The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Getting Ready

More NYC today, then home tomorrow to get the kids ready for school.

Speaking of getting ready, I'll be getting ready for to speak in the 15 largest cities in the US pretty quick. I'll be in San Diego (9-9), LA (9-10), San Fran (9-11), Minneapolis (9-15), Boston (9-16), NYC (9-17), Phillie (9-19), MSP again (9-20 & 22), Milwaukie (9-23), Chicago (9-24), Detroit (9-25), MSP Again (9-27 & 29), Dallas (9-30), Houston (10-1), San Antonio (10-3), MSP yet once again (10-4 & 11), and Charlotte (10-15).

I still need some host sites, if you know anyone in these cities who might open their fellowship hall, brew the coffee, and let me invite 23,000 of my closest friends. (The mailing goes out to the 23K largest churches in the USA later this week... talk about "ready fire aim".

What will I be doing in these cities? Showing off what I did on my sabbatical, plus a lot more.

8:15 Registration
8:30 Design 1: How to Survive Adolescence
You’ll experience one of 28 new parenting courses designed to
turn parents into youth ministers in their own homes.
10:30 Design 2: Bible Song Sunday
Sing through the Scriptures. This is not your mother’s Sunday
School! You’ll enjoy a rocking “Look to the Heavens” session
(Abraham’s Call) with the art of He Qi, cartoons by Rich
Melheim, and music by Jeff Downs of “The Killer Hayseeds.”
12:00 Lunch: Sponsored by the Faith Inkubators Foundation
■ The National Youth Worship Arts Contests
■ The Artwork of He Qi
■ “Unlocking the Secrets of the Universe” DVD Gift
1:00 Design 3: Why God?—Senior High ID Weekends
Take a look at a new apologetics approach immersing teens in
the most diffi cult questions and the most reasonable answers in
search of the God of the Bible.
2:15 Design 4: GIFT Intergenerational Advent & Stewardship
Adopt an extended faith family at church and spend four to six
weeks in creative fun, faith and fellowship this fall (also available
for Lent 2006).
3:00 Design 5: Head to the Heart Adolescent Ministries
Grow jr. high small groups into sr. high small groups with this blend
of learning, service, fellowship and nightly parent involvement.

Brad Lynch, my new CEO, and Monty Lysne, our Junior High Director, will also cover 20 cities... all before the end of October. Here's the whole schedule. If you have friends in any of these places, could you drop them an invite for me? It's a free event (I'll even buy lunch). Thanks!

September
9 San Diego
10 Los Angeles
12 San Francisco
13 Seattle
13 Phoenix
14 Portland
15 Minneapolis 1
16 Colorado Springs
16 Boston
17 Denver
17 New York City
19 Philadelphia
20 Minneapolis 2
21 Cleveland
21 Green Bay, WI
22 Columbus
22 Wisconsin Rapids, WI
22 Minneapolis 3
23 Owatonna, MN
23 Milwaukee
24 Pittsburgh
24 Chicago
26 Detroit
27 Minneapolis 4
28 Orlando
29 Miami Beach
29 Lincoln, NE
29 Minneapolis 5
30 Des Moines
30 Dallas
October
1 Jacksonville
1 Davenport, IA
1 Houston
3 San Antonio
5 Atlanta
6 Nashville
6 Bismarck, ND
7 Grand Forks, ND
8 Memphis
8 Fargo, ND
11 Minneapolis 6
12 Rapid City, SD
13 Louisville
13 Sioux Falls, SD
14 Washington, DC
15 Baltimore
15 Duluth
15 Charlotte
21 St. Louis
21 Indianapolis
22 Kansas City
25 Oklahoma City
26 Albuquerque

Seinfeld Today

"There is no such thing as an attention span. People have infinite attention if you are entertaining them." - Jerry Seinfeld from the Wall Street Journal. 

   

A Tour of Yale

We're planning to tour the campus at Yale Divinity School today with He Qi and our entourage. It's been fun adjusting our Nanjing guests to east coast life. My Joseph is a great help in keeping us "real". More on that later.

We'll head back into NYC later today and visit with the folks at the Museum of Biblical History, 1865 W. Broadway (American Bible Society) where 10 of He Qi's prints will be displayed beginning in June.

Home on Wednesday and I'll bring photos!

Stewardship Quotations X

Here's an idea: Send this list of my favorite stewardship quotations to each family in your church, ask them to choose one, then tell them you'll be inviting them to tell you what it means during worship  this week. Print them in the bulletin or post them on the sanctuary walls. Then create an impromptu interview during the announcements to talk about stewardship with your people.

91. 

 Sympathy is two hearts tugging at the same load.

92.  What is stewardship? An act of worship. A life response to what God has done for us.

93.  Good stewardship preaching is not encouraging people to give it all way to prove their love or gain love. Good stewardship preaching is helping people recognize what has been given first to them.

94. Love isn’t love until it does the work of love - which is to do loving acts when the other doesn't deserve it. - M. Scott Peck

95. Tithing - is a jumping off point.

96. Historical perspective of tithing - did not imply that the other 90% is your own but what you have been given to perform your vocation - 100% of what you have is God’s - the 10% went to the temple -

Tony Campolo

97. A coach said, I don’t expect you to give more than 100 percent of what you’ve got! That’s what God expects of us 100 percent of our treasure.

98.  A little leaven and a little lovin’ - that’s the life of a Christian

99. The great green god money; I hate it. I’m not pursuing money, it’s pursuing me. - Danny Thomas

100. According to the latest Nielsen Ratings, American teenagers are spending 27 hours and 53 minutes a week watching television. If they simply tithed a tenth of their television hours and spend 2.8 hours a week in Christly service, we could change the country. If their parents would join them, we could change the world. - Rich Melheim

101. 

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. - Calvin Coolidge

Off ot Yale & Prayers Sought

We're planning to worship at St. John the Divine today, then off to Yale to get He Qi situated. In other news, please add this to your Sunday prayers.

Prayer Request for Gary and Cindy Hogan, Watford City, ND

Gary is serving in Iraq while his young wife is fighting cancer here.

THIS COUPLE NEEDS OUR PRAYERS. PLEASE read this. IT MUST BE TERRIBLY
DIFFICULT TO BE IN IRAQ WITH A SICK WIFE AT HOME.

Bobby S. Briggs, MSgt, USAF

823 ESFS/SFOC

Flight Sergeant

BAGHDAD AB, IRAQ

My name is Gary Hogan. Some of you receiving this know me some do not.

My wife, Cindy, is 32 years old and has just been diagnosed 3 days ago with
stage 4 cervical cancer and her chances for survival are very slim.

She was pregnant with our second child and had miscarried recently at 3
months, and now we know why.

This is a request for you to forward this e-mail to everyone you know asking
for prayer.  The more people that pray for her to be healed, the better.
Pray and forward.  It only takes a second to hit "forward". Please do it and
don't delete this, your prayer can and perhaps will save her life. Please
pray and ask everyone you know to pray for the HEALING of Cindy, removal of
all cancer in her body so she may enjoy all that life has to offer, and to
continue to be the wonderful mother to our 5-year-old son, Michael. The
power of Prayer is unsurpassed and I want the whole world to have her in
their prayers the next few weeks. God will hear our cry.  Please do not be
offended by my plea. This is only a request for your help. 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this and helping with our
request for healing!  No words can express the power we have when we each do
a little to come together.

Regards,

Cindy's in-love husband! - Gary

Thank you, and please send it to the far reaches of our world.

He Qi and Statue of Liberty

It's the Statue of Liberty this morning with He Qi and family, then some touring NYC and, if we can find good tickets, a Broadway play. I'm hoping for SPAM-a-lot but I'm not sure the humor would translate.

Blessings!

Rich

He Qi in NYC

We're off this morning to take He Qi to Yale for his artist-in-residence year. My son Joseph and godson Song Yang and He Qi's wife are coming with us.

I'll take some photos and give a report.

Wish us well.

Rich

The PC Preacher's Paradox

Something occured to me in the wee hours of the morning while I was taking my neighborhood run/walk and preparing to bring my friend He Qi to Yale for his artist-in-residence year.

It has to do with a problem for preachers in a politically correct world. The problem is this:

Most people today don't want to be saved from anything other than boredom. Unless they are in some desparate mess or their life is hanging by a threat, most post-moderns aren't interested in buying the Savior that the Christian church is selling. Maybe leasing with an option to buy, but certainly not buying.

It also occured to me that there is little to nothing in the 21st century's politically correct mainline preaching that would convict or convince the masses of much of anything - let alone of their sin and the need for a savior.

To be convicted of sin would mean one must be cut to the bone with an awareness of wrong-doing. To be cut to the bone with an awareness of wrong-doing would mean that I must be convinced of my lostness and the utter hopelessness without a way out on my own.

Now, some would say that the mainline today preaches all grace and no conviction or condemnation. That isn't entirely true. Their is a condemnable sin. The only politically correct thing one is free to judge today is those who judge. The only PC thing worthy of intollerance today is anyone who is intollerant.

In fact, it is not only perfectly tolerated to be intollerant of the intollerant. It is demanded.

Therein lies the paradox.

The PC preacher who preaches all grace is actually left with no grace at all. For grace to exist, there must be pardon. And for pardon to exist, there must be sin.

No sin, no pardon.
No pardon, no grace.

So what's a preacher to do?

Ponder that one while you wake and while you walk and while you wander and while you wonder today.

More tomorrow.

My New Godson

I am proud and honored to be the Godfather of Song Yang, the son of Dr. He Qi. My own son, Joseph, and I will be accompanying my godson and his parents to NYC this weekend on the way to Yale, where He Qi begins his artist-in-residence year next week. Song Yang starts Arugsburg College in September.

Here are some photos of Sunday's ceremony.

If you wish to send Song Yang a greeting or blessing, you may reach him at henanjing@hotmail.com.

Stewardship Quotations IX

Here's an idea: Send this list of my favorite stewardship quotations to each family in your church, ask them to choose one, then tell them you'll be inviting them to tell you what it means during worship sometime this summer. Print them in the bulletin for the next weeks or post them on the sanctuary walls. Then create an impromptu interview during the announcements from now until your stewardship campaign kicks in this fall. Each Monday this summer I'll be posting 10 more for your use.

81. Training a child to follow Christ is easy for parents- all they have to do is lead the way.

82. You train a child until age ten. After that, you only influence them.

83.  Train your child in the way you now know you should have gone yourself.

84.  Even the beggar who lives on alms should himself bestow alms. - Babylonian Talmud

85. Serving God is doing good to all, but praying is thought an easier service and therefore more generally chosen. - Benjamin Franklin

86. When you cease to make a contribution you begin to die. - Eleanor Roosevelt

87. Every great achievement is the story of a flaming heart. - Harry S. Truman

88. If you haven’t got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. - Bob Hope

89. A heart enlarged by sympathy has never yet killed anyone.

90. What the church needs today is more calloused hands and fewer calloused hearts.