The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Resolution 2008-2058

SInce my heart stopped on June 26, I've had a lot of time to think.

I've made it six months since my little experience, and I've learned a couple things since then.

Among them is my New Year's Resolution. I intend to do my best to:

1. Eat and exercise like I'm going to live 50 more years
2. Work like I've got 5 years left
3. Love as if I've got a day left

Whether I live a day or half a century, I figure it'll be worth it.

Mega, Giga, Terra

Bill Easum has a rather intriguing article called "Mega, Giga, and Terra Churches: And Their Implications" on his website today. Among other things he predicts:

- Like the Walmart that gets torn down to be replaced by a Super Walmart, many of the mega churches will be downsized in the next 25 years and replaced by Giga and Terra Churches (worshiping 50,000 - 100,000).

- Church plants need to reserve as much space with as much parking and as many entrances/exits as possible

- Most of the smaller churches, in the words of my friend Monty, will "make like Mohandas and be Gandhi" (There is no generation interested in taking their handoffs)

- The number of clergy in established denominations will exceed the number of churches (End of a clergy shortage...yipee. Only because all of the little churches are gone)

- The Emergent Church won't emerge all that much (i.e. won't be very big) but it will occupy a significant niche

- Churches over 10,000 in worship will become more numerous and influential than all of the denominations rolled into one

-The huge "Terra" churches will emerge so powerful that all churches in the US will eventually start being taxed

- Denominational officials in the surviving established churches will undergo a spiritual revival (out of necessity) and Jesus will once again become the driving force of their ministries... allowing them to come out of cultural irrelevance and start to thrive again... on the edge.

Bill also suggests that pastors in their 20-40s in established denominations have some serious choices to make. "The odds are your denomination will cease to exist as you know it today while you're a pastor..."

Bill ends by saying we're all in for a volatile ride.

Now, lest you read the whole article and start to get disillusioned, just remember the Melheimian Maxim for the waning days of 2007:

"It's good to be disillusioned. One should "dis" one's "illusions" on a regular basis."

-

Dad's Car

Dad totaled his car. He's 87, and in a kind but cruel way, he's okay but won't be driving any more.

A car means freedom. Independence. Power. Choice.

We moved him into assisted living in September, and didn't want to take his car yet. Losing a wife and a house seemed more than enough. We thought we'd wait a year to ask him kindly to protect himself - and the rest of the world - by getting rid of the auto.

I guess we won't have to take it from him.

He sighs.

I sigh, too.

Richus Abscoundicus

Yeah, I'm still alive.

Yeah, I went into radio silence for three months.

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out who I should be and where I should be since I'm still alive.

I'm working on my cartoons, finishing the Book of Acts for Bible Song, trying to figure out if and when to get into film, working on a partnership with the Lutherans in Australia, and about to translate everything I've learned about the human brain in the last few years into a design for an arts-based preschool.

I'm praying for my sister with cancer, trying to keep my dad happy in his new assisted living space, hiring my college freshman daughter to color my cartoons, leading my 9h grade son in his confirmation small group as a guide, starting to think about working for my non-profit Faith Inkubators Foundation on a more regular basis, helping He Qi (www.heqigallery.com) return from Oxford, and trying to maintain my diet and exercizse program.

Since my heart stopped on June 26 I've gone from 188 to 165 in weight, and 241 to 90 in cholesterol. I've also declined all but a few speaking invitations, locked myself away at my cabin for weeks at at time with no internet connections (Rich "Lud" Melheim), and tried to talk the most talented woman I know into quitting her big, high-powered job and run things for me.

I will not be blogging on a daily basis anymore, but hope to only write occasionally, and only write when I have something to say that is actually worth reading.