Month: October 2005

Serving Tables

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

Last night I told my kids what we’d be doing after church today:

“We’ll be going to church again, at Silver City. Then we’ll be helping serve lunch, along with some other folks from our Life Group and another Life Group.”

“Why?” my son Matthew inevitably responded.

Then I had one of those flashbacks to an old Star Trek episode, the one where Captain Kirk has just assigned a panicky junior officer to the boarding party of a ship a gazillion times bigger which has relented on its threat to destroy them. So I answered him the same way:

“The face of the unknown. I think I owe you a look at it.”

After church we went, not knowing what to expect at all.

Silver City Church meets in the fellowship hall of the Gardner United Methodist Church in downtown North Little Rock at 12:30 p.m. each Sunday, thanks to their very good grace of their hosts. It is comprised mostly of black teenage and younger kids, a few black single moms, a handful of young white couples and singles. They sing praise songs – only praise songs, as nearly as I can tell! – which they are still learning from the overhead projections. They clap vigorously during the appropriate songs. They sit quietly and listen when one or two of the young men speak. They share in the Lord’s Supper. Nobody takes a poll to find out who should or shouldn’t. They worship.

And we enjoyed the great privilege of worshipping with them.

Then we served them taco salads, made to order. The servers included a university chancellor, an attorney, a retired bank president, and a technology investment executive and their wives … among others; my kids right there beside them. Matthew dispensed grated cheese and by his side, Laura delivered diced tomatoes, their little latex gloves glistening. (Though they switched places late in the serving.) I set up and bussed tables and poured soft drinks.

Afterward, most went out to the parking lot to toss around a football.

We lingered a bit to admire a beautiful brand new baby girl who was opening her eyes for her first time at church and trying to focus them on the circle of grinning faces – white, black and some in-between – simpering down at her.

The face of the unknown.

She got a good look, and so did we.

On the way home just now, I was able to convey to my kids the compliments of the others in my Life Group and leaders of Silver City Church for their eagerness to serve.

It was an extraordinary blessing.

Wordless

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

It’s not often that I’m caught wordless.

Today I am. I am anticipating – with great joy – beginning my new position at my church Monday morning, where my title may or may not end up including the word “minister.”

I am also saddened to know that two of my favorite blog authors are thinking seriously of dropping out of the formal, paid ministry to pursue other careers and continue ministry as an unpaid reward.

One of them has committed to decide, with his wife, today.

I’m not so bound to the illusion of the church requiring paid ministers, huge edifices and expansive programs that I believe this choice would be a bad thing for either of them. But the causes of their desire to depart careers in ministry – perhaps never to return – does make me sad indeed.

Paul made tents on the side. Luke was evidently a doctor. Maybe Peter left his nets permanently; maybe not. (It sounds like he was back at them in John 21 ….)

To be sure, we need more ministers in other professions. And all kinds of churches are finding it more difficult to find qualified ministers; it’s a trend that continues.

I just don’t know what to think about it, what to write about it – most of all, what to pray about it. Perhaps, like everything else I should pray about, I just need to turn it over to the Lord and trust His wisdom, power and providence.

Neal, Brian: My prayers are for you.

But they are wordless.

New Wineskins is Live at VitaSite

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

I’m very happy to announce that New Wineskins has gone live with the same domain name, www.wineskins.org at the new site host, Alliance Software.

I’m a veteran of a few domain name shifts, and this has been one of the smoothest and most trouble-free I’ve experienced. For a day, the domain name was pointed at the ZOE Group site, but that was a relatively minor inconvenience. Usually, a change of domain name from one server to another takes a few days to propagate across the globe anyway – and sometimes folks will get “404’s” for up to a week.

The past few weeks while I’ve been between jobs, I have really enjoyed getting the new site design in place, ironing out the kinks, transferring the necessary items from the old site, and adding new features.

My favorite new feature is expanded archives, with articles indexed by issue, author and topic (though I’ve only finished about half the topic pages so far). There’s also a daily quote from Christ on the home page called “From the Vine” and right below it, a linked quote from one of New Wineskins’ writing contributors and the article from which it was excerpted. It’s called – you guessed it – “From the Branches.”

At the bottom of each of the articles is a link marked “Comments” and “Trackback,” courtesy of HaloScan, which allow you to leave comments about the article or a trackback ping … and a link to the Forums, where you can also comment and discuss.

Forums are more fully-featured and there will be a home page poll or questionnaire as often as I can generate one. Also listed there are the articles for the issue that are coming.

And, at least until the subscriber database is transferred to the new site, access to everything but the forums is free. (Limited time offer! Void where prohibited!)

I just want to say a word about Alliance Software. I have described their content management system to friends as “simple and elegant,” which are two major points in my book. I could also add “practically idiot-proof,” which means that you can make boo-boos (I often do), but they’re easy to un-do. I’ve worked with a much more complex system – which will remain nameless – and even though it starts with a “v” like “VitaSite,” all resemblance ends there. It was bulky and pokey and error-prone, and that’s just all I’ll say about it.

Todd Austin and the good folks at Alliance have been holding this site in reserve for New Wineskins for the better part of three years now, looking forward to the switchover as much as any of us. They had a dandy design in place for it, but after three years it wasn’t quite what Greg Taylor was looking for, and (using some of its design elements) I hope I’ve exceeded or at least met his hopes for it.

Employed!

/ W. Keith Brenton / 18 Comments

I received a call this afternoon that the new position at my church has been approved by the elder cluster and I’ve accepted it.

Next Monday I will either be the new Communications Specialist or Communications Minister, depending on what the decision is to call it. It’s a benefits/insurance thing. I don’t care either way, frankly; I just want a chance to do some good work.

I’ll be taking care of the weekly bulletin, worship PowerPoints and the sheets handed out that feature the order of worship on Sundays. And I’ll be looking after the church Web site.

One of my goals is to transition the bulletin to an e-mail delivery system for all the folks who want to receive it that way, saving a lot of printing and postal costs. Another is to revive “Family Album,” formerly a quarterly printed piece that featured articles about interesting church members – but as an online, member-access only feature of the Web site.

Thank you to all of you who have had my employment on your prayer stovetop’s back burner all these weeks. I truly appreciate it.

The Original, Original Twilight Zone

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

No, not the television show. The one with Rod Serling as host and producer. Not the anemic remake that was, up until recently anyway, plaguing the airwaves. I’m talking about the original fright writer.

Not Edgar Allen Poe. Not Ambrose Bierce. Not even Mark Twain.

All those guys could spin a great yarn and give a twist with the darning needle at the end, true.

But the guy who started it out was that Storyteller from Nazareth. The one who quit His day job in carpentry to do the Middle East circuit with his repertoire.

I love those stories!

I especially love the twist at the end.

Like the one with the kid who ran away with the dough and ended up feeding pigs. Sure, it was a little surprise when his dad ran out to hug him and throw him a party on his return. But who would have expected the older brother to get all cranky about it, and the father to dress him down about it after he’d worked so hard – for two! – all that time his kid brother was gone?

That’s some storytelling!

Or how about the spooky one where the rich guy and the poor guy die at the same time, and one ends up blessed and the other damned … because of how much he had while he was alive! Man, that one still gives me chills!

Or the one about the King who puts the good ‘uns on the right and the bad ‘uns on the left and neither group can seem to remember the stuff they’ve done – right or wrong – and still they get rewarded or punished to the max. That’s enough to creep you out for eternity, huh? Who saw that end coming?

Or the story about a businessman whose financial planner cheats him – and he commends the guy for going behind his back to find a job with the people he’s helped to cheat! Like they’d trust him! That’s a hoot and a surprise! I’m not even sure I get that one.

Or the one about the businessman who left town with his workers in charge of his stuff, each according to their ability, and then came back unexpectedly and promoted two of them and tossed the timid one out on his boo-hiney like he didn’t even know the guy was timid! Woo-hoo! Keeps me awake at night, sometimes, waiting for that kind of sneaky-thief return!

Or that other one about the businessman whose HR guy got drunk and beat all the other workers until the boss came home and he cut him into pieces and chucked what was left of him into a place with godless foreigners!

Oh, there’s a ton more, each more scary than the previous.

Halloween’s coming up, and there are just a whole body of these scary stories buried in your friendly local New Testament, so dig up a few and get ready for that deadly twist at the end!

HeartWorship: The Way He Spoke

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

I heard Him speak upon the hill
Though He was meek, He spoke God’s will
My heart awoke; I wanted more
For no one spoke like this before
(Matthew 7:28-29)

I saw Him throw some demons out
Told them to go; put them to rout
We common folk saw our Savior
For no one spoke like this before.
(Mark 1:27)

I knelt to share a fragrance sweet
And with my hair I wiped His feet
My guilt lay broken on the floor
For no one spoke like this before.
(Luke 7:36-50)

They sent us out to take Him in
He said no doubt we would lose Him
We took His joke; we took no more
For no one spoke like this before.
(John 7:30-49)

Though I am weak; and my words poor
His words I’d speak; His praise outpour
His Name invoke; His strength implore
For no one spoke like this before.
(I Peter 4:11)

(It’s been a while since I’ve rubber-banded you to a column and forced my Vogon poetry on you, so when I ran across this HeartWorship article that I hadn’t posted, I thought it was time.)

New New Wineskins Site Design

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

Construction is almost finished.

It’s taken a while to put it all together – and it isn’t quite all together yet – but the New Wineskins site will soon be moving to its new location at http://wineskins.alsw.com/ and the domain name “www.wineskins.org” will hopefully be moving there soon.

Until the database of subscribers and their passwords is moved to the new site, access will be free to all visitors, as I understand it.

There are more articles, more book and movie reviews, more features than previously available online … and the archives now go back as far as the September-October 1999 issue.

I’ll be continuing to add artwork and text to the site and building in new features as time permits. So if you hear some sawing and hammering while you’re visiting, that may explain it.

For instance: Not all of the “Writer” listings are in place, nor are the links completed to the “Community,” “Culture” and “You” graphics, but they’re in process.

Begin your sneak peek by clicking on the linked headline above and enjoy the first three new features of the September – December double issue “In Christ Alone.”

And if you run across any knotholes or encounter any unwired outlets, please let me know!

Walk | Don’t Walk

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

It’s more than just the choice that faces me at the street corner.

It’s a choice I have to make every morning. Every day. Every evening. Every opportunity.

God wants me to walk.

With Him.

From the very beginning, it was His intention for His children to walk with Him:

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” – Genesis 3:8-9

It was His intention when He gave the law through Moses:

And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good? – Deuteronomy 10:12-13

It was His intention when He foretold His Son’s arrival through the prophets:

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. – Micah 6:8

It is His intention when I am too faint to walk by myself, and He renews my strength. It is His intention for the lame to walk, and I have done and said some pretty lame things. It is His intention to snatch me up should I try to walk on water and fail, like Peter did. It is His intention for all His children to “… live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

It is His intention to be with me – just as with David – when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

And even when history closes for me, it will still be His intention for me as surely as for the faithful few in Sardis:

They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. – Revelation 3:4b

I won’t have to worry about the togs. He’ll give me those. I won’t have to be concerned about being worthy. He’ll give me that, too. All I have to do is walk.

So what am I sitting around here for?

Time to start walking.

The Extra (s)Mile

/ W. Keith Brenton / 3 Comments

Sometimes you go the extra mile expecting a reward at the end. Sometimes you go expecting to be flogged for lagging behind and not carrying the load you’ve been compelled to carry at all due speed. Sometimes you just go, expecting nothing.

Sometimes you wake up unemployed for the third week in a row and it’s 4:00 in the morning and you’re hurting from kidney stones and you get up because you can’t sleep and work on New Wineskins templates because you’re not happy with them and you take your 12-year-old son to school like usual at 7:30 and finally get some relief from the kidney stones about 2:00 p.m. long enough to take a nap which lasts ten minutes when the daughter of your wife’s beloved secretary calls to re-invite you to her mom’s surprise birthday party which has been moved up a week to tomorrow and you agree on your wife’s behalf to attend with the children at a ritzy-posh downtown luxury hotel because you can’t reach your wife while she’s preparing to lead a women’s retreat later in the day on the topic of forgiveness which will last until noon-thirty tomorrow then you pick up your kids from school an hour later and agree to let your 9-year-old daughter host her boisy-noisterous friend for an all-night sleepover and after you pick up a gift card at ToysRUs and feed all the kids at two different drive-throughs you drop off your son at an all-nighter birthday party at the church building while your wife is at her all-nighter retreat with 150 other women and your daughter hugs you tigher than you have ever been hugged before not knowing that your kidneys hurt like the very tortures of hell and she looks up at you with her huge brown eyes and grins “You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world!”

And you believe her because she’s right and you went the extra mile expecting nothing and you find yourself smiling sleepily-dreamily right back at her.

It doesn’t happen too often.

But sometimes.

My Son in Whom I Am Well Pleased

/ W. Keith Brenton / 5 Comments

In my fellowship, we celebrate the eucharist – we call it the Lord’s Supper or communion – every Sunday.

It’s a time at my church when someone shares some thoughts about the sacrifice of Jesus and a blessing each for the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.

This morning I confess I did not hear much of the thoughts shared by the fellow who presided at the table. That’s a shame in a way, because he always has good thoughts to share.

This morning I couldn’t help missing it.

My 12-year-old son Matthew was sitting next to me, as he always does. For some reason, his hand slipped into mine when that part of the service began. And it just stayed there, clasping mine tightly.

Not quite a man. No longer just a boy. Twelve years old. The age that boys sometimes stay behind in God’s house a while after mother and father leave.

All I could think of during this tiny shadow of a Paschal meal was how hard it would be to see others mock and spit upon my not-so-little boy. How difficult it would be not to obliterate them if they began to torture him. How impossible it would be to hold me back if they tried to kill him.

My boy isn’t perfect. He has anger issues. He torments his little sister. He’s having trouble in life sciences and failing pre-algebra.

But he’s my son. And while he does not always do or say what would please me, I am always well-pleased with him.

It won’t be long until he’ll be a teenager. He will choose the directions his life will take, and whether they include following the Jesus that I’ve told him about. He’ll be too cool to sit with me in church. He’ll be too big to hold my hand during the Supper.

While those moments last, they must be cherished.

They are communion, too.