I’m hunkered up in the AC-laden children’s ministry rooms at Fellowship while my wife and her sister are hitting the beach on this 90 + degree day.

What’s your favorite beach in the world?

This weekend is July 4th weekend.  I live in Massachusetts.

The big thing to do in Massachusetts on July 4th, and I mean really big, is go to Boston.  I’ve done this a few times now, and it is really big and really awesome.  The drawback is that millions of other people agree with you and will be there with you, making the ride to leave the city of Boston impossible to do at a decent hour.

A few years ago at Fellowship, we started a new “tradition” on the Sunday of July 4th weekend.  We began having an outdoor service and a party on our property that day.  Last year, the church surprised me by celebrating my 10th anniversary here at this church.  It’s amazing to be around the people you love.  To hang out and play games and talk and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation with your closest friends.

This year, the two events happen to coincide:  Boston’s July 4th, and the Party in the Park.

And if I had my choice (cause really I don’t this week), I’d go relational before I would experiential.

We love the experiential, don’t we?  To experience big things and huge events and the next great adventure.  But one thing I learned a long time ago is that if I had the choice to do experiential or relational, I should pick relational.  I should be where I know people love me and care about me.  I should pour into them and allow them to pour into me.  And I should wallow in the experience of being with my community.  This is why I’ve turned down free tickets to huge games and concerts to attend date night with my wife or small groups during the week.  Because I know at the end of the day, my wife, and the people I share life with, are going to be there with me long after the season ends or the newest tour is finished.

When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to travel on a trip to Mexico with my friends, classmates, and teachers.  It was kind of a missions trip and kind of a learning adventure to an area  of Mexico called Monterrey.  The trip had been planned and we were all pretty excited to go, when I received a call from my uncle Matt, telling me he had some tickets for me to see DC Talk at his church, and then he was sure I would be able to meet them.  I loved DC Talk!!!  It was going to be so epic, and I couldn’t wait, and it was right in the middle of my planned trip to Mexico.

Naturally, I begged my dad to let me go.  I told him it was only Mexico, like one country away, and I could save my traveling for going to a country farther away some day, and that this opportunity wouldn’t last forever, and that DC Talk’s Free at last was the best album ever.  My dad wasn’t feeling it though, and he calmly said I could go to any concert I wanted after I came back from Mexico.

I learned some big lessons on that trip.  I remember eating a jalapeno so hot that it made me vomit in the middle of the street.  I remember the exhilaration of having a high school crush to the experience of said crush taking my heart and crushing it in her cold bony fingers (that’s poetic more than literal, btw).  I remember the beauty of the mountains in Mexico, and the smell of the marketplace cooking in the towns.  But most of all, I remember the people I met there and the people with whom I traveled.  Amazing people.  People who poured into my life for years and helped make not only this experience, but most experiences in the early part of my life much better.

I’ve since gone to numerous DC Talk shows, and seen about 100 other incredible concerts since then, but the one thing I have since learned, that I believe helped change my life, was when it comes to making a decision – Should I do this or this? – Always make that decision with the people who love you the most in mind.

Experiences will come and go, but relationships will tell the world who you really were.

*By the way, this post isn’t even about how horrible July 4th in Boston is.  My friend Jay goes every year with his closest friends (minus me) and makes a day of it.

Ever since I first remember reading Romans 14, I have had difficulty using language, entertainment, and real estate as the means to create a sub culture for Christendom.  Christian coffeehouses, Christian music, and words that only Christians understand get used up to create this distance between the one who has trusted Christ, and the billions of other people in the world around us.

In fact, I think building a subculture of Christian stuff is probably one of the worst ideas in human history, outside of Nero burning down his own city, of course.

If one uses the Bible as her guide, what she notices is that God had his chosen people, the Israelites, to be a light in a dark world.  To show the rest of the world that there is a better way, when that way comes from the God who created everything.  And Israel did okay for a while.  Even King David, the most famous of all of Israel’s leaders (with apologies to Moses), messed up a time or three, yet he was still known as a man after God’s own heart.  So it wasn’t necessarily the sin that tore up Israel’s relationship with God, but there was something deeper than just their outward failure to comply to God’s laws.

So God showed forgiveness and mercy in a huge way over hundreds of years of them turning their back on Him.  But then eventually He sends the Messiah, Jesus Christ, into the world.  Why then?  So by that time, Israel’s religion had come to a different place, away from what was really intended.  They had come to believe that they were different then everyone else just because they were Israelites.  As we know today, no group of people is more special than another group of people just because of their race, gender, or religion.  What makes anyone different from anyone else always comes from inside us and never from outside of us.

Then Jesus ultimately dies a cruel death on a tree, and pays a price that I was not willing to pay, eventually rising again to life and to the Father.  But He came into a world not only to die, but also to show us how to be a light in a very dark world.  And then what do we do in response to this fabulous act of kindness?

We create segregated churches and keep stale churches alive longer than they should.  We eat our potlucks in the church mess hall and go on our weekend retreats.  We buy our books from Christian bookstores and learn the necessary 8 syllable words that no one understands unless they’ve gone through 20 years of Christian school like I did.  We listen to our Christian music and reprimand anyone who dares to listen to “secular music” (or regular music as I prefer to call it, just like what I call music with Christ at the center).  In reality, we block ourselves in so we’re not tainted by the rest of the world.  Then we say to said world that thinks were crazy (not because we’re being light, mind you, but because we’re not), “Come, be a part of my thing.”

And for the most part, their response is, “Hell no.”

But what if we told them that to surrender to God, you don’t need to be like me or do my thing, but you just have to…well, surrender to God, and put your faith in the person of Jesus Christ who paved a way for them to do that?  And sometimes that means you should stop doing things that take you away from that goal, and sometimes that means you should probably start doing some things that move you towards that goal, like getting involved in Christian community.

That community might include me, or it might not, but it certainly is not about me – of that I am certain.

And what if we made our churches agents of push rather than leeches of pull, sucking the life out of everything that walks into its dark doors?

Wow…that sort of thing would take humility, sacrifice, and a change of mind and heart.

Easter at Fellowship Church in Holden Mass. was great as we kicked off our new series called “Live Different”.  Here are some things I liked about the service:

*So many people returned from long absences from FC. I was thrilled at all the people, brand new guests, attenders who had been away, and our Fellowship Faithful.

*The band.  Rocked it out to Leeland’s “The Opposite way” to start the service, then transitioned to “Song of Hope”.  Finished the service with an amazing rendition of Chris Tomlin’s “God of this City”.

*We started the Transformation Project, the first of 5 weeks of videos showing 3 Fellowship attenders who have decided to find, focus, and fulfill God’s vision for their life.

*”Living Passionately” – the first of 5 in our “Live Different” series.  The disciples became passionate when they realized they didn’t serve a dead god, but a risen Savior.

*We handed out ballots for the people in our church to decide to either “Live below average,” “Live average,” “Live above average,” and “Live Different.”  More on this in a later blog.

*Walking out the door, Fellowshippers were handed yard signs that read,”Voting in 2008?  Vote to Live Different.  Yes we can!
Fellowshipholden.com”

*I’m excited about what God has planned for FC this spring and summer.

TWO OTHER NOTES OF INTEREST:
*My NCAA Brackets are all messed up this year.  Hopefully all of my competition’s brackets are messed up too.  Or should I be happy for them?

*Check out my blog on Monday and join the blog carnival - “Monday’s Moments” a blog carnival that focuses on the stories that happened to us last week from Monday to Sunday.

Here are some more pics to supplement this blog.

Love to hear what you’re thinking.

Until next time…

Hola!  Below are some thoughts I had about our weekend at Fellowship Church in Massachusetts.  How was your weekend?  This is also my first published blog actually written for martyholman.com, so enjoy an feel free to subscribe to my new blog, even if you are bitter at me and really liked my wordpress.com site.  I changed blogs because I wanted to play a bit with making my own site, and self-hosting with the wordpress software seemed like the easiest way to go (was I ever wrong).  So I hope you enjoy it and feel free to let me know what you think of the new site! 
Now, on with the show…

*Saturday it rained all day.  Saturday was also the day that I did not win the trophy for the Guitar Hero championships that our family ministries hosted.  I came in 2nd in the expert category.
*Carie won in the hard category.  She has the trophy to prove it.
*Saturday night was the first Saturday night in several months where Carie and I just chilled.  Nice!!!
*We decided to take that to a new level we liked it so much and we just chilled together (and cleaned) on Sunday afternoon too.  I’m spoiled now.
*Church was great!  The energy was great and have I mentioned that I love the people at FC.
*Al & Amy have great voices. 
*Going back to Friday, I got a call on my cell on Friday that said “Macarthur” and it had my friend Steves number.  “What?!”  I exclaimed as I answered the phone.  Steve had just landed in New Hampshire after 9 months of being in Iraq!  Let me hear you say “Holla”
*I think we have a first class Family ministry in our church and its only getting better!  Rock it out Steve.
*Darren’s video – amazing!!! and hilarious.  I’ll have to post it soon so you can check it out.
*One service -10:30 am on Easter and beyond.
*I love the responses people have shared with me about this series.  My hope is that it just keeps getting better!
*After church we went to Moes with a group of 25 people from Fellowship.  I almost shouted “Welcome to Fellowship!”

So thats that.  Enjoy the new martyholman.com and don’t forget to subscribe in your fave reader!

Until next time…

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, it’s time for the Sunday morning recap at Fellowship Church.  Billy already gave his here.  Here are some thoughts I had about my weekend at Fellowship Church.

*I attended a benefit dinner for Hearts for Heat this weekend.  Hearts for Heat is a ministry of Fellowship Church, and is doing an amazing job of providing oil for people in Worcester County.
*I ate with Massachusetts State Rep. Lew Evangelidis at the dinner.  Turns out he plays in my basketball league.  We haven’t played against one another yet, but when we do…
*Saturday we helped the Dancy’s move into Holden.  The team is coming together and the future of FC looks great!
*After that, I was sore.
*It’s amazing how when things fall apart, like in music practice or whatever, that God comes through and gets us past it.
*We are only a few weeks away from our Easter service, where we’ll all find out how to vote.  Should be a great service.
*Billy made some hilarious confessional videos for the service yesterday.  There was a lot of laughter, specifically at the last one when he was jamming out to Feist.
*Totally psyched about the guitar hero championships next Saturday at “The FC.”  Played for the first time in 2 months yesterday against Carie.  Gonna need to practice this week.
*I confessed that there are times I don’t think I can do the thing God has called me to do.
*Yes, I really did fail my broadcasting platform, and yes, then I did graduate with a real degree after working my tail off on learning how to talk.
*Yes, this was Moses’ problem too.
*No, I don’t doubt that I made the right decision to stay at Fellowship. 
*Were you inspired to find out what God’s vision is for your life?
*I love Fellowship Church in Holden!
*Have a basketball game tonight.  Pray for me that I don’t injure myself, and that some state rep for Mass. doesn’t injure me in any great way.
*My dad just called me and told me that his attendance at church yesterday was 800!  Go Hillcrest!

How are you doing?  Anything I can do for you?

Until next time…