Updates and Some Thoughts

Updates first.

1) Otter Creek has a new sermon podcast site at http://ottercreek.podomatic.com We've already uploaded the sermons from the current series (Family Matters) and have uploaded two of the Thank God It's Wednesday summer series (Nate Larkin from last week and XXXChurch from the first week of July). We plan to get Tim's previous series, How To Live, up as quickly as possible. As with all Podomatic sites, you can subscribe through iTunes, add yourself to the mailing list for new posts, and even leave comments on the site for particular sermons or talks.

2) Two weeks ago, in the Kingdom of God class, I talked about the Parable of the Two Sons. I mentioned that I was basically stealing a lot of my thoughts from a Randy Harris talk that he gave at Otter Creek last summer. I emailed him for permission to post it and he assented. So I've posted it here. Listen to it. Seriously. It is a call to be church, to be community, that many of us in our "church as club" mindset need to hear.

Other Thoughts:

1) The Bellevue Community Church thing is getting interesting and kind of sad to watch from afar. There is a blog called BCC is Broken where you can follow some of the developments as they happen. Like all blogs, this one seems to have a particular view.

Watching all of this has made me think about church organization and the ownership people feel like they have in a church. Again, I could make comments on the leadership of a community of faith being focused on one person and wondering about only having six elders for a church that had anywhere from 2,500-4,000 people attending. I would have thought more would be needed to effectively shepherd a flock that size.

The bigger curiosity for me is how Otter Creek would have reacted to a similar situation. Would it have been as big a deal? Would people have reacted as strongly to the elders getting up one morning and saying that Tim was no longer the preacher or Brandon was no longer the worship minister? Would it have made the news? Is the summer just a slow news time so BCC is getting a lot of play? I don't know, but while I fervently pray for the body of Christ at BCC, I fervently pray that OC never has to experience something like this.

2) Mel Gibson. Oh boy. Ok, first off, there's always the question of drink making you say things you really believe or say things you don't really believe and you say things because you're drunk. I've not been drunk so I can't speak from personal experience, but I've often wondered if some people drink because they want to have an excuse for acting in a certain way (see Break, Spring ["I really did that? Wow, I must have been really drunk!"]).

For Gibson, I think the guy is really fighting some deep-seated stuff. His father is obviously anti-Semitic and believes that the Holocaust was exaggerated. He doesn't want to dishonor his father, but not answering questions directly about his father's beliefs puts him in a bad place, especially a place where if he doesn't directly deny him, people will automatically think he shares them.

And now, of course, the drunken tirade. I think that speaks for itself. What speaks in his favor is the extensive apology that he's issued, where he also asks for help from the Jewish community. The Anti-Defamation League has accepted the apology and said that it will work with Gibson after he completes rehab.

There are of course those cynics who refuse to believe that the apology is sincere, or more likely, character spin control. And that's fine, but I would rather give benefit of the doubt and hope that what Gibson has said is what he truly feels and not only can he rehabilitate from the alcohol, but get past some of the mindsets he might have been passed from others.

I think any of us in a similar situation would want that same benefit.