Is to be uneducated.  Got this from Tim Stevens at Leadingsmart.com,

Tim found the info the info here.

I’m just sayin’

sweet return or are we getting draged into soap operaville?

I went to Massachusetts General Hospital last night to visit a guy in our church who is going through some major stuff right now in the form of cancer.  He is a real trooper.  With his wife and two kids, there is no doubt in my mind they have shown considerable strength through the process.  I remember sitting in a Starbucks with this very same man only a few months or so before his diagnosis and he told me:

“I’ve been to a lot of churches around the country, and have seen a lot of crap.  Now I’m looking for a church where my family is going to be treated like family, because our family is not local, and we really want to connect.”

I said:  “So we’ll see you Sunday?”  (half-jokingly)

Last night as I drove to the hospital around 11:00 pm, I thought about this earlier conversation, and I prayed that his prayers had been answered through this time.

Then I arrived and found that a few members of his life group had been there before me already, and another member was currently watching their kids through this very difficult evening.

I think he found his church.

Presenting:

The best political article (focusing on Christians) I’ve read this year!

Your welcome.

Today marks the beginning of the 2nd year of a new pastor at Fellowship Church – me.

I wanted to take some time to write out my thoughts about our church, and try to convey my deepest appreciation for who we are as a group of people seeking to lead others into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
First of all, thank you for your patience and understanding in my first year in this position.  I realize it is only that, a position, and God uses anyone to do His work, but I also believe that pastors have a great responsibility to be an earthly leader of the kingdom of God.  This involves humility, courage, patience, self-sacrifice, and love.  In fact, a pastor who does not have these characteristics would probably be best suited using his or her gifts in another way.
My prayer is that my ministry to you is washed over with these qualitites, and that they would not only occur in my every day life, but they would be clearly evident as I talk and minister to you.
Also (and this is for the future), I hope that as a church we can begin to grab on to our culture – that is, our strengths, personalities, likes and dislikes, and the dominant gifts we’ve been given – and, in doing so, we will unite in such a way as to spread that culture to make a difference for Christ in the New England area in which we find ourselves.
That being said, I look forward to seeing and participating in where God brings us as a group of people who love and genuinely want to have relationship with Him and with one another.
You see, one of the greatest triumphs of Fellowship to date, I believe is the relationships that have been created and have given us even more potential to grow than we would have had without those relationships.
As we grow in our walk with Christ, let’s move forward with our mission by igniting a movement here in Central Massachusetts.
How?
The easiest way to “ignite a movement” is to be passionate about what unites us, which in this case, is Jesus.
Grab on to this:  I’m not talented or handsome enough (can I get an amen?)for a church to be united around me, and if I was, I’m sure some day it would fall apart anyway.  If I am anything it is simply this: I am a single part of what God is doing here at Fellowship…

I almost said Fellowship Church, but I think I’ll say Fellowship movement this time.

Thanks for your love and care to Carie and I, and please feel free to respond to this letter any way you see fit.  Let’s ignite the movement!

Marty

Abba Father from Marty Holman.

Here are some Blog posts I’ve enjoyed over the last few weeks.

Seth chats about failure.

Jake gives his fresh new music likes.  I trust him.

Pete shares this amazing truth/comic piece.

Chad hit me in the face with this quote.

Vince shared his small group philosophy and I liked it.

Mark Cuban is…well, Mark Cuban is a genius.

Brian is a genius too,and his friends, myself included, couldn’t wait to hear this news.

What are you reading these days?

“So it finally happened. I got caught.  I had expected it for some time, living in the shadows, and hoping no one would see me doing it.  But alas my time had come, and I had no one to blame but myself.  I made the bad decisions. I lived as I pleased.  And now I would pay dearly.”

In August of 1997, I was a college graduate that loved to have fun and who had just gradauated from a college where I could not make my own decisions.  This did not make for a very good combination.  I tried to figure out what I wanted to do as far as work was concerned, but it wasn’t easy.  I wanted to be some sort of half pastor/ radio DJ/ politician. Like a mix between Rush Limbaugh (he was “in” back then) and Billy Graham.  Instead I chose to be a high school history teacher in Atlanta.  Pretty cool, huh?  I thought so.  I remember loading up my new car – a 1993 cherry red Nissan Sentra, and began the drive from Tucson, Arizona where my parents lived, to Hotlanta.

After leaving Tucson at 9:00 pm on Friday, August 1st, I finally arrived in the “land of sweet tea” on Sunday, August 3rd at around noon.  The friends I was temporarily living with in Atlanta had called me and told me they would be away.  They left a key underneath the flowerpot or something, and I could make myself at home.  They were at some camp with kids and I was in Atlanta until next Friday by myself.  Cable television kept me busy until around 5:00 pm until I got bored and decided to drive around the suburb I would be living and explore.  On that drive, I discovered Chick Fil-A. But it wasn’t open on Sunday!

Then I received a call from my friend Ruben.  Ruben was a crazy man who loved to stretch me in all things adventure and this conversation would be no exception.  He confessed he was in Massachusetts, having a great time,and since I had a week before I had any responsibilities, I should come up.

Now remember I had just driven 35 hours or so to get to Atlanta and had only arrived hours before. But something about Ruben the adventurer always made me say yes.  So around 7:30 pm, my car hit the highway again to drive to the northeast, a place I had only visited once before.
I share this story with you because this was the way I lived my life.  Adventure and fun drove my decisions.  No one dared to tell me what to do any longer.  I could drive to Massachusetts if I wanted to drive to Massachusetts on an hour’s notice. I could go to bed when I wanted to go to bed. (I know that is a funny thing to say for a 21 year old, but the college I attended had a bedtime of 11:00 pm)  And I would from now on make my own decisions.  I was free!  You might even say I was my own king.

By October of the same year, I had hit my stride.  My students loved me.  I taught not only in school, but also a “singles class” at the church I attended.  Don’t worry, I was not teaching people how to be single, I was teaching life, a subject I was certainly qualified to teach, right?.  In short, I was on fire.

The only thing I didn’t have was money, but that would come sooner or later, now I was serving and having a blast with a bunch of people around me – peers, parents, students, and whoever else wanted to come around.  I remember walking from one class to another one day telling myself how invincible I was becoming. Life couldn’t get any better than this!

But it could get worse.

Thinking your invincible is a little like thinking you’re the best at the game of basketball because you hit a shot from 3 point land while you’re shooting around by yourself.  No one can prove you’re not the best, and of course that’s where the burden of proof lies.  So when you hit the shot, you smile smugly to yourself about how good you are,and how the Celtics deserve to have a guy like you on their team.  Basically what I’m saying is, it’s ludicrous to think that way…

This was part of an rough draft introduction to a project I recently started working on entitled,”The Worst Story ever told and a few really bad ones too.”

I was driving around on Friday doing a lot of errands and going to a lot of places, like I had all week.
Driving past the gas stations, it’s been amazing as I’ve noticed the prices going down.  I’m thankful for this.  However, I cautioned myself coming back from picking up some dry cleaning on Friday to not get accustomed again to driving all the time.  Just because gas prices are “normal” or at least not as crazy as they were a short time ago doesn’t mean I have to drive all the time.  I’m not a courier.  And I should be just as careful about using gas wisely when the price is $2.50 as I am when the cost is $4.00.

At least it makes sense to me.

Preparing for Sunday Morning @ Fellowship this week, I came up with this phrase, which may already be a phrase, but I came up with it on my own.  I’d like your opinion.  You see, many times we get involved with particular activities or organizations that battle injustice because of emotion.

We sponsor a child from Compassion because John Foreman told us to.
We get involved in feeding the poor because it’s the holiday.
We give a little more to the church because the pastor says the church needs more.

None of these activities or organizations are bad, but a lot of times the reason we begin to support them and jump in is because we are struck emotionally.  But the problem is:

Emotion is not a sustaining influence.

Just ask the couple who’s been married for 7-15 years or the guy whose cute kids talked him into getting a dog – but he hates animals.

When all you have backing you is emotion as you support or give or help, eventually your emotion is going to wear down, and what will you have left?

A desire to quit.

The following is a story.  A tale of my last 5 days and unfortunately, nights.  I’ll start with the end and the moral.

Moral:  Support causes like Hearts for Heat!

Last night Carie and I heard it.  We heard the sound we’d been waiting for.  The clank in the cellar that let us know he arrived.  Could it be?  Actual tears of happiness jumped out of Carie’s eyes, for which I was happy to be there to be able to wipe them away, then laugh with her.  Some more clanking gave more proof that he had indeed arrived and that everything would be fine in only a few more moments.

You see, about 5 days before, the furnace guy, who we’ve used the last several years, came to do a routine maintenance on the church furnaces and also on ours.  But when he got to ours, he cited several problems, not the least of which was something lodged in the chimney that would require a specialist to come in and take care of it.  He said he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he left the furnaces on, knowing that if he did, we may never wake up.

Ummmm, thanks for the heads up.

The unfortunate part is that this was the first night of a string of several freezing temperature evenings in Central Massachusetts.  So he would now sleep, but I would not, save for our entire wardrobe draped over my body, complete with all the blankets we could muster.  Oh yeah, and…

That also meant no hot water.  FOR FIVE DAYS!  No showers (at the house), No hot water for dishes, and hot water laundering was out of the question.  So we worked hard on finding this so-called specialist who could do the job.  The all evasive chimney sweep person.

I called on Sunday…no answer.  Then I called 7 people on Monday…1 answer.  They’d be arriving tomorrow (Tuesday morning, 7:30).  Carie and I were thrilled, because Carie was already feeling under the weather due to a cold she had caught.  A feeling of relief came on us, until the next morning…

The all-evasive chimney sweep person called me and said his truck had broke down, and that he would be arriving later in the afternoon, about 5:30 pm.   Uuugh!  No problem, but do you know my house feels like an ice cold prison?

For those of you who will speak of space heaters, please don’t.  This is another long story.

4:00 pm rolls around and I get a call from the All Evasive chimney sweep person from West Boylston and I was ecstatic because my assumption was that he was going to arrive at our house early.  He called to tell me he wasn’t going to be able to come today, maybe tomorrow at 8:00 am.  “Yeah” I thought, “And maybe you will go out of business because of your lack of dependability.”  At this point, I could have cried.

Quickly I made some phone calls and found another company about 30 minutes farther away than the All evasive chimney sweep person in West Boylston, and they said they would absolutely be there at 2:00 pm tomorrow (Wednesday).  I told them I loved them, and I’m sure they thought I was crazy.

The next morning rolled around, and guess who didn’t show up?  I wish I could remember the name of the company, but alas, I have blocked it out of my mind and computer.  A friend of mine who was actually following the action via phone calls and texts sent me a text that said:

Friends text:  They show up?
Marty’s text:  Nope.
Friends text:  Bastards!

I’m ashamed to admit that I echoed the sentiments, but I echoed the sentiments.

But not to worry, because this company came just as they said they would.  Country Corner Chimney sweeps hooked us up in a big way!  So then I immediately called our furnace guy, who announced he would be over in a few hours.  I trusted him.  He’d been there all along.  the only thing he didn’t do for us during the 5 days was turn on the furnace, which would have been nice for a while, but I would have much rather woke up the next morning.

After work, I walked to meet Carie at home and we talked for a while and had some mac and cheese, then sat on the couch and enjoyed a cold afternoon under blankets, totally expecting something to happen to the furnace guy as he was on his way to our house.  We prayed, and then we heard him – The furnace guy!

I took a long shower last night!