The Ragamuffin Blog

Father's Day Videos

Father's Day is this Sunday, so while I promise to wrap up our conversation around kicking porn, I wanted to take a minute a few days out to honor the fathers. For those looking for fresh material, ideas, or just a good story, here are some videos in honor of all the dads out there. 

I also love this version of the "Team Hoyt" story, set to Sigur Ros. One idea for pastors would be to show this version and introduce or unpack the story themselves, allowing them to better connect it to what they are talking about.

Yea yea I know, 1997 called and it wants its song back. But this song tells one great story as it relates to fatherhood and its impact on kids, especially sons. A timely message for a fatherless generation, if you ask me.

A fun and perhaps slightly cheesy take on suburban fatherhood. As far as Father's Day videos go, this one is a suburban evangelical church's dream. I got a good laugh out of it.

Confession: I love stand up comedians. As a pastor, I regularly watch and study them as thinkers, communicators and story tellers. Here are some great words of wisdom from comedian Louis C.K. 

For those looking for other Father's Day videos, here are a few honorable mentions: "Swagger Wagon," "I'm Watching You, Dad," "You're Better Than That" - Rocky clip, and Tim Hawkins on Parenting. 

Supermarket Superhero

I love creativity. I love stories. And I love when people come together and combine the two to create something beautiful and meaningful. This is a short film made by some of my friends. Enjoy. 

Our First Baptism Service

A couple days ago we had the great opportunity of having our first ever baptism service at Mosaic! On Sunday morning, seven men and women stepped up to publicly proclaim their faith in Jesus Christ. It was awesome. Nevermind that one of our amps caught on fire last week, or that we inadvertantly flooded the back of the Bourbon Theater on Friday when we broke a water pipe retrieving Rivertree's baptismal from the rafters. (Ah, the joys of church planting.)

On Sunday, none of that mattered. Having the opportunity to baptize each person and then to hear our community cheer wildly as they emerged from the water a new creation in Christ, was one of the neatest things I have ever had the privilege of being a part of.

And when the baptisms were over and we entered into a time of worship together, the community of Mosaic worshiped like I have never seen or heard them worship before. Eyes closed, hands in the air, voices shouting praises to God, it...was...incredible. It impressed upon me once more the unequaled power of story. There is perhaps no greater testimony of God's presence and power and grace than a life changed by the gospel. In the end, what else can do we do but praise God?

Above, Erik and I hug after he comes up out of the water. You can hear his story below.

Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission

Right now I am reading the book "Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission" by Darrin Patrick, pastor of The Journey in St. Louis. The book is excellent and I can't recommend it highly enough to every man who desires to step up and become a leader in his family and church, and particularly to anyone considering church planting in the future. For more, check out the video below.

 

Beauty From Ashes

Meet Dan and April. I love these two. When I met them for the first time several months ago they were hurting. They had just sold much of what they owned and moved to Lincoln from out of state in an agressive move to leave a tumultuous first year of marriage behind them and to fight to heal and rebuild together. Over the past several months, Christ has done an incredible work in their lives and marriage. And I am so proud of them for having the courage to share their journey with the world and in doing so, modeling the kind of authenticity and vulnerability that is sorely lacking in too many churches. This is their story.   

Day 16 - Beauty From Ashes from Mosaic Lincoln on Vimeo.

Day 5 Video: "Relevance"

Day 5 - Relevance from Mosaic Lincoln on Vimeo.

This past week my good friend, Bryan Marine, and I set out to shoot today's 30in30 video in an old, abandoned church out west of Lincoln. We had to hike to get back to it, but it turned out to be well worth the effort. What we found was incredible. The place seemed almost untouched with its old pews, rotting organ missing half the keys, broken and twisted stain glass, and remnants of what was. It was almost hauntingly beautiful to step into something so hidden and so full of history. I thought Bryan did such an incredible job of capturing the experience that I just had to share it. Enjoy!

Mosaic Lincoln Video

I'm excited to share with you the first Mosaic Lincoln vision video. Considering that we did it all on a VERY small budget (close to nil) I am pretty happy with how it turned out. A thousand thanks to Bill Radtke and Jay R for volunteering so much time to making this happen! Also, as you'll see on the video, our temporary website is now up and live at www.mosaiclincoln.com! As we move forward and our needs grow with our community, we'll invest in something more versatile and comprehensive. For now, however, I think this will serve us well and again, it was free!. (For church planters or anyone else out there looking for a free, flash web option, check out www.wix.com.) 

On a side note, isn't amazing how creative we become when we need to do something we believe in and don't have a large budget to do it with? I think there are always more options out there than we initially perceive and you know, perhaps we'd do well to resist the urge to throw a lot of money at the things we want but rarely need. (Of course, God knows I am preaching to myself on this one!) 

If you are not already on our Prayer Team and would like to get monthly Mosaic Lincoln updates and prayer requests via email and vodcast, you can join here! 

This Too Shall Pass

A message for anyone and everyone who has ever felt so overwhelmed by life that you wondered whether you could go on. For all of you leaders and pastors who feel beaten and bloodied after brutal elder meetings, ongoing conflict, endless crises, bad press, budget cuts, personal critics, ministry haters, botched sermons and Sunday morning miscues. I know it feels like the end of the world right now, but just remember...

Some Creative Inspiration

Alright, so it's the end of the quarter and I'm up late with seeds and a Red Bull writing a final paper and I need a break, so...confession time. The older I get (and I'm not very old mind you), the less I find myself wanting to read the latest and greatest Christian book to come out and the more I find myself gleaning from the progressives and innovators from other spheres of influence. 

I mean, I still learn from the "top dogs" of mainstream Christianity and others out on the fringes, but it' is hard to find Christian leaders who are doing anything new. I find that to be more than a little frustrating. I mean, the church should be the most creative place on the planet! We should be pioneering on all types of fronts. But too often it seems we just "copy and paste" from others. And there is a lot of recycled junk floating around out there, don't you think?

Well, in that spirit, here are some fun things to get your creative juices flowing! Much love!

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Adventures in Portland

Last week I took a little trip to Portland to connect with a church planter from Vancouver and to take in an ARC 'Church Planter's Round Table' - one of the steps in their assessment process. It was a great trip. Not only is Portland probably the 'coolest' city I've ever been to, but it is home to my beloved Rogue (which I made sure to tour while I was there) and the surrounding area is just as beautiful as everyone says it is. While I was there I also had the opportunity to hang with my buddy Jon and spend an evening with my brother Josh, making for one stellar trip.

For anyone interested in potentially planting or partnering with ARC, let me just say this: this organization is the REAL DEAL. It's no coincidence that prolific leaders like Craig Groeschel and Mark Batterson have chosen to get on board with ARC even though it isn't "their baby," or that the fastest growing churches in the country the last two years were the first two churches planted by ARC. It's not by chance that 92% of ARC's church plants succeed, compared to the national average of less than 20%.  These guys are legit.

And more than just knowing what they're doing, just as importantly, they are exceptionally wonderful people. There was no aura of "we're right and everyone else is wrong," but rather, they graciously gave props to other great church planting orgs (which was very refreshing). When it comes down to it, it seems that they just love Jesus and people and as a result, want to help church planters plant great churches. The entire experience was gracious, personal and genuine. I left thinking, "These are the kinds of people I want to be associated with." I can't recommend ARC high enough to anyone personally considering planting a church and to existing churches looking to get involved in church planting.