Tim Boyd's Blog

I had a disturbing day yesterday. On Tuesdays I go to seminary at Lincoln Christian Seminary .  It's about a 90 minute drive.  On those days I listen to podcasts from Mars Hill (Rob Bell's church), Southland (Jon Weece's church), Breakpoint (Chuck Colson), and my own podcast (I figure if I force 200 people a week to listen to me than I should at least do the same). I started down the road and put on this podcast  (be warned - this one is not for kids) from Dan Allender, who was teaching at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  He is teaching on Matthew 5:21-30 about murder and adultery.  It is his contention that we really find God in the dark places.  If we venture to go into the dark places in our own lives and in our world we will find God there.  It isn't that we are looking for God, but we are looking at our own brokenness.  We realize God is there in our brokenness and in the brokenness of others.  Allender shares that one of...

  Grab a pen and paper.  Write down my prophetic words.  In the next ten years it will be customary for people to buy Thanksgiving presents.  Christmas is the shopping season.  Commercials and Christmas music saturate our TV's and stores way before Thanksgiving.  With the emergence of "Black Friday" many people celebrate Thanksgiving as part of the Christmas Season anyways.  Why not start marketing products as Thanksgiving gifts?  It's coming.... http://www.findgift.com/Holidays/Thanksgiving/

What has God blessed you with this year?  Take some time to come up with 10 things that you are thankful for this year.  Then reflect on God's goodness as he takes care of you. Were there things that started as trials that ended up as blessings? How has God's blessing shaped you this year? Would you like to share one of them on this blog?  (or the whole list)

      How do you understand the world?  Where do you get your world-view?  If you get it from watching the news - you understand that world is filled with murder, corruption, ponzi schemes, child predators, civil war, famine, and people behaving in all sorts of terrible ways.  Those are the stories that make it in the news.  We know that that is not necessarily the whole story though.  Every day there are millions of acts of unselfishness that take place.  There are junior high kids standing up for fellow classmates who are being picked on.  There are people giving of their time and money to help people who can’t help themselves.  There are good parents making sacrifices to train their kids to live good lives.  These things happen all the time. When you look at the world around you what do you see?  In Philippians chapter 4 Paul gives us an exercise to do.  He challenges us to change our perspective on life....

I got a lot of comments about the sermon today, so I wanted to just draw attention to the podcast that is on this blog.  You can make that a weekly thing that downloads for you.  There might be some value in that.  You can hear my jokes bomb if you are actually interested in that part.

I have been talking a lot about consumerism running through churches.  Churches use advertising practices that are shaped around a consumer worldview.  (The consumer worldview is the prevalent idea that you are a consumer and you are made complete when you are purchasing the right things to fulfill your needs.  In order to do that you must make a certain amount of money and that influences what you do for a living, etc). What about churches that are battling consumerism?  Do they exist?  How do they battle consumerism?  Here is one such example of a church: Southland Christian Church in one week did the following: 1. They got about 50% of their weekly attendance to come in on one weekend and prepare 1,056,024 meals to feed people who are starving. 2.  They had 500 people raising $70,000 to make a refuge for women who are escaping the exotic dance industry through their bruised reed program. 3. They open their building twice a week for homeless...

Last week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday I ate only rice.  Sunday I had a steak for dinner because I was having someone over to watch football.  (I'm not inviting someone over and just eating rice!)  So I took that day off.  Then yesterday I started eating just rice again.  That steak after church on Sunday was really great.  I am normally not a big steak fan.  There's not enough flavor for me.  I like a hamburger with ketchup, pickles, mayo, tomato, onion, etc.  I like all the flavors. A week ago I was listening to a podcast of John Weece's sermon (he is at Southland ).  He talked about just eating rice to see how 2/3 of the world lives.  It has been quite an experience.  Life is a lot different when you don't have options as to what you will eat.  The stomach is not made for food.  Food is made for the stomach.  I didn't waste as much time as I normally do picking out what I'm going to eat.  My mind...

Consumerism is a life-shaping religion in America right now.  Don't believe me?  Why do you eat what you eat?  Why do you watch what you watch?  Why do you shop where and how you shop?  Tell me about your house, vehicles, and career decisions.  Back to the matter at hand. Consumerism affects every area of life in America (and a large part of the world).  A few weeks ago my professor made a big statement.  We were talking about world view and how you can't really escape the time and place that you live.  In America it is incredibly hard (if even possible) to not think like an American.  (I'm not saying that's bad or good right now).  He brought up slavery and said that there were many people who love Jesus every bit as much as we do that didn't help with getting rid of slavery. Here's the big statement.  He said that in the next generation or so he believes that abortion will be viewed then as slavery is viewed now.  Mo...

“...many churches are eager to adopt curricula or programming that has a certain seal of approval on it from a prominent megachurch or parachurch organization.  Christian publishers now see their marquee authors as brand entities; big-name authors are not just people or personalities - they’re brands, complete with brand managers who leverage the brands with ancillary products and extensions.” Hsu, Albert.  The Suburban Christian:  Finding Spiritual Vitality in a Land of Plenty.  Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2006. This book is a great read and I recommend it to anyone who is part of any church.  Basically if you are American and go to church I think this book would be of value to you.  It's very readable.  Hsu is a wonderful writer. Church marketing is big business.  Does that make a church a big business?  Are most churches done with innovation?  Are we just taking teaching from other places and making it our own?...

So this morning at church I'm standing around the main doors greeting people with some other guys.  Their are two elders, and a couple of guys on the board.  If you combine their years in service to this church it would be around 990 years (not really, but a looong time).  One sweet lady walks in the door shakes hands with all the guys and walks a little bit away.  She pauses and then turns around and says, "Oh I forgot the most important one" and she shakes my hand. Here I have been at this church for just over 3 months and I'm the "most important one."  These guys have been serving in this church for decades.  It's about image.  I am on the stage the most.  I am the one who is recognized as the "preacher."  I am the one who gets credit for what's going on in the church. Not fair? Not even close. How do we determine who is the most important one? Paul writes in Philippians 2 that we should have the same attitude as that of Christ...