Tim Boyd's Blog

1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” It is pure foolishness for Jesus to let himself be killed.  What good can he do when he is dead?  What miracles can he perform when he is dead? For so many people Jesus just comes off as dumb.  He is nice, but He is naive.  He doesn’t really understand the world. The teaching of the Bible is just too simple.  It’s too old.  It just doesn’t play in our world.  You cannot live like Jesus is really asking.  It’s being too fanatical.  It’s foolish.   The High Priest Caiaphas is right - we don’t need to know if Jesus really is God’s son or whatever He is claiming.  We need to make sure that we are secure politically and financially.  Jesus disrupts peace he doesn’t bring it.  They asked him to quiet down and Jesus said “no, you don’t understand.  These people ...

If you control the information you control the conversation. This is why formal education (school) is important for individuals and societies. This is why Bernie Madoff made millions of dollars. This is why you ought to read, a lot. This is why you should always read the fine print. This is why the fine print should be written in bigger letters. This is why, if you are a Christian, you should read the Bible for yourself. This is why you should inform yourself about local and national voting issues. This is why you should read and listen to things you completely disagree with. This is why, when tempted to fabricate a story to prove your point, you should exercise integrity and deal with substantiated facts. This is why you should read more than you talk and write (this is coming from a Pastor who is required to talk and write a lot.) Advertisers, marketers, salespeople, and most people understand this.  That's why you need to know it too.

I am sitting on my porch this Saturday night in the quiet town of Cowden, IL wondering who will come to church and who won't make it to church tomorrow morning.  A few years ago I spent Saturday nights trying to overcome my nerves and calm down enough to enjoy the night.  That has passed and now most Saturday nights I began to pray for and wonder about the people who will make up the congregation at the Worship Service in the morning. Who will be there?  Who won't? It's no surprise that I spend the majority of my time during the week working on a 30 minute sermon.  This week was a little tougher and I think I spent about 12 hours writing this sermon.  That doesn't include all of the thinking in my car, lying awake in the morning wondering, or the time spent in prayer waiting on the Spirit to reveal the answers to my questions. I spend a lot of time writing my sermon in the hopes that it will change people's lives for the better.  That is why I am...

My heart broke as I read this article from the New York Times about small town gossip shifting from the diner to the internet.  It seems like people are getting much nastier when they can be anonymous. Small town gossip ruins the lives of many people.  I grew up in a small town and wanted to leave it the whole time I was there even though it was a beautiful small town in a very nice place filled with many great people, great churches, a great school, and so on.  In a small town you were never given the chance to grow or change.  It seemed like there were many people who were not allowed to move past something in their family history. You lived forever with a small mistake or the time that you failed in a sport in junior high. For all the beauty of a small town there is an ugly river of gossip, speculation, jealousy and hatred running through it.  (Read those words again slowly and you can name several examples if you live or have lived in a small town.)...

I am mostly preoccupied with our adoption at the present moment.  I hope you will allow me that.  However, the primary purpose of this blog is to explore what the Kingdom of Heaven is.  For much of my life it has been a complete mystery to me and I think most American Evangelical Christians have missed this too.  The thoughts in this blog are to help, not condemn. I believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is the Kingdom that exists in Heaven and it has now spilled over to the earth when Jesus came down in the form of a baby born to a virgin.  In that sense the Kingdom has been on earth for around 2,000 years.  You would think we would understand it more. It starts here in Matthew 3:2. "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!" Oops!  You might have already missed it.  I'll bet you went straight to "what does near mean?"  How about "why should I repent because it's near?"  What am I repenting from?  Do I have to repent or did the...

Last night we asked for people to pray specifically that we would hear from the Embassy in Nairobi in the morning.  Well, we did!  God heard us and answered. The evidence that we have submitted was received and it answered the questions that they had.  Now, they are requesting just one more little thing that we have to get to them.  So....that's GREAT NEWS! It means that we were able to provide all the evidence that they needed regarding the questionable areas of the case.  That means that we are 99% approved to bring him home permanently.  Amazing.  This is the most concrete that our adoption has felt in the 2.5 years that we've been in it. So, they need one more thing from our home study.  It shouldn't be too big of a deal.  (Please pray that it isn't.  Please pray that Satan doesn't use it to stop this miracle from happening.  Pray that God's hand will be with us.)  The problem is that we have to mail it and that ...

How specifically do you pray?  I was recently really challenged with that thought when I picked up a book from amazon for $4.  I found the book searching for the author David Yonggi Cho.  He is a the Pastor of the largest Christian Church in the world.  It's estimated anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 members.  I was reading something else that referenced his name and the size of the church so I was interested in him.  I picked up his book The Fourth Dimension . To be honest I was instantly weary of this guy and his book.  The title itself made me cringe (although it's not as weird as it sounds), but for $4 it made sense to at least read it.  It's not a very long book and it's full of good info.  I was surprised at his Bible knowledge and knowledge of philosophy and anthropology.  Anyways... The guy prays specifically and he challenges his readers to pray specifically.  Right away I was thinking "health and wealth gospel."  ...

From the first time I uploaded my sermons to the internet, I have been making a joke that there are two people who listen to my podcasts and my mom won't tell me who the other person is.  Well I found her and she is in Uganda (and it has nothing to do with our adoption).  What a small world we live in.  Kelsea is a young lady who was in my youth group at StoneBridge Christian Church in Omaha. I have been following her  blog (yes, you should read it) and I left a comment.  This is a part of what she left in reply: And, I hit the point in my own bible reading plan where I've reached the book of Leviticus... was glad to find out someone I knew was preaching on it. Truly have been appreciating, learning from, and challenged by your sermons! I hope you'll keep putting them on itunes :) Nice! So this week we started off the sermon by telling her hello from First Christian Church of Cowden.  It was a fun way to connect the past to the present and o...

This is the definitive list of the smartest podcasts.  Well, they are the podcasts that I like the most. Maybe you are not into listening to podcasts.  I wasn't either for quite a while, but now I listen to them regularly.  And, no matter your age or technical ability, it is so easy to keep up with them.  In the past 7 days I have hooked up two of my friends with these.  I am not a guy with a long commute to work or tons of free time (Pastor, Father of 3, small town), but I love the culture and the awareness that comes from listening to my favorites.  Here they are: 1) WNYC Radio Lab               website       podcast 2) This American Life              website      podcast (both are unresponsive now, hope to update soon) 3) Freakonomics                       website       ...

Nothing.  (Pretty disappointing huh?)  For the past 10 days we have woken up every morning to check the email to see if we have been approved to get Silas. God is still teaching me through this adoption.  Here is the latest breakthrough. I have been praying that God would give our family peace with whatever decision is made.  Of course I want Silas to join our family.  Trust me.  I have no words to describe how much I want that for me, Silas, Mindy, Gracie, Will, and Eden.  Nevertheless I have been praying that God would give us peace no matter what direction this goes. Now I have changed my prayer.  I am praying that God will use this situation to be glorified.  When we get that email to bring Silas home there will be gobs of people that are absolutely shocked that we got Him here.  Lots of people think that we will not get to bring him home.  Of course Mindy and I have been going through our doubts as well.  So in order...

On Wednesday night I was tucking Eden into bed and she looked at me and said, “I don’t want to sleep here because I’m scared.” I told her not to worry because monsters and bad guys don’t come here because they are scared of daddy. I told her to put her confidence (absence of fear) in her father, not herself. Of course, our Heavenly Father is much stronger than I am. Jesus said, “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”  Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” (John 12) Jesus brings up the idea that we all wrestle with, God please save me from this suffering. God please grant me a way out. God don’t make me walk through the valley. God don’t let me hear discouragement. God make it easier for me. God, help me I’m scared. Jesus answers it with something outright crazy and comforting - “No it was for this reason that I came...

I recently read this article on the Huffington Post  about churches in NYC becoming stops on bus tours.  I guess you pay $55 to be taken on a bus tour of many old gospel churches.  The tourists attend a service and watches how the church works and then they listen to the music.  The church gets a cut of the money that the tour company takes in or some churches just ask for a suggested donation. At first you might be appalled at this idea, but here is why I think many churches would be very happy with it. It increases total church attendance and increases the budget. For many western evangelical churches those are the only two statistics that are worried about.  The budget is aligned to it, staff are hired around it, and meetings are all about those two things.  That is also what a church starts worrying about when it believes that it is dying or slipping into oblivion.  So they hold on to those two things with everything they got.  They go i...

Have you heard the story of the foolish farmer?  Back a long time ago, before all of our modern farming techniques, there lived a farmer who wasn’t very smart.  His father was a farmer and a pretty succesful one at that.  He was able to provide for his family a nice life.  They had a house, some oxen, and just enough the take care of themselves.  His father was a hard worker.  The farmer’s dad was smart, but the problem was that the young farmer never listened to his dad.  He didn’t pay any attention to what his dad was doing with the farm.  He was more interested in other things.  He figured that if his dad could do it, it must not be all that hard.  He thought that he could figure it out as he went. One day the foolish farmer decided it was time to start his own family and farm.  So he asked his father if he could have some of the land as his own.  His dad, eager to have hi...

What happens when an employee and a boss don't share the same vision?  They can learn to live with each other, which is not the best option.  Or they can work against each other, which is much worse.  What about a third way? A good, caring boss will help their employee to understand that said employee has two decisions, both equally good. 1) Understand and adopt the vision of the boss and the organization. 2)  Find a new job where his or her vision fits. Can it be a noble thing for a boss to help a dissatisfied employee find a place where they can thrive and they agree with the vision?  Why does it always have to be a bad thing to find a new job or be asked to find a new job? The bigger picture shows us that people have different passions and grow in different directions.  You can (and probably should) part ways once you disagree on the vision.  That's not just okay, it should be acceptable and honored.

Last month I had just under 800 reads on my blog.  (I tried to set up no tracking on my phone, iPads, and computers - so hopefully that's an honest number).  That is the most reads I have had on my blog ever.  I'd like to build on that. The Purpose of My Blog The purpose of my blog is to understand what it means to live in the Kingdom of Heaven while living on earth.  I believe that that's not only possible, but a command for a person who claims to be saved by Christ Jesus.  The blog is a place where I can share my thoughts, successes, and failures at trying to do that as well as encourage and offer practical help to people walking that path as well people interested in learning about that path. The Future With that said, it's exciting so see where we can go from here.  Just last year I got my first smart phone (iPhone 4S) and my first tablet (iPad2).  They have significantly changed my daily life.  I communicate much differently now.  ...

I am very happy for all of the attention that is coming to stop the child soldiers in Africa.  I really am.  It's crazy that it's going on.  I just went to a mall today that had an entire store devoted to shaving and yet there are thousands of kids that are grabbed from their homes and forced into killing.  Something's not right there. Well my story didn't come about because of Facebook or my trip to Africa. It started when I watched a news program 5 or 6 years ago with some high school students. I don't even remember what the lesson was.  I remember that it was about Kony and it was horrible.  (Come to think of it, Bono was in it and he was really funny.)  We all felt helpless after seeing these kids taken from their parents and forced into killing. It was a haunting feeling. It was silent for a while. Then one student broke the ice and said, "what can we do about this?" I told him we need to pray and spread the word.  That certainly didn't...

My iPhone and My Bible Reading Plan For just over 3 months now I have been following a Bible reading plan that will take me through the entire Bible in one year.  The plan that I follow is on my mobile phone.  Most mornings I will sit down, pick up the phone and click until I get to the scripture for the day.  This past Tuesday I went to my plan and it wasn’t there!  I looked and looked and could not find it.  I messed with the settings and defaults.  I went to the internet and looked up the company that I got the APP from.  I found out that many other people were doing the same thing and were not able to get to their reading plans.  It seems that the company had just released an update and it didn’t work with the reading plan.  So we had to wait until they fixed it.  Well, it’s now Monday morning and it’s not fixed.  So all I can do now is read the Bible on the internet, or in printed from, or on my iPad, or listen to it on m...

1. Infatuation 2. Disillusionment 3. Actual Love There it is.  I have unlocked the key to finding love.  Done.  What's next? What?  You want me to explain it?  Well.....alright. Step #1 - Infatuation That was the infatuation stage about 11.5 years ago. You cannot stop thinking about that person.  They are always on your mind.  You post things on Facebook like "can't stop thinking about HER,"  "so happy with HIM."  (You know...that stuff that the older people on Facebook laugh about and secretly share with others.) You are at work or school and you keep pulling up pictures of that person on your phone or computer.  You dream about the future with them.  You feel as if you are completed.  You can't believe that you found that person.  You know, for certain, that God has brought them to you.  You don't know how you lived before you met them.  For a moment every once in a while you think about how dev...