There’s certain times in my week that I love.  Those are times that I look forward to, that I realize will someday go away, and that I try to get as much out of as possible.  They are my weekly regular times with my friends.  Without these times I would know half as much and be twice as bored.  They come at different times throughout the week and in various communicative ways.

Date night with Carie.

An early morning phone call from Garret.

A late night drive back home from a basketball game with Jay.

Sitting in St. Arbucks with Jeff.

Sunday early mornings with Steve and Al.

In the office with Billy.

Watching football with Sean, Steve, or Dave.

Text messages from Brian and Brandon.

Regular long distance convos with Clay.

Occasional Tuesday nights with Deric.

Sunday Mornings @ Fellowship.

Game nights with Steve and Priscilla and Jake.

Friday at Finders Pub.

Hang time with my life group

I not only have these times placed in my calendar, I thrive on these times like Popeye to spinach and Tammy Faye to make up.  I think it’s important to invest in relationships, and to set aside time to pour into others and to allow others to pour into me.  Sure it would be easier and cleaner and require less time to simply keep to myself, but friends are more fun and make me want to be a better person.

Cheers to friends and growth.

I’m on vacation.  Carie and I travelled to Virginia for a week, and we’re having a great time embarking on adventure, Chick Fil-A, and lots of book reading. 

Yesterday was Sunday.  Always an awkward day in the life of a vacationing “non-denominational” pastor.  Typically I do my research, find a place I’d really like to attend, and go there.  I did that this time too, the only problem:  the only church I really wanted to go was one hour and ten minutes away.  So instead of attending a church in person, I decided to take advantage of a ministry we have at the FC called the Web Campus, and go to church online.  We started it last winter as a means to get through the horrific Sunday weather we had (ice storms, Nor’easters, etc…) and have been improving it over the last year.  This was my first opportunity to see it live on a Sunday.  (Typically I’m busy)

I arrived at church at 10:29 am on Sunday morning armed with my Macbook pro (13″), a pair of headphones, and a bottle of water.  The 5 minute countdown was playing and “FCHoldenBilly” was there to warmly greet me to the chat forum/internet video service.  7 others joined me for the occasion, said a small box in the video section.  In about a minute and a half, the countdown turned to the FC band going all soft on me with the worship song “All who are thirsty.”  I happened to be in a room full of people walking all over the place as I watched, and I didn’t think they wanted to hear me sing anyway (I left my hat back at the room).  I started chatting with the others in the cyber room.  At this point 11 were attending church.

We talked about the band, the internet, where each of us were.  In truth, it wasn’t a lot different than my live conversations before a service in Holden.  The people were nice, and they were certainly expectant.  Eventually, the executive pastor of Fellowship, Steve Blumer came on stage and welcomed the audience.  I’m not sure if he welcomed the internet audience, though I can always look back at the video and see, but he told of the things that are to come at the FC.  I took this opportunity to venture into another website I am privy to, to see what the order of service would be, while I listened to Steve wax eloquently about all things ladies retreat and future sermon series.  This was one of the two times the video froze on my laptop.  Both times I was viewing other pages, much like reading your bulletin while the minister is preaching, right?

The band came back on, still sounding great with some worship tunes, then closing up the setlist with one of my favorites, “We shine”.  I almost stood up at this song and sang along, but security being called on me didn’t sound so great, so I just hummed and mentioned to my fellow viewers (13 by this time) that this was indeed one of my favorites.  None of them agreed.  Huh.

Currently we’re going through a series in our church called “Why we love this place” and we’re focusing on our 7 core values.  After the last song, Steve came back up and introduced both the next video we had, and the speaker for the day.  The core value was relational evangelism, so it was appropriate to have with us two missionaries filling in the gaps for me this morning.  One I won’t mention because of the nature of his ministry, and the speaker was Walt Mutti, former missionary to Venezuela and current missionary to new England – to which I mentioned to the people in the chat room – we need it.

Both missionaries did a fabulous job, and Walt provided a lot of conversation in the chat room regarding sin, the need for Christ, and how to deal with stuff going on in our lives.  To be honest, it was one of the most wonderful services I’ve been to (that I didn’t have a heavy participation in) in a long time.  The spirit was amazing, and I told my wife afterwards, it really felt like I had been to church.  I mean, I started it.  I advertise for it all the time, but who knew. 

Two shout outs I need to give up:  Billy, who is our Web Campus director.  He has worked hard to develop this ministry, and from what I’ve been told, it hasn’t always been this smooth, but his hard work has paid off.  And Al, who led the music during the service.  It was fabulous!

What about you?  Would you attend an internet service?

You’ll be happy to know I’ve just found Al’s new back up singers for Fellowship Holden.

Next Sunday Morning @ Fellowship anyone?

So I’ve been convicted.  Not in the “judicial, prison bars” type way, but in the “deep down inside my heart” type way.

Reading through 1 John 3:11-24, a thought came to my mind:  Love spreads.  I couldn’t get this thought out of my mind.  Then it unfolded:  Love spreads.  Bitterness contracts.  Love spreads.  Maliciousness decays.

Just look at Jesus, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and the kid on “Pay it forward.”

Love spreads.

So in honor of that fact, I challenged my staff today to try cutting all negative communication out of their vocabulary (including innuendo).
Here are a few things I mean by negative communication

Sarcasm
Negativity (that is not needed to express a valid point)
Bitterness about another person or a negative circumstance (like someone who does something “stupid” or an electronic device that wont do what you want it to)
Joking around and busting
Talking to someone with malicious intent about someone else
rolling of the eyes when someone’s name is mentioned

I know that’s a pretty big list and a wide variety of things, but I believe that if we can change our culture, we can change our future.  We’ll call it the “Shut your mouth” challenge.  Of course, you don’t have to shut your mouth permanently, but it may be easier if you’ve developed a habit of negativity in your communication.

My prayer is that this would impact our community with love and  that love would spread beyond the walls of our church, and make an impact that reaches into our community for Jesus Christ!

Would you consider taking up this challenge for the next month with us?

Darren Bell: Guest Blogger

Okay so yesterday I wrote this post about a comment someone had written about this post.  I already had it in my mind to use this comment as the spearhead for conversation, and then many of you went out and wanted to see it.  Not surprising.

The reason I was angry at this comment was not because they disagreed with my post.  This person (Darren) rarely agrees with my posts, and I rarely ever edit or delete comments outside of swearing and mean-spiritedness.  But I thought that this comment was aimed more at me personally then at the post I had written, though he attempts at patching it up by saying “Marty’s the man”.  Apparently Darren believes that the purpose for my posts and preaching is to infiltrate the world with my philosophy (because no one else ever does that when they write), rather than trying to start up conversations.

So, let’s let the conversation begin.

“All your posts are subjective, but you pawn it off as these universal truths that are broadly applicable to anyone and everyone.

The things you experience and perspectives you collect in your own life, guess who they are valuable to? Only to you. Maybe to the people right around you, just so they can understand how someone they care about thinks. And MAYBE after thinking about them a long time, after considering the more fundamental forces underlying them, after seeing how other people have experienced the same things and how they dealt with them (and not just New England Christians and ‘Type-A’ personality people) then you can make a post about your own impressions and what you have found to be true about people.

I only know what is true about me, but I know their are other people like me out there. This post is very judgemental, and probabaly hypocritical towards  you for things I also do. But whatever, your blog pisses me off because of the things you believe about people.

For a church that screams for being open minded and trying to reach out and making people feel welcome, what I see you doing most often is breaking people down and catoragizing them into groups that you can understand and putting labels all over them. Not the people that you interact with every week in small groups with, but the people ‘out there’ and the ones you are trying to reach. These over here are the “New Englenders” and they all act the same way and have the same mindset towards God; these over here are the “Web 2.0″ people, and with the right strategy we can reach out to them; these people are the “Holden Crew” and they are a little stuck up and I want to get them to like poor people more.

Maybe I’m speaking too broadly, but if you tried to put a label on me and had a specific strategy for how to ‘reach out’ to a person with my label I would never in a million years come to Fellowship. People usually do have slants and leanings, but the second you peg someone one way, they love to show you all the other ways you failed to characterize them, and that they can’t be put in a box. Again I’ll say it, Marty is the man. But I perceive many of the things you do not as trying to reach out, but trying to assimilate.

I do not hold to the truth that with just the right strategy, with just the next amount of knowledge about how a person thinks we can be effective through planning and strategising to work in a persons life effectively. Lonnie and you always said ‘we are what we are’ and people can take it or leave it. You already know that that is how I see relationships, as Ven Diagrams where people have a relationship in the areas that they share interests or are able to find common ground or a common world view. I see a person’s relationship with a church the same way. But more often then not I feel that your preaching and your blog are all about defending the mission of Fellowship instead of carrying it out. Trying to convince people that community is important rather then ebracing people that already believe community is important. Cause not all Christians want a church that focuses on community, some people get the most out of the systematic theology that a Bible Church offers. Or the dancing of a ‘sprit filled church’.

How many of the people at Fellowship believe community is important? How do you extend Gods kingdom by telling them how it is more important? Is community the ends or the means? If it is the means then don’t hold it up as the goal. Let it just be the soil.”

Conversate please.

I’m going to try something new today. I’d like to join me today for the Fellowship 15! If you like music, you’ll like it. If you find this post by 4:15 pm today (3/31/09), check out the link here.

I like to think of myself as a funny guy (don’t deny it).

And occasionally when I preach I have two kinds of funny:  Rehearsed and Spontaneous.  The following is the latter:

Talking about the Parable of the Great Wedding Feast, I said, “And then the King says to his messengers, ‘Go out, and allow all to come to me.  Go out, and let people know that they may come in to the wedding feast of my son.’  And they did.  People came.  And they partied like it was…9″

If it isn’t as funny in print, you can see it here.

I hope you laugh at least once today!

Sunday Morning @ Fellowship this week was worth the look.

Check it out!

Fellowship Church, at one time called Wachusett Valley Baptist Church and Wachusett Valley Christian Church has a colorful and interesting history.  Here is a pictorial video of this history.

Favorite pic?

Here are some ideas I’ve had over the last few weeks.  Feel free to use any of them you wish:

Online service only
We are going to do this for Good Friday at Fellowship on April 10th, 2009.  This will be a part of a 5 week series we’ll be doing, but will not be on a Sunday, only online at this site.  I’m looking forward to joining our church family in one of two services on Good Friday at noon or 5:00 pm.

What I’ve done
This Linkin Park tune was a killer a few weeks ago to close up a service where we focused on the story of sin.

Picture video of my life
Ever since I was introduced to Animoto on Brad Ruggles blog, I’ve ideated about making a music video of my life from birth through the multi generations I’ve lived until now.  The only decision I would have to make with the aforementioned site would be the theme song for my life soundtrack.  Ideas?

Work on a project with Clay
As one of my closest friends since junior high, I feel very strongly that this founder of conservatismlives.com is a genius.  But I have yet to work with him on some project since we have both blossomed into adulthood.    But one day…

One Prayer pastor/band switcharoo
Last year our church participated in One Prayer, a movement of churches who came together to show the unity we have in Christ.  For 4 weeks we were treated to the wonderful video teaching of some of the best preachers in the country.  So I had this idea to take it to another level.  Would another pastor and church be open to trading places with the pastor of this church (that’s me) and  the bands would trade places too?  Just an idea.

A Marty Party
I would love to have all my closest friends from the entirety of my life and from the many places I’ve lived to come to a party where I can connect them all and convey how much I appreciate them, and I would love this party to take place well before I’m 80 and not to coincide with my funeral.

Surprise Lunch
Using the wonderful technology of Facebook, I would like to announce to all my friends an inpromptu lunch at a specific place in the area I live.  It might be interesting to see who would show up.  Could I end up having lunch with 5 people I haven’t seen in a few years?

Heck No!  We won’t go!
A bit of reverse psychology – I think I’d like to form a picket line around a non profit organization that is doing amazing things here in my area.  Then I’d write negative sarcastic jokes down on my posters about that 501c3 organization, and act like I’m really angry that they exist, then I’ll watch as they gain more support after I picket them than they have had for the last 5 years.

I Scream Sunday!
There’s really no interesting idea here, but thank you to One Bad Pig, the 80′s Christian metal band from Austin, TX for singing these words with all the heart they could muster.

Don’t go postal on me
I think it would be neat to prepare a box lunch of some sort for my postal carrier sometime, especially since she’s pretty ticked off that our box door always sticks.

No email or social networking day
No doubt you’ve received the “please fast from your computer” pleas from friends and family alike, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m thinking that with all the emails I send out and internet communication I do, it might be nice to take any general day and say “Today I’m not going to communicate at all via the internet, but if I need to communicate with someone I would have emailed, I will push myself to make a phone call or go visit that person.”

So that’s the rough draft of my recent idea list.  the next step is…