gate. He had pierced the vale of the “secured world” and entered the unclean world of the “unsecured,” all without his ticket.
Not good. At all.
The result? A “code orange” was issues at the incredibly busy Hartsfield International Airport. Flights were grounded at 18 other airports. Dominoes started to fall. Traffic piled up on I-85. Marta was halted at the College Park station. Soldiers evacuated and guarded the terminal.
Was Osama on the loose? Nope. “Some guy” forgot his camera bag.
So, have you ever thought that the actions of one little person ---- say one little person like you or me --- couldn’t really make a difference in the world?
You’d be wrong.
In just a moment’s time, an impulsive decision made worse by adrenaline, hurry and fear turned a community upside-down for an afternoon, impacted thousands and thousands of people, and sent deep currents through the waters of one man’s life.
Ultimately, Shane Lasseter was sentenced to five weekends in jail, 500 hours of community service and a year’s probation. Oh, and he wasn’t allowed back to another UGA game for a year. Not kidding.
He also resigned from his job and had to re-make his life.
Our choices really do matter, both for ourselves and for countless other people in our homes, churches, businesses, communities and world.
Thinking of Hartsfield makes me think of the flights that I’ve taken from there and the times that I’ve returned. The vision of metro Atlanta all lit up at night, with its multiple skylines and seemingly infinite grid of streets and neighborhoods never fails to leave me stunned.
I always think, “there are a LOT of people down there. How can God really know us all? Isn’t it amazing to believe that he does?”
You could almost believe that one person’s little life and choices couldn’t matter in such a sea of humanity.
But we’d be wrong.
As I journey through life in a church, as a pastor, and as a disciple of Jesus Christ, I sometimes venture back toward a poem that leans in its frame against a shelf in my office. It was a gift to me from my parents --- and it continues to mean the world.
The poem speaks of frustration, weariness, and all the times that we might be tempted to resign ourselves over into insignificance.
But the last line says it all:
“A life lived for Jesus really does make a difference.”
Every single day, we are faced with decisions. Change is an inevitable reality --- tomorrow will be different, even if ever so slightly, than today. But God gives us the incredible gift of choice.
That idea is humbling. It can be overwhelming. What if we mess up? What if we forget to follow in His steps? What if we lose our way? What about all that pressure?
Knowing that it matters isn't about pressure...it's about the precious gift of significance. God promises to be with us, to help us, and most of all just wants to "do life" with us...together.
The idea of insignificance is an illusion. Worse yet, it’s a form of self-deception that dishonors God.
Remember that it matters, and that God is always there.
Oh yeah, and don’t run backwards through any security checkpoints. For that matter, I’d try not to run in an airport at all. I’ll see you this Sunday.
Grace & Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
So much is happening in the life of our church! New officers were elected at our Charge Conference on October 15th, and all of our new leadership information will be available for the entire congregation this Sunday. Our 2007 leadership team is strong and skilled, and we ask you to hold each of our leaders in prayer.
Confirmation continues for about a dozen of our youth who will be received into full church membership on Sunday morning, November 19th!
Pumpkins are here! Don’t forget that our pumpkins are here at SOTH and we’re looking forward to a huge weekend of sales. Get them while they last and help support our youth!
Small groups continue to meet each week during our “Get Out of the Boat” fall discipleship emphasis. Special thanks to Tim Potate, Lamar Gilstrap, Derrick Fountain, Sandra Wells and Andrea Vantrees for their outstanding leadership, and to the Clary’s, Potates, Brooks and Bartletts for serving as hosts.
You will be presented with a set of options this Sunday! Our “Out of the Boat” series on committed discipleship is drawing near its close, and this Sunday, everyone present in worship will receive an “Opportunities Card” for 2007. We’re working hard to list all the ways that you can serve at SOTH in the year ahead, and we will be asking for “pledges” of Worship, Prayer, Scripture, Relationships, Service and Giving in 2007. Thanks for the great response that you’ve all made to the challenge of this series, and for your willingness to serve and grow deeper in relationship with Christ.
Oct 25, 2006
Oct 18, 2006
New
Douglas County is growing.
If you live here, you know that’s the understatement of the century. It’s really growing.
The latest demographic data I could find for today shows an anticipated 11% growth rate in the SOTH zip code (30135) over the next 5 years. The national average for that same time period is projected at less than 5%.
Our county is growing.
Rapid growth is a fascinating thing. It’s a particularly American phenomenon. We’re optimistic people, we have room to expand, we have plenty of kids (more than any other industrialized nation), and our houses are big enough to hold large families.
Even so, watching rapid growth in an American small town is a fascinating thing.
In the last community in which Holly and I lived, the growth rate was moving at an even faster rate. Not unlike Douglasville, Evans is a place that has seen awesome transformation. New homes, new schools, new people, new businesses, new government, newcomers.
New.
As a result, I have listened for years to the heartfelt and heart-wrenching words of local people trying to cope with change. As one of the newcomers, I see the bustling growth of subdivisions and clearing for new shopping centers as places of opportunity and possibility. I see property values on the rise, and a great quality of life for more people.
For me, such scenes of “progress” don’t hold any pain --- because I don’t know the stories that have gone before.
When I tell you how to get somewhere in Douglasville, you won’t hear me say, “you know, hang a left where the old Smith place used to be.”
I’m new. I don’t know where the “Old Smith Place” used to be. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t ever there.
Change….growth…is as painful as exciting.
But what about change and growth --- in our hearts?
What if God wants to do something new with our lives?
A friend sent me a wonderful, and fascinating view of God excerpted from a recent article by Will Willimon, bishop of the North Alabama Conference, scholar, theologian, and former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University.
Willimon says, in part:
I’ve asked mainline pastors, "Who is the most sinned-against person of the Holy Trinity?" They always answer, "The Holy Spirit." Let's confess: there is this sinful tendency in the church to want to contain and stabilize God. Church furniture tends to be heavier than it needs to be—large and bolted to the floor. Church buildings tend to be built more substantially than is necessary. Church scholars tend to characterize God as an ossified essence. Perhaps this attempt forever to stabilize and to secure the church comes from the church's inchoate knowledge that it is the nature of this God's word to cause oaks to whirl, to shake the foundations, to rip doors off hinges (Ps. 29; Acts 2).
…to be apostolic is to be a body in motion, a church that is sent. It is not to seek permanence, stability or some significance of its own, but instead to be content to be apostolic and to serve at the pleasure of the One who calls and commissions. Introversion is the death of a church because the Trinity, for all its loving concern, seems to be ruthless in killing any church that won't be apostolic.
The comforting thing is that we don't have to content ourselves with the sorry state of the present church because the living God keeps raising up a new church. "A sower went out to sow . . ."
…Here is a God who is peripatetic, nomadic, ecstatic, unable to settle down. Jesus told many stories that begin, "A rich man called all of his servants in, distributed everything he had, then left." God has absconded our stable fellowship in order to beat the bushes in search of people we don't like, has abandoned the sheep safe in the fold in order to risk looking for the lost.
John Ortberg tells us in our current study, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, that disciples of this active, moving, unpredictable God have a choice.
Faith or fear.
I have felt the pain of communities that, with good and understandable cause, wanted to contain growth --- slow it, or make it happen in an acceptable pattern, one small notch at a time. Fear of a community out of control has the power to change elections, adopt codes and shape lawmaking.
But when God takes root in a heart, code enforcement gets pretty difficult. God isn’t interested in our fear, but he really does love to see us step toward him in faith.
Ortberg reminds us this week that God’s most frequent commandment in scripture is “be not afraid.” It happens 366 times.
Get the picture? New happens. God will help us. Be not afraid.
Grace, Peace, & Push –
Adam
If you live here, you know that’s the understatement of the century. It’s really growing.
The latest demographic data I could find for today shows an anticipated 11% growth rate in the SOTH zip code (30135) over the next 5 years. The national average for that same time period is projected at less than 5%.
Our county is growing.
Rapid growth is a fascinating thing. It’s a particularly American phenomenon. We’re optimistic people, we have room to expand, we have plenty of kids (more than any other industrialized nation), and our houses are big enough to hold large families.
Even so, watching rapid growth in an American small town is a fascinating thing.
In the last community in which Holly and I lived, the growth rate was moving at an even faster rate. Not unlike Douglasville, Evans is a place that has seen awesome transformation. New homes, new schools, new people, new businesses, new government, newcomers.
New.
As a result, I have listened for years to the heartfelt and heart-wrenching words of local people trying to cope with change. As one of the newcomers, I see the bustling growth of subdivisions and clearing for new shopping centers as places of opportunity and possibility. I see property values on the rise, and a great quality of life for more people.
For me, such scenes of “progress” don’t hold any pain --- because I don’t know the stories that have gone before.
When I tell you how to get somewhere in Douglasville, you won’t hear me say, “you know, hang a left where the old Smith place used to be.”
I’m new. I don’t know where the “Old Smith Place” used to be. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t ever there.
Change….growth…is as painful as exciting.
But what about change and growth --- in our hearts?
What if God wants to do something new with our lives?
A friend sent me a wonderful, and fascinating view of God excerpted from a recent article by Will Willimon, bishop of the North Alabama Conference, scholar, theologian, and former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University.
Willimon says, in part:
I’ve asked mainline pastors, "Who is the most sinned-against person of the Holy Trinity?" They always answer, "The Holy Spirit." Let's confess: there is this sinful tendency in the church to want to contain and stabilize God. Church furniture tends to be heavier than it needs to be—large and bolted to the floor. Church buildings tend to be built more substantially than is necessary. Church scholars tend to characterize God as an ossified essence. Perhaps this attempt forever to stabilize and to secure the church comes from the church's inchoate knowledge that it is the nature of this God's word to cause oaks to whirl, to shake the foundations, to rip doors off hinges (Ps. 29; Acts 2).
…to be apostolic is to be a body in motion, a church that is sent. It is not to seek permanence, stability or some significance of its own, but instead to be content to be apostolic and to serve at the pleasure of the One who calls and commissions. Introversion is the death of a church because the Trinity, for all its loving concern, seems to be ruthless in killing any church that won't be apostolic.
The comforting thing is that we don't have to content ourselves with the sorry state of the present church because the living God keeps raising up a new church. "A sower went out to sow . . ."
…Here is a God who is peripatetic, nomadic, ecstatic, unable to settle down. Jesus told many stories that begin, "A rich man called all of his servants in, distributed everything he had, then left." God has absconded our stable fellowship in order to beat the bushes in search of people we don't like, has abandoned the sheep safe in the fold in order to risk looking for the lost.
John Ortberg tells us in our current study, If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, that disciples of this active, moving, unpredictable God have a choice.
Faith or fear.
I have felt the pain of communities that, with good and understandable cause, wanted to contain growth --- slow it, or make it happen in an acceptable pattern, one small notch at a time. Fear of a community out of control has the power to change elections, adopt codes and shape lawmaking.
But when God takes root in a heart, code enforcement gets pretty difficult. God isn’t interested in our fear, but he really does love to see us step toward him in faith.
Ortberg reminds us this week that God’s most frequent commandment in scripture is “be not afraid.” It happens 366 times.
Get the picture? New happens. God will help us. Be not afraid.
Grace, Peace, & Push –
Adam
Oct 11, 2006
Step
OK, watch this.
Pretty good, huh?
Now, if you’ve got another minute and a half to kill, watch this, too.
Those clips sold for $1.65 billion yesterday. No joke.
Well, those…and all the other user-created clips that are downloaded about 100 million (also no joke) times a day at youtube.com.
The folks from your friendly neighborhood search engine, Google, acquired Youtube and plan to add google-style advertising and merge their highly successful business model with this emerging broadband video phenomenon.
$1.65 billion, and Google obviously believes it will make money in the long run. After all, that is their point, but I do give them props for their “do no evil” way of going about it. One minor editorial soapbox – Christian churches could learn a lot from Google’s way of doing business.
But here’s the thing: $1.65 billion was just paid for a business that defies the accepted laws of classical economics.
So much for accepted laws. The theory says that “labor” will only “produce” if there is direct economic motivation for its work. In short, people will only work if they get paid.
Neither t-shirt guy nor sock guy in the clips above will see one red cent of the $1.65 billion in question.
So, why would they do it? Why would all those you-tubers out there produce their own videos, at their own expense (which, admittedly isn’t much – but still), and post them on someone else’s website? Why do birds sing? Why do bloggers blog?
After all, the very site you’re reading from right now, blogger.com, makes its living from “user-created” content, from folks like yours truly.
What makes us do it?
I believe that on some level, maybe all human beings long for significance, and perhaps they long for that significance above all else.
People want to believe that they matter. That someone knows they’re here. That someone cares about what they think, do, and become.
Given the right vehicle, millions of people will flail their arms, jump up and down…wear hundreds of t-shirts, and scream out, “HEY EVERYBODY, WATCH THIS!!!”
Otherwise, a leather-bound journal in a desk drawer would do just fine, wouldn’t it?
In a sense, the economic theory isn’t wrong. “Labor” produces in this new techno-world because there is a payoff in return. Significance, or the draw of possible significance, can move people --- to act --- to do something.
John Ortberg has said in If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, that knowing and following Jesus starts with a single step.
The draw of significance was more than Jesus' disciple Peter could resist (Matthew 14). “Lord, if it is you, call me to come to you upon the waves.”
He did. And Peter placed his foot upon the water.
I remember the first edition of the SOTHBLOG that I ever posted, some 15 months ago. I’d never attached my name to anything on the internet, and the proposition of doing so was a little alarming.
But the possibility of communicating with my congregation every week, and with friends and family, and just maybe with little slices of the whole, wide, world was more than I could resist. The idea was exciting, and it still is.
That little step was a small act of faith, and though it was exciting, it was also uncomfortable.
Folks, that’s how following Jesus feels sometimes. Exciting…and uncomfortable.
Jesus always seeks to draw us deeper. Deeper into relationship with him that changes our hearts and our ways of seeing and interacting with the world. Deeper into complexity and possibility.
As Ortberg says, there is always a call --- and always fear --- and on the other side of faithful, tiny steps, there is always significance. Someone knows you’re here…and that someone cares supremely.
So…a proposition.
What if SOTH, and all the other gatherings of Christians throughout the world, could find the powerful simplicity and irresistible draw that the two guys who thought up youtube produced?
What if we create a space – a community – not in screens and electrons, but in real flesh and blood -- where people can’t help meeting the possibility of real significance?
Could the draw of really knowing God move an almost-believer to take a first small step outside her comfort zone?
Yes indeed.
And there can be a second step…and a third…and a fourth…eventually, the old way can pass away…into a new life in Christ.
Now that’s significant.
I’ve really come to believe that the creation of those kinds of experiences is the real reason we’re here and the entirety of God’s need for his church in the world.
Know what? Maybe take a second and upload a prayer to the Big Programmer in the Sky…you don’t even have to sign up for the free account. He already knows your name, and you don’t need a password.
Sure, it’s a risk, it’s a little uncomfortable at first, and neither you nor I are going to earn one red cent from the experience.
…But it just might be the first step on the path to real significance.
Go get your feet wet --- it’s worth it.
Grace and Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
CHARGE CONFERENCE – Don’t forget that we’ll celebrate our last 12 months of ministry and look forward to the year ahead when our Rome-Carrollton District Superintendent, Jacqui Rose-Tucker is present with us at 3:00 this Sunday, October 15th in our worship space for our annual Charge Conference. Officers and ministry teams for the coming year will be put into place, and we’ll adopt the budget and consider other important matters for 2007.
OUT OF THE BOAT WORSHIP SERIES: Our small groups continue to study John Ortberg’s book, and this Sunday will mark our third installment of a six-week look at deepening faith and following Jesus. We’ve talked about fear, gifts and this Sunday we’ll focus on moving beyond our own places of comfort and into places of new growth.
PUMPKIN TIME AT SOTH!!! It’s time for the Youth pumpkin patch again! We need all available volunteers to come unload the truck and help set up the patch this Friday at 4:30. Thanks in advance to all of you who come out for this time of hard work and lots of fun.
Pretty good, huh?
Now, if you’ve got another minute and a half to kill, watch this, too.
Those clips sold for $1.65 billion yesterday. No joke.
Well, those…and all the other user-created clips that are downloaded about 100 million (also no joke) times a day at youtube.com.
The folks from your friendly neighborhood search engine, Google, acquired Youtube and plan to add google-style advertising and merge their highly successful business model with this emerging broadband video phenomenon.
$1.65 billion, and Google obviously believes it will make money in the long run. After all, that is their point, but I do give them props for their “do no evil” way of going about it. One minor editorial soapbox – Christian churches could learn a lot from Google’s way of doing business.
But here’s the thing: $1.65 billion was just paid for a business that defies the accepted laws of classical economics.
So much for accepted laws. The theory says that “labor” will only “produce” if there is direct economic motivation for its work. In short, people will only work if they get paid.
Neither t-shirt guy nor sock guy in the clips above will see one red cent of the $1.65 billion in question.
So, why would they do it? Why would all those you-tubers out there produce their own videos, at their own expense (which, admittedly isn’t much – but still), and post them on someone else’s website? Why do birds sing? Why do bloggers blog?
After all, the very site you’re reading from right now, blogger.com, makes its living from “user-created” content, from folks like yours truly.
What makes us do it?
I believe that on some level, maybe all human beings long for significance, and perhaps they long for that significance above all else.
People want to believe that they matter. That someone knows they’re here. That someone cares about what they think, do, and become.
Given the right vehicle, millions of people will flail their arms, jump up and down…wear hundreds of t-shirts, and scream out, “HEY EVERYBODY, WATCH THIS!!!”
Otherwise, a leather-bound journal in a desk drawer would do just fine, wouldn’t it?
In a sense, the economic theory isn’t wrong. “Labor” produces in this new techno-world because there is a payoff in return. Significance, or the draw of possible significance, can move people --- to act --- to do something.
John Ortberg has said in If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, that knowing and following Jesus starts with a single step.
The draw of significance was more than Jesus' disciple Peter could resist (Matthew 14). “Lord, if it is you, call me to come to you upon the waves.”
He did. And Peter placed his foot upon the water.
I remember the first edition of the SOTHBLOG that I ever posted, some 15 months ago. I’d never attached my name to anything on the internet, and the proposition of doing so was a little alarming.
But the possibility of communicating with my congregation every week, and with friends and family, and just maybe with little slices of the whole, wide, world was more than I could resist. The idea was exciting, and it still is.
That little step was a small act of faith, and though it was exciting, it was also uncomfortable.
Folks, that’s how following Jesus feels sometimes. Exciting…and uncomfortable.
Jesus always seeks to draw us deeper. Deeper into relationship with him that changes our hearts and our ways of seeing and interacting with the world. Deeper into complexity and possibility.
As Ortberg says, there is always a call --- and always fear --- and on the other side of faithful, tiny steps, there is always significance. Someone knows you’re here…and that someone cares supremely.
So…a proposition.
What if SOTH, and all the other gatherings of Christians throughout the world, could find the powerful simplicity and irresistible draw that the two guys who thought up youtube produced?
What if we create a space – a community – not in screens and electrons, but in real flesh and blood -- where people can’t help meeting the possibility of real significance?
Could the draw of really knowing God move an almost-believer to take a first small step outside her comfort zone?
Yes indeed.
And there can be a second step…and a third…and a fourth…eventually, the old way can pass away…into a new life in Christ.
Now that’s significant.
I’ve really come to believe that the creation of those kinds of experiences is the real reason we’re here and the entirety of God’s need for his church in the world.
Know what? Maybe take a second and upload a prayer to the Big Programmer in the Sky…you don’t even have to sign up for the free account. He already knows your name, and you don’t need a password.
Sure, it’s a risk, it’s a little uncomfortable at first, and neither you nor I are going to earn one red cent from the experience.
…But it just might be the first step on the path to real significance.
Go get your feet wet --- it’s worth it.
Grace and Peace,
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
CHARGE CONFERENCE – Don’t forget that we’ll celebrate our last 12 months of ministry and look forward to the year ahead when our Rome-Carrollton District Superintendent, Jacqui Rose-Tucker is present with us at 3:00 this Sunday, October 15th in our worship space for our annual Charge Conference. Officers and ministry teams for the coming year will be put into place, and we’ll adopt the budget and consider other important matters for 2007.
OUT OF THE BOAT WORSHIP SERIES: Our small groups continue to study John Ortberg’s book, and this Sunday will mark our third installment of a six-week look at deepening faith and following Jesus. We’ve talked about fear, gifts and this Sunday we’ll focus on moving beyond our own places of comfort and into places of new growth.
PUMPKIN TIME AT SOTH!!! It’s time for the Youth pumpkin patch again! We need all available volunteers to come unload the truck and help set up the patch this Friday at 4:30. Thanks in advance to all of you who come out for this time of hard work and lots of fun.
Oct 4, 2006
Gift
“I know what I want to do, and it makes sense to get going.”
It does make sense, doesn’t it.
What if the “it” is the act of giving away $37 billion?
Yep, I said THIRTY-SEVEN BILLION. With a “B.”
But when you have $37 Billion at your disposal, you’re not crazy. You’re…maybe a little eccentric. “Crazy” is just a title for folks without the cash to offset their craziness.
Actually, you’d be an incredibly successful business person with an innate ability to think in ways other people never have. You’d be Warren Buffett.
Back in June of this year, Warren Buffett announced that he would be giving away 85% of his wealth to the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Let’s just say that $37 billion truly is more money than any of us can really imagine.
But, for kicks, let’s see if we can make it a little more real.
To spend $37 billion in the course of a 70 year lifetime (and this is if you stuffed it all in the world’s biggest mattress and didn’t earn any interest), you’d need to spend $1.45 million……EVERY SINGLE DAY, EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE.
Folks, that’s a lot of money. That’s kind of like calling the Grand Canyon a pretty big mudhole.
What motivates someone to give away wealth on that scale? How can a person possibly make that kind of gift?
Carol Loomis, editor of Fortune magazine, asked Buffett the obvious question: “Are you sick?”
Nope.
It was unclear as to whether she was questioning his mental or physical well-being, but somehow I sense the implication that her question aimed at both.
Buffett’s thoughts about his wealth are just fascinating:
…Well, when we got married in 1952, I told Susie I was going to be rich. That wasn't going to be because of any special virtues of mine or even because of hard work, but simply because I was born with the right skills in the right place at the right time.
I was wired at birth to allocate capital and was lucky enough to have people around me early on - my parents and teachers and Susie - who helped me to make the most of that.
In any case, Susie didn't get very excited when I told her we were going to get rich. She either didn't care or didn't believe me - probably both, in fact. But to the extent we did amass wealth, we were totally in sync about what to do with it - and that was to give it back to society.
In that, we agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced.
And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century.
Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.
In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level.
In my “pastor-ears” I hear Buffett’s words sounding an awful lot like the kinds of things we teach at church --- that Jesus passes on to his disciples.
“I have this gift, freely received…and now I should freely make my gift available to the world.”
Sounds great --- but what if your gift was $37 Billion?
Could you give that gift away?
One the one hand, I know what you’re probably thinking. “Hmmm…Buffett will have to figure out how to live on the 15% of his $44 billion fortune. Yeah, I’d be willing to try that.”
Don’t sell our man Warren short. Giving away $37 Billion, or 85% of your life’s earnings for that matter, whatever the number is, cannot be easy.
Whether we’re giving away $37 billion, or $37 thousand, or $3700, I think the same fundamental principal of the heart is at play. Something out there matters more than money.
Something, somehow, forces us to look at life through a different lens.
Somewhere along the way, those who make gifts have been challenged to see what they’ve already received, and feel moved to share the wealth.
That’s a big part of what following Jesus is all about.
Jesus once told those who would listen a story about a man of enormous wealth.
He prepared to leave the country, and entrusted his fortune to three servants.
To one, he gave 5 talents. To another, he gave three, and the final servant received one. Each, we’re told, received according to “his ability.”
So, what was a talent worth, really? We know that in Jesus’ time, in the Greco-Roman world, a manual laborer could earn one drachma each day. A silver “talent,” weighing almost 58 pounds, was worth 6,000 drachma.
In other words, that laborer would have to work 6000 days (almost 16.5 years – working every single day) to earn one silver talent.
In today’s dollars, that means the master gave the first servant $2.375 million, the second servant $1.425 million, and the third servant $475,000.
Do those numbers get your attention? They definitely would have gotten the attention of those who heard Jesus tell the parable.
The first two servants invested wisely, worked hard and doubled their master’s money by the time of his return. The third servant, paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, dug a hole and buried it. Literally.
The weight of the gift was more than he could bear.
What about us?
What will we do with the treasure we have been given? I know, it’s hard, sometimes, for any of us to look at our lives, our “talents” and gifts, and begin to know their value. The lie we too often tell ourselves, because it seems like the easier way, is the one that says, “my little gifts couldn’t matter that much anyway.”
That’s not what Jesus thinks.
When asked why he, the second richest man in America, would choose to give his money to Bill Gates, the richest, here’s what Warren Buffett said:
If you think about it - if your goal is to return the money to society by attacking truly major problems that don't have a commensurate funding base - what could you find that's better than turning to a couple of people who are young, who are ungodly bright, whose ideas have been proven, who already have shown an ability to scale it up and do it right?
You don't get an opportunity like that ordinarily. I'm getting two people enormously successful at something, where I've had a chance to see what they've done, where I know they will keep doing it - where they've done it with their own money, so they're not living in some fantasy world - and where in general I agree with their reasoning. If I've found the right vehicle for my goal, there's no reason to wait.
Compare what I'm doing with them to my situation at Berkshire, where I have talented and proven people in charge of our businesses. They do a much better job than I could in running their operations.
What can be more logical, in whatever you want done, than finding someone better equipped than you are to do it? Who wouldn't select Tiger Woods to take his place in a high-stakes golf game? That's how I feel about this decision about my money.
High praise indeed. Want to know something amazing? God thinks the same of us.
God, for reasons he seems to keep largely to himself, loves us so much that he seeks to accomplish his work in the world through the gifts that he’s given his children.
What if God’s investments reside in your heart, hands, head and ---- yes ---- even your bank account?
What if?
What if God’s people --- those of the tender heart and open mind…of the humble soul and courageous spirit…those who walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ made a collective decision…
What if we knew what to do?
It would make sense to get going.
Grace and Peace –
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
The SOTH pumpkin patch rolls in very soon. We need all volunteers on hand for a fun time (really, not kidding, it’s a blast) unloading pumpkins and setting up for the community. This event provides the yearly fundraising for our youth group, so thanks in advance from “The Flock.” See you here on Friday, October 13th in the afternoon (more specific time to follow as soon as we know it).
Confirmation classes beginning this Sunday afternoon, 4:00 pm at “The Ranch” for all of our current 6th and 7th graders. Questions? Contact Adam at adam@sothumc.net
“Get Out of the Boat” series continues in worship this week with Adam’s sermon, “Gift.” The SOTHBLOG and sermons will be following the small group curriculum currently underway from John Ortberg’s If You Want to Walk on Water, Get Out of the Boat. Extra copies will be available outside the worship space if you’re not in a small group but would like to read along.
Our series will culminate with an opportunity for each SOTH member to “Get Out of the Boat” in faith for 2007. Financial pledges and volunteer pledges for ministry will be received in our special worship service on November 5th, 2006.
LET’S KICK SOME GRASS: Don’t forget, volunteers will gather this afternoon --- very shortly --- to mow and work on the church property. SOTH accomplishes this task through a team of volunteers, and your help is needed. Come out, enjoy the Fall weather, and weedeat your cares away!
It does make sense, doesn’t it.
What if the “it” is the act of giving away $37 billion?
Yep, I said THIRTY-SEVEN BILLION. With a “B.”
But when you have $37 Billion at your disposal, you’re not crazy. You’re…maybe a little eccentric. “Crazy” is just a title for folks without the cash to offset their craziness.
Actually, you’d be an incredibly successful business person with an innate ability to think in ways other people never have. You’d be Warren Buffett.
Back in June of this year, Warren Buffett announced that he would be giving away 85% of his wealth to the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Let’s just say that $37 billion truly is more money than any of us can really imagine.
But, for kicks, let’s see if we can make it a little more real.
To spend $37 billion in the course of a 70 year lifetime (and this is if you stuffed it all in the world’s biggest mattress and didn’t earn any interest), you’d need to spend $1.45 million……EVERY SINGLE DAY, EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE.
Folks, that’s a lot of money. That’s kind of like calling the Grand Canyon a pretty big mudhole.
What motivates someone to give away wealth on that scale? How can a person possibly make that kind of gift?
Carol Loomis, editor of Fortune magazine, asked Buffett the obvious question: “Are you sick?”
Nope.
It was unclear as to whether she was questioning his mental or physical well-being, but somehow I sense the implication that her question aimed at both.
Buffett’s thoughts about his wealth are just fascinating:
…Well, when we got married in 1952, I told Susie I was going to be rich. That wasn't going to be because of any special virtues of mine or even because of hard work, but simply because I was born with the right skills in the right place at the right time.
I was wired at birth to allocate capital and was lucky enough to have people around me early on - my parents and teachers and Susie - who helped me to make the most of that.
In any case, Susie didn't get very excited when I told her we were going to get rich. She either didn't care or didn't believe me - probably both, in fact. But to the extent we did amass wealth, we were totally in sync about what to do with it - and that was to give it back to society.
In that, we agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced.
And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century.
Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.
In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level.
In my “pastor-ears” I hear Buffett’s words sounding an awful lot like the kinds of things we teach at church --- that Jesus passes on to his disciples.
“I have this gift, freely received…and now I should freely make my gift available to the world.”
Sounds great --- but what if your gift was $37 Billion?
Could you give that gift away?
One the one hand, I know what you’re probably thinking. “Hmmm…Buffett will have to figure out how to live on the 15% of his $44 billion fortune. Yeah, I’d be willing to try that.”
Don’t sell our man Warren short. Giving away $37 Billion, or 85% of your life’s earnings for that matter, whatever the number is, cannot be easy.
Whether we’re giving away $37 billion, or $37 thousand, or $3700, I think the same fundamental principal of the heart is at play. Something out there matters more than money.
Something, somehow, forces us to look at life through a different lens.
Somewhere along the way, those who make gifts have been challenged to see what they’ve already received, and feel moved to share the wealth.
That’s a big part of what following Jesus is all about.
Jesus once told those who would listen a story about a man of enormous wealth.
He prepared to leave the country, and entrusted his fortune to three servants.
To one, he gave 5 talents. To another, he gave three, and the final servant received one. Each, we’re told, received according to “his ability.”
So, what was a talent worth, really? We know that in Jesus’ time, in the Greco-Roman world, a manual laborer could earn one drachma each day. A silver “talent,” weighing almost 58 pounds, was worth 6,000 drachma.
In other words, that laborer would have to work 6000 days (almost 16.5 years – working every single day) to earn one silver talent.
In today’s dollars, that means the master gave the first servant $2.375 million, the second servant $1.425 million, and the third servant $475,000.
Do those numbers get your attention? They definitely would have gotten the attention of those who heard Jesus tell the parable.
The first two servants invested wisely, worked hard and doubled their master’s money by the time of his return. The third servant, paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, dug a hole and buried it. Literally.
The weight of the gift was more than he could bear.
What about us?
What will we do with the treasure we have been given? I know, it’s hard, sometimes, for any of us to look at our lives, our “talents” and gifts, and begin to know their value. The lie we too often tell ourselves, because it seems like the easier way, is the one that says, “my little gifts couldn’t matter that much anyway.”
That’s not what Jesus thinks.
When asked why he, the second richest man in America, would choose to give his money to Bill Gates, the richest, here’s what Warren Buffett said:
If you think about it - if your goal is to return the money to society by attacking truly major problems that don't have a commensurate funding base - what could you find that's better than turning to a couple of people who are young, who are ungodly bright, whose ideas have been proven, who already have shown an ability to scale it up and do it right?
You don't get an opportunity like that ordinarily. I'm getting two people enormously successful at something, where I've had a chance to see what they've done, where I know they will keep doing it - where they've done it with their own money, so they're not living in some fantasy world - and where in general I agree with their reasoning. If I've found the right vehicle for my goal, there's no reason to wait.
Compare what I'm doing with them to my situation at Berkshire, where I have talented and proven people in charge of our businesses. They do a much better job than I could in running their operations.
What can be more logical, in whatever you want done, than finding someone better equipped than you are to do it? Who wouldn't select Tiger Woods to take his place in a high-stakes golf game? That's how I feel about this decision about my money.
High praise indeed. Want to know something amazing? God thinks the same of us.
God, for reasons he seems to keep largely to himself, loves us so much that he seeks to accomplish his work in the world through the gifts that he’s given his children.
What if God’s investments reside in your heart, hands, head and ---- yes ---- even your bank account?
What if?
What if God’s people --- those of the tender heart and open mind…of the humble soul and courageous spirit…those who walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ made a collective decision…
What if we knew what to do?
It would make sense to get going.
Grace and Peace –
Adam
LIFE AT SOTH:
The SOTH pumpkin patch rolls in very soon. We need all volunteers on hand for a fun time (really, not kidding, it’s a blast) unloading pumpkins and setting up for the community. This event provides the yearly fundraising for our youth group, so thanks in advance from “The Flock.” See you here on Friday, October 13th in the afternoon (more specific time to follow as soon as we know it).
Confirmation classes beginning this Sunday afternoon, 4:00 pm at “The Ranch” for all of our current 6th and 7th graders. Questions? Contact Adam at adam@sothumc.net
“Get Out of the Boat” series continues in worship this week with Adam’s sermon, “Gift.” The SOTHBLOG and sermons will be following the small group curriculum currently underway from John Ortberg’s If You Want to Walk on Water, Get Out of the Boat. Extra copies will be available outside the worship space if you’re not in a small group but would like to read along.
Our series will culminate with an opportunity for each SOTH member to “Get Out of the Boat” in faith for 2007. Financial pledges and volunteer pledges for ministry will be received in our special worship service on November 5th, 2006.
LET’S KICK SOME GRASS: Don’t forget, volunteers will gather this afternoon --- very shortly --- to mow and work on the church property. SOTH accomplishes this task through a team of volunteers, and your help is needed. Come out, enjoy the Fall weather, and weedeat your cares away!
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