The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Money for Talented Worship Artists

Pass this word on to college kids if they are home for the holidays and invite them back on Valentines day to share what they create with your folks.

We've got $10K, ten ipods and ten crystal penguins awaiting your kids if they share their talents in worship within the next six weeks and apply. With our little National Youth Worship Arts Awards we’d like to launch a Renaissance in worship arts and eventually remake the church as the forum where young people are always glorifying God, enlivening worship, and witnessing to the creative power of the One who gave them the gifts in the first place.

We’d like to do this for 10 kids this year, and grow it to 25 awards in two categories eventually. I’ve got to raise a bunch of money before that, but I think there’s great potential. My goal is to give $100K a year, and change the fact of worship into an activist, fresh, energetic, powerful, involving, engaging place for all God’s people.

Sound fun?

Anyway, the contest runs until February 15, when all entries are supposed to be to us. We’ll do the judging for two weeks (4 judges per category), and make our announcement of winners at a live pod cast on April 1 at 7 pm central.

If you want to help publicize, feel free to cut and paste any of the information on the site, and download the forms, distribute them in any way you wish to your network, and put links on your site.

Also, if you or any artists/musicians/dancers/videographers you know might like to consider acting as a judge, I’m still looking for about 8 more. No items or atoms will be sent through the mail. Everything will be judged online. You’d simple give a 1 to 10 to each of the pieces you are judging, then we’d add them up here and announce the winners.

By next year we hope to have some kind of online judging where the kids could vote for the top ten, then our adult judges would pick the winners from these finalists… or vice versa. I haven't exactly figured it all out yet.

It’s a great time to be alive and be a servant.

 

New Years Resolutions: Dreaming Out Loud

I dare you to dream. Then I dare you to dream out loud in front of people who can hold you to those dreams. It will force you into a creative mode of always looking, always searching, always connecting, always growing.

Speaking your dreams outloud is the most difficult, the most dangerous, and the most powerful step you can take toward achieving them.

With this little thesis in mind, I would like to announce a decade of dreams, and would like to invite you into the role of a friend who holds my feet to the fire to carve them out of the stone.

I am not making a New Year's resolution.

I am making a ten year resolution.

My Next Ten Years

My next ten years will include film, bringing the Gospel to China with He Qi’s art and American rock and roll, working to make every Christian home in the country into an “every night in every home” worship center, and possibly helping create an online world seminary.

There.

It's done.

I'm committed.

I'm stuck.

I've got to start starting now.

If I don't, feel free to ridicule, condemn, belittle, insult, berate, and destroy my reputation. I will be happy to do the same to yours if you will do the following:

1. Ask yourself: What will my next ten years look like? What would I dare to dream and try to accomplish if the Good Lord gives me life and breath and vision for 10 more years of life?
2. Send me your dreaming out loud and I'll blog them.

If you put your dreams in writing, and share them with someone, you are one giant step closer to achieving them. But before you send me anything, do keep in mind Bryan Sirchio's phrase:

"Dream God's Dream" as you put your together.

Someone said, "to begin is the most difficult part."

I don't think so. I think "to announce the beginning is the most difficult part."

And from there on... it gets even harder.

And better.

PS - Hello to Barry and Tricia, my new friends at the Doxology Institute. Hop on over and give it a look, then send them a comment if you like what you see. They may be helping us spread the word about our new National Youth Worship Arts Awards.

Year in Photos

Here's a wrap-up of 2005 for the Melheim family: Jan - Puerto Rico; Feb - Kat BB; Mar - Ski Colorado; April - Joseph the Piract; May - Rich's Mountain High; June - Arlyce the Tapper; July - Home to MN Remodling; Aug - Girls in Quebec; Sept - Kat Tennis; Oct - Joseph the Goalie; Nov - Birthdays; Dec 28th - Our 27th Anniversary Today! Happy New Year to you all and the blessings of peace in 2006. What will come next? Just wait! - Rich & Family

He Qi WCCO NEws Clip

Here's a clip on He Qi and me talking friendship, art, and the peace of the Gospel message from WCCO TV last night.

WCCO CLIP

He Qi & Me on WCCO at 10pm

We just taped a segment for the local CBS station. If you're in the five state area, check out WCCO TV tonight at 10 for a piece on He Qi's Christmas Card and Dr. He Qi and FINK.

In other news, here's a nice note from Warren Bird at Leadership Network. I met Warren at the Easum/Bandy gig in Texas a couple weeks ago and he was very encouraging.

RICH, I really enjoyed our time together in Corpus Christi. God's hand is wonderfully on your life, heart and ministry. I'm excited about all he'll do through you. Just yesterday I read of a publisher acquiring the "Mitford" titles and I thought -- "and I know who's going to help you by making a movie of the Jan Karon world." Rich, you asked for advice.

Here's my suggestion:

1. Develop other "Rich's". Help your staff become reproducers.
2. Take to heart a book like Robert Coleman's Master Plan of Evangelism/Discipleship.
3. Set a goal to spend 25% of each week building others to do what you do, and hearts to beat like yours beats, and mentor them at each step.

Under that umbrella, your four goals we discussed for your next 10 years sound outstanding.

Merry Christmas, my friend.

Spilled Pills, Kids, and Stingy Stewards

I sat at the same computer from 6:23 to 9:49 yesterday.

That's AM to PM with three trips to the fridge for Coke and two trips to the bathroom.

Yeah, making stellar updates take time. It will be worth it, but I was in need of a break.

So after such a long day, what did I do? I went home to eat and sleep.

Pulling a couple asprin out of the bottle, I managed to empty the entire 300 tablets on our remodeling kitchen floor. Tiny pills. Annoying pills. Pills that would stop a headache were now about to give me one.

My first thought was "hit undo!"

But I couldn't. Some things can't be undone.

My second thought was "ignore them. go to bed. they will be gone in the morning."

But some mistakes don't disappear like so many silverfish in the bathroom tub when you flick on the light in the morning.

I had three options.

A. Ignore them.

B. Get a broom, sweep them up and throw them away, or

C. If you're a stingey Norwegian steward with a deep sense of guilt at wasting the slightest crumb because there are children starving somewhere in the world - or in this case in need of an asprin - you get down on your hands and knees and pick them up one at a time.

Not by the handfulls. They are too small. One at a time.

So, what does this have to do with youth and family ministry you might ask?

I'm glad you asked.

Our kids are out of the bottle. They're on the floor. They could be ignored. They could be walked on and crushed to powder. They could merely be  swept up and thrown away.

Or we could find people - stingy stewards of God's grace who don't want a single one to be left behind - and get down on our hands and knees and pick them up. Gather them into the bottle. Keep them safe and together and in a good place.

Even if we're tired. Pick 'em up.

Even if we've had a long day at work. Pick 'em up.

Even if we don't feel like it. Pick 'em up.

We pick them up. That's what Christians do.

We pick them up. Lovingly. Carefully. One at a time.

That's what love is.

That's what God does.

That's your calling.

And it's also your call.

A Comment from Angie on a Comment from Brian on a Comment from Rich

...a "post-congregational" form of Christian life and community, and your family based stuff could be relevant to that.  The challenge, I think, will be to find a way to talk about family that doesn't sound like the religious right.

Amen.

 

The brief SS overview I presented to the Board of CE the other night sparked a great discussion in that group (12 members) about how SS will give parents, families, friends, aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc. tools that have been bred out of the daily family practices in the past 2-3 generations. What once was a natural conversation and habit (prayer, discussions about God, sharing daily life) has sadly become the church's job because we (parents) have outsourced our responsibility. We hire people to clean our houses, mow our lawns, even shop for groceries...and we hire the church (is that what stewardship is?) to do our religion.

 

Stepping Stones can and will change all of that. I really, truly believe that to be a true statement. For churches who will invest the time and energy and resources to train leaders to reach out and give families permission to trust that they do have the ability to talk to God and each other, those churches will grow and thrive in ways they can't even imagine. Deeper. Stronger. Intentional relationships.

 

The tricky part will be getting the mainline churches to trust that this isn't some fundamental, right-wing, conservative program as it is the fundamental, right-wing, conservative churches who are touting the biggest and best (whatever that means) family ministry programs. Getting the mainline churches to listen will be no small task. Wording and language is very important--which is why I rewrite some of the SS and H2H stuff to make it smell more like the UCC--it really matters.

 

A comment from a dad with five kids at Tuesday night's meeting/presentation: "I love Plymouth and it made me sad to think that I might have to look somewhere else to find something like this for our family. I've wanted this for so long--something that will not only strengthen our family but I believe it will bring back our extended family as well. I want my parents to take these classes and my brothers and sisters, too."

 

If Plymouth doesn't make budget/receive enough pledges to afford all of the changes we're talking about here (included the SS program), this guy is going to go on a mission to personally raise the money we need.

 

OK--preaching to the choir and I haven't even had my morning coffee yet. I just wanted to say: thank God for Brian McLaren and thank God for you and your dreams. 

 

Love ya. Have a great Saturday.

 

Ang

Brian McLaren Note

This in from a new friend I met at Easum's Mustang Island retreat a couple weeks ago.

Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Orthodoxy and The Last World and the World After That describes himself as a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN. 

Rich - good to meet you, brother.  Sometimes I think that the mainline has a disease that it is almost getting over, and that evangelicalism  is just catching the disease ... so those who jump from mainline into more fundamentalist directions will find themselves stuck in disease longer than they would otherwise have been.  But that's just my opinion - and I'm wrong about a lot of things!

I'm not sure if you've read George Barna's new book.  He's speaking about a "post-congregational" form of Christian life and community, and your family based stuff could be relevant to that.  The challenge, I think, will be to find a way to talk about family that doesn't sound like the religious right.

Keep up the good work!  HTH - brian

Welcome Anna Louise

A little fresh smile for today:

Annabelle Louise Speers, an early Christmas present, to a couple of good friends in our Mexico missions 15 years ago, decided to come a week before her scheduled date (two weeks before her due date).  She was delivered by c-section and all went  very well, weighing in at 7 lbs.  5 oz. and measured 19 inches.

Daddy Steve helped us start the Mexico Missions to Yucatan 15 years ago when we first arrived in Stillwater and headed it as a senior in high school. Hurricanes Hugo and Gilbert had ravaged the coast and destroyed most of the fishing villages there. Our church has roofed 15-20 houses a year ever since.

Arlyce and Kathryn, my two "little" girls, will be going back to that same area to roof houses with 70 kids from my church during spring break. Thanks, Steve, for the photo, and for the mission that continues to bless.

Your Cheatin' High

Rich,

My 13 year old son is the house comedian.  His low one evening was getting caught unprepared for a pop quiz at school.  When I asked about his high – with perfect timing and natural flow he said – the guy next to him was prepared.

Rex Miller (The Millennium Matrix Guy)