Chip Sanders Blog

What Happens in Vegas...

2008-08-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

You know the rest of the line. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. And being the uncreative copycats that most people are you have probably seen this misguided advertisement ripped off and used on t-shirts all over the country. I have seen shirts for Sullivan, Illinois which read what happens in the corn field stays in the corn field (I don't even want to consider the possible meanings that could have). I have seen Cubs t-shirts what happens in Wrigley... And Cardinals what happens at Busch... All of which are lies, especially the last two examples since the ball games are on television for the world to see.

I do think that it would be an accurate advertising slogan for many of our churches. "What happens at Second Assembly of God stays at Second Assembly," because so much of what happens during our services is not reflected in our lives on a daily basis. And that is just as pathetic and even more inexcusable than someone believing the lie about Las Vegas.

Wild Goose Chase

2008-08-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson's newest book. It launches tomorrow. Mark is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C. I haven't read his first book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, but I have been a reader of his blog for more than two years. I have listened to many of his podcasts, received his evotional e-mails. The book is very much an extension of Mark's communication style from oral teaching and blogging to a full length book. If you had never heard him speak, and only read this book and then you heard him speak, he would sound just like you imagined he would sound while reading the book.

The book encourages us to allow the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives. His contention is that we tend to try and tame God bringing him down to our level. When our expectations are too small we can limit God by our lack of faith. The book is filled with Mark's trademark illustrations. He is one of the best I know at illustrating his points with stories, scientific theories and off the wall anecdotes. He has a unique voice and I think it is in full effect here.

You can feel the influence of Erwin McManus and others who talk about living life to the fullest and not allowing religion to inhibit our pursuit of God. Batterson fully acknowledges this in the book. It isn't the subject matter that is unique it is his voice. And truthfully as preachers and teachers of the Bible none of us has completely unique subject matter (if someone has a take on the Bible that no one else ever has it is usually called heresy) it is, to borrow a Batterson phrase, our job to present old truths in new ways. So the book is definitely worth your time. I definitely recommend it!

The book is availible on Amazon and through other outlets. Thanks to the publisher for my free copy!

Skip Carey

2008-08-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

During the 1980's I fell in love with baseball. I am a fan of the Atlanta Braves. During most of the '80s I lived in North and South Dakota. The options for baseball on television were the Twins and the Braves. My best friend and I loved the Braves. Both teams were mostly awful, but the Braves were on almost every day on WTBS. And the Braves had Dale Murphy my all time favorite player.

It was Skip's voice, along with Ernie Johnson and Pete VanWieren that told me play by play how awful the Braves were, and then how great they were becoming. His voice is the sound track to a lot of great memories of baseball for a young boy growing up. I haven't followed baseball quite as closely since TBS reduced its Braves telecasts. Now that they aren't exclusively covering the Braves I don't get to see many games. I like Skip's son Chip an awful lot and not just because we share a name, but it won't be the same without Skip.

Stuff that's happening

2008-07-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

I went to the doctor this morning. In six weeks I lost exactly zero pounds. I didn't gain any either. That is despite cutting back on portion sizes, not snacking even half as much, going from 10-12 sodas a week to three or four, drinking more water and exercising much more. So it will be much harder than expected. My metabolism is messed up!

Yesterday Rebekah and I celebrated twelve years of marriage. I am blessed to have her as my wife!

Started my week off today. I will work two hours or so on Wednesday. I am under doctors orders not to work on projects around the house for a few days. I had two steroid injections this morning. One if my forearm and one in my shoulder. It has been frustrating that the pain has continued for nine months. I was going to take three Sundays off from preaching this summer. So far I have taken one, and though I planned to take next Sunday off and we will be on vacation I am preching Sunday night in East Alton. I love preaching so it's harder not to preach than it is to preach. I haven't been able to work out the guest speakers in consecutive weeks that I need.

Rebekah has jury duty today. Hopefully it will be over today, it could last all week which would mean my vacation would be babysitting the kids she watches. Noah will be home from North Dakota tomorrow. I am ready to spend some time with him.

Lawyer?

2008-07-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes as Christians we think that we have to defend the Bible, God and church. We tend to act like lawyers and try to sruge people into the kingdom. This post by Seth Godin got me thinking. The problem with lawyers is that most people think they are telling less than the truth. The lawyer is believed to advocate for his or her client. The lawyer is trying to convince you. People don't like lawyers. Don't try to be a lawyer (unless that is your profession).

Instead I need to genuinely love people and demonstrate that I have their best interests at heart. If that is truly my motivation most people will sense that and be far more likely to hear what the gospel is all about.

Fun Times

2008-06-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

Today I had a root canal and a temporary crown put on my front tooth. It actually doesn't hurt as bad as I though it would. It did take almost two hours most of which I spent with my feet higher than my head so I have a headache that is worse than the tooth pain. So that is all that I have accomplished today as of 2:00. I am going to try to get some more work done. We'll see how the pain goes.

Dropping the pounds

2008-06-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

I went to the doctor yesterday. Amongst other things he said I should try losing some weight. So my goal is to lose 10 pounds over the next six weeks. If I can do that my goal will be to lose thirty pounds over the next year. In order to do this I will have to actually (gulp) exercise. I will let you know how it goes.

Authenticity part 2

2008-06-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

So holiness is not something that I speak about very often, at least not in those words. It should be though. My need for authenticity finds a remedy in the holiness of God. God in His holiness has nothing to hide. He is completely transparent and flawless. I am however, full of failures and flaws. Hebrews 10:10 tells me that by God’s will I am made holy through the death of Jesus Christ. Any lack of authenticity is a result then of my clinging to sin’s deceitfulness. In the cross I am made perfect even as I am being made holy (Hebrews 10:14).

Holiness then is the standard that you and I should seek. Too often being authentic means owning up to our sins as a means of justifying our failures. Instead of conceding that I will continually fall short of the mark, thereby lowering my aim, I should aim for perfection.

True authenticity, I think, is recognizing the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in my life. I have been declared to be perfect. I am being made holy. It is me, inviting you to join me on the journey. It is the open invitation to join the community of saints, who are trusting that, “He who began a good work in me will be faithful to carry on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

Authentic Part 1

2008-06-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

Authenticity is a buzz word today. As a pastor I read a lot of books about preaching, and church issues. I am constantly told to be authentic in my preaching. We want our churches to be authentic in their Christianity. I want to come across as real and honest when I preach, and when I am living my life amongst other people. I want to do more than appear to practice what I preach; I really want to do it. Transparency is another word that is often used to describe the approach a pastor should take to preaching. Allow people to see who you really are, that you have struggles just like everyone else.

As I was preparing my Sunday message last week I was thinking about some of these issues. I talked about the character of God. Something that I felt the Holy Spirit spoke into my spirit as I was praying before church has stuck with me. You never hear God described as transparent or authentic. Why? Because God is Holy! God also commands His people to be like Him. “Be Holy, because I am Holy” 1 Peter 1:16.

When I hear the word holiness I hear a word with two drastically different connotations. First I hear the many passages in the Bible that speak of God’s holiness. I often repeat those refrains in my prayers and in my worship. The second connotation is negative. I think of “holiness” churches. My own fellowship, the Assemblies of God, has roots in the holiness movements, but when I hear holiness as it pertains to man I too often think of self-righteous legalism. Self-righteousness is of course the opposite of holiness in many ways. It smacks of a lack of authenticity. (I’ll say more tomorrow.)

Finished

2008-06-09T11:29:00.001-07:00

I finished the rough draft of my term paper for Composition II today! I have not blogged in a month mainly because every spare moment I had for writing went into this paper. Between research, funerals, ball games, church, and a wedding this has been the busiest period in my life in a very long time. I hope to get back to blogging this week. For all four or five of you who read this blog, now you have something to look forward to.

Quote of the week

2008-05-02T09:48:00.001-07:00

If all you want is safe, have baby food for dinner. Just leave me out of it.
Seth Godin

Self-Promotion

2008-04-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I am promoting myself when I invite people to church. After all I lead worship (out of necessity) do the announcements (because nobody else wants to do them) and preach (because this is what I love to do) so when they come to our church they get a whole lot of me. The problem is that I am not really all that in to myself, and I spent most of my growing up years trying to be invisible unless I was doing something I was good at doing. So inviting people to come to church sometimes seems like inviting them to check me out, and I need more people to come to church because churches need to grow.

I don't want to preach messages because I have made some cool observations about the Bible. The best messages are the ones that I have to preach because they won't let go of me. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we are not selling a church or ourselves, we are showing people our God who can transform their lives. It is the Holy Spirit that both convicts and changes people. I just have to show people that Jesus is alive in me.

Spring has Sprung

2008-04-25T06:37:00.000-07:00

April is coming to an end, and I am entering perhaps my busiest time of year. Saturday is Elijah's birthday, and our food pantry will be open for the first time. We are still working out the kinks for this new compassion ministry. We also have a leadership training event most of the day. Noah has his first t-ball practice too! Next weekend is our church rummage sale. Our church raises money so that all of our kids can go to camp.

The following weekend is Mother's Day. The weekend after that we have a missionary speaker and in the evening we host a Baccalaureate service for Okaw Valley High School. The following weekend is Memorial Day and May will be over. The first Saturday in June I have a wedding. Then community VBS starts that next Monday. In the midst of this we have three kids playing baseball and softball. Two of them are on travelling teams.

Life gets really busy. As a pastor I have some of the same challenges that everyone else does. In the midst of busyness I have to make time for prayer and Bible study so that I can deal with the pressures of life.

Monday

2008-04-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

I am slogging through a beautiful Monday. I would love to be outside in the spring air. Instead I am slogging through my course work for Intro to Humanities. It is not something that I want to do at all! The quizzes are absurdly easy requiring just reading through the chapters. So it seems like a bunch of busy work. I guess I should be thankful that it isn't too taxing because I have a busy week ahead.

We had another earthquake last night at about 12:45. I felt it and so did Kaitlyn. It measured 4.0. It is strange to feel two in a couple of days since I live in Illinois!

Weird Stuff

2008-04-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

I felt an earthquake for the first time that I can remember. I was awake because Noah had a nosebleed. All the sudden the bed started shaking and the windows and the doors. We had an earthquake that was 5.2 on the scale. There was an aftershock around 10:15. I would have felt it but there was a train going past across the street, which rattles the house anyway.

When we returned home from running an errand, the dog was on the roof. I had opened the window in Kaitlyn's room. It currently doesn't have a screen. Since the bugs aren't bad yet I left it open to air things out. Bailey got upstairs because someone left the gate down. When we pulled into the parking lot there she was on the roof. I am surprised she didn't jump off and kill herself.

Weird day.

Back

2008-04-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

We returned home from vacation tonight. I will be glad to be sleeping in my own bed. The highlight of the trip was Monday. We went to the Lincoln Park zoo with our friends Greg and Samantha Connour and their daughter Blinn. We always have a great time with Greg and Sam. I don't think we have ever been able to hang out with them and all four of our kids. We finished the day at Lou Malnati's for Chicago style pizza. Good times!

Wisconsin here we come

2008-04-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we are off to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rebekah's family lives there and we haven't been back for almost a year and a half. Gramma Evie will be 80 soon, and we want to wish her a Happy Birthday! in person. So after the morning service we will take off in the van, and arrive in time for dinner hopefully. She always makes fried chicken when we come, and the kids are looking forward to it.

Monday we are going to go down to Chicago, and go to the Field Museum. We will meet friends there and spend the day with them. It will be nice to get away. I know Rebekah is very excited to see her granparents.

Noah Paul

2008-04-11T17:39:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday to our third child! Noah is six today! Seth feels ripped off that it's not his birthday yet.

American Idol Gives Back

2008-04-10T08:15:00.001-07:00

I'm not knocking the show for trying to do something good. I hope they help some people, although I suspect that good intentions don't have quite the impact that those people who give would hope. People who already give and serve the poor don't need celebrities to tell them to give to the poor.

I knew my blood pressure would soar watching although not closely last night. About a million people die every year from malaria. What is the response of many people? Give them a net to sleep under. (Or in the words of a certain French queen, let them eat cake!) Several things irritate me about this approach. Remember a few years ago when there was an outbreak of West Nile virus? The uproar bordered on hysteria. We won't stand for disease carrying misquitos, but we just throw nets at people in poor countries.

Second, the nets have to be treated with insectiside to be effective. The insecticide lasts anywhere from a few months to three years. After that, the nets have to be retreated. And if the nets are washed or get holes in them they lose there effectiveness. Nets reduce the mortality rate by about 20%. That's not good enough when there are other options.

The efforts must be combined with vector control, or abatement, and internal residual spraying. IRS was a part of the Global Malaria Eradication Campaign from 1955-1969. According to the CDC:
IRS with DDT and dieldrin was the primary malaria control method used during the Global Malaria Eradication Campaign (1955-1969). The campaign did not achieve its stated objective but it did eliminate malaria from several areas and sharply reduced the burden of malaria disease in others.

However the environmental movement decided that they didn't like DDT even though it was completely safe for humans. After pressure from groups like the Environmental Defense Fund the GMEC fell apart and the burden was placed upon poor third world countries. Eventually the United States government in the 80's officially threatened to withhold financial aid to countries that used pesticides such as DDT. When EDF chief scientist Charles Wurster was told that banning DDT would result in millions of deaths he replied, "This is as good a way to get rid of them as any."

If even hundreds of white Americans or Europeans were dying of malaria something would be done quickly. Because malaria kills the most in Africa and southeastern Asia, we throw nets at them. It's good that more attention is being paid. And some countries are using DDT again. So there's hope that thousands of lives can be saved. Sorry for the long post, but I become angry when people talk about misquito nets but don't follow up with medicine and spraying. People, especially children shouldn't have to die from preventable diseases when we have the power to help them.

Happy Birthday!

2008-04-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

To my blushing bride!

Warning Controversy Ahead!

2008-04-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

I would like to see Barrack Obama talk about why he is a supporter of abortion rights. He purports to be a strong defender of civil rights. According to many studies a black baby is almost as likely to aborted as to be born. Why don't we ever talk about this tragedy? It is certainly a tragedy that the most prominent abortion organization often places their clinics in minority neighborhoods. Democrats don't like to acknowledge this problem in part because any deviation from the party line is dealt with harshly. Our other Senator from Illinois Richard Durbin, was once pro-life but found out he couldn't go very far as a pro-life democrat.

Alright, I'm off my soap box for now.

2nd time guests

2008-04-08T15:25:00.000-07:00

Historically we haven't been very successful at seeing first time visitors become second time visitors. This is a problem because as a smaller church in a small village we don't have a lot of traffic. The people who have become members after visiting for the first time in large part had existing relationships with people in our church.

This means two things for us. First we need to be more active in inviting our friends and people we already know to church. Pray for them and look for opportunities to talk to them about Abundant Life and your faith. Second, we need to work harder at assimilating our guests and we need to find out what we can do to make their experience more sticky.

You never know what you will find.

2008-04-07T13:38:00.001-07:00

I was cleaning the church office recently and found this:

What might be inside this round box?

Is this anointing oil?

No it is a cologne of some sort and it smells like a cheap Avon aftershave that you might buy at a garage sale for a dime.

I wonder how much you had to donate to receive this?

My Bracket is done.

2008-04-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

Now that Kansas defeated North Carolina, I am officially out of contention in all my brackets. I picked North Carolina to win it all. They dug themselves a deep hole, and they were almost able to climb out of it before they ran out of gas. Good job Kansas. I liked Bill Self a lot when he was at Illinois, and I am happy for him. I really want Kansas to win it all on Monday now, but I won't be watching for the most part, because I am taking my beautiful wife out for dinner. Her birthday is on Wednesday, but Monday is my day off, so we will go out Wednesday.

Next Sunday we will be taking off for a few days to go to Kenosha. Rebekah's gram is turning 80 so we are going to visit her. We also hope to catch up with some friends in Chicago at the Lincoln Park zoo.

Would They Miss Us?

2008-04-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

One of the core principles we have as a church in a small village is that we are here to make the community a better place. So I have asked the question, if our church ceased to exist, would anyone miss us other than our small group who regularly attend? We have talked about serving the community for a while. We are now taking steps to do something about it. Step one is a food pantry. I have a couple of people who are really moving this forward. Some other things are in the works. The key right now is to not allow our small budget to limit our vision.