It wasn’t Holiday Inn Express

A bizarre turn of events landed me in jail this evening. Yes. Really. For several hours.

I was taking a group of people to church tonight when we pulled away from a traffic light. I felt something bump or push the back of my truck, but it was not anything strong like another car hitting me. I pulled away and looked back in my mirror. To my horror there was a person lying in the road. I made the corner and came back around to the place where all the excitement was.

I cannot give a detailed account of what really happened because I did not see anything. The 16 year old boy is stable and has some injuries, but not life threatening. Apparently he was hit by the taxi beside me and knocked into me.

It took over an hour to get everything to a point where myself and the other driver got hauled off to jail. We waited for a while and were finally taken to the doctor so that we could have our breath and urine tests. I have never had a breath test before. No problem. The urine test was not so easy. I was not concerned about the results, but having the female nurse stand there and watch me give the sample gave me a bit of stage fright. I was instructed to return to the holding cell and drink water until I was ready. Needless to say, I am well hydrated. The second go around I had a male nurse.

Me and the other driver were finally released about 7 hours after it all started. We were released with no traffic violations. But there is still a probability of a lawsuit from the family. At least I get to sleep in my own hammock for the rest of tonight before I have to face that. Believe me, the holding cell in a Mexican jail is not a Holiday Inn Express!

Rush the blogs!

I just learned about a new blogging thingy that should increase the number of visitors to the blog. While this may not mean much to the readers, it means a lot to me. I write because I want people to read what I am writing. Even if it is not too focused.

The widget in the left sidebar is from Blog Rush. It is a service that shares interesting blog links that should be relevant to the things I write. If you are a blogger, you can get this widget for your blog too.

Here is how it works and should help traffic. You come to my blog and see the other blogs in my genre (personal ramblings, or something like that) and they, in turn are showing my blog postings on their site. This is based on “credits.” Each time my blog loads in someone’s browser I get a credit and earn the right to display a link on Blog Rush.

You decide you want this for your site. You click the link at the bottom of the widget to sign up at Blog Rush. When you install it on your site and start using it, you get credit, AND I get credit. This goes down 10 levels. The more referrals I get, the more potential traffic I will have.

There is no money involved, so it is not going to make me any more moola. What it will do though is potentially drive more readers to the site. That is always a good thing.

Check out Blog Rush and see if it might work for you. If it does, sign up and get started. Make sure you view the video at the site. It makes it pretty clear how it all works.

Observations

I will try to do this without being critical, I just want to point out how that we need to think about the reason we do things. The point I will be making is totally centered on a church service I attended yesterday, but the principles I point out and conclusions I draw should be helpful to anyone in any type of leadership role.

Last night our family visited a church that I had been to once before. But when I was there before it was a special service and the pastor did not preach. Firstly, I must praise the church in that it was refreshing and comfortable to be in a church that is similar to churches I grew up in. The focus of the pastor was very much in line with my heart and ministry.

One of the frustrations we have had in churches here is that their music has one of two problems, or most of the time both. The first has to do with the volume. Mexicans must love having their ear drums hurt after listening to music. I cannot stand the sheer volume at which music is played here. The second problem is the style of music that is sung in churches. I am very conservative with my music, but I don’t necessarily have a problem with newer songs. Where my problem comes is that so many songs are shallow and say nothing. They really fulfill no purpose other than making the listener feel good for having been there. When you sing the same 16 words for 4 minutes, there is something non-profound in that.

Put the two problems of pointless music with ear splitting volume and you get an idea of what many churches that we have visited are using for their services.

On the other extreme, which you see in the US often, is music that is lifeless. There is no reason that you cannot sing a good, meaningful song in an upbeat, joyful manner.

The church we were in last night struck a great balance in its music. They sang hymns with meaning. They sang them at a tempo that kept you awake. They did not destroy our hearing with the volume of the music. I could actually hear my own voice when I sang.

But, when it came to the preaching the volume was amped up quite a bit. The pastor had to have the microphone right in his mouth. He often overdrove the mic element by shouting into it. The church building is approximately 14′ X 25′ and we were about 50 people. The speakers were stacked in 2 columns of 2 speakers totaling about 8′ high per column. I have no idea how much power you could run through them, but they were loud.

My ears physically hurt much of the time during the preaching. I even resorted to sticking my fingers in my ears to get a bit of relief. I know people had to have seen me, but I almost did not care. We were sitting on the 3rd row and it would have been hard to miss me doing this.

What is the thinking behind having to yell so loudly during the preaching? Does a preacher think that his authority comes from screaming? Is it so that the neighbors will hear the preaching too?

If it is to add authority to the preaching, then the pastor has a mis-understanding of where his authority comes from. People who follow you and like your preaching because it sounds authoritative when you are screaming will eventually mature and realize that they don’t want to be yelled at every time they want to learn something from the Bible.

I am all for passionate preaching, but how can you tell passion from anger if you have the volume turned up so loud that it sounds the same when you are screaming as when you are chatting?

If the purpose is so that people in the neighborhood can hear God’s Word, I am all for that. But why not install speakers outside the building which will project better to those outside the church?

Remember, this is a building about 14′ wide and 25′ long. I will grant that there are fans which make a good deal of noise in the building. But really, who cannot make themselves heard in a room that small? Especially if your style of preaching is yelling at the top of your lungs anyway.

I was sitting on the 3rd row and could not have been more than 10′ from the pastor. The speakers were so loud that I could not even hear his natural voice. I only heard his voice amplified through the speakers.

I value my hearing and the hearing of my children too much to put them through that week after week.

The other issue is something that the pastor said. It bothered me on two levels.

First he was using the phrase “are you following me?”, in Spanish of course (¿me estás siguiendo?). I don’t know how true this is, but I was told in language school that to ask a question like that can be considered offensive. You, as the speaker are placing the burden of responsibility on the listener to follow or not. In Spanish, we were told that the speaker should take the responsibility to make himself clear and therefore should say something like “am I explaining myself clearly?”

While I am sure that is not a hard and fast rule, what the pastor was saying (knowing more background about him) was picked up from an American missionary. The fact that the pastor is simply repeating what he has heard without giving much thought to the accuracy of the words is the main thing that bothered me.

The second thing about this phrase is that he used it literally every 60 seconds. I did not start counting until he had been preaching for 30 minutes, but the final 20 minutes he said “¿Me estás siguiendo?” 21 times. In other words, he was just saying it because it is a catch phrase that he has heard someone else repeat over and over.

I could talk about how that he said he was “almost finished” several times in the last 20 minutes of his sermon. Or about how he referred to “my pastor” when making decisions on how to do things (you should do things because it is the right way to do it, not just because someone you respect does it that way.) Or I could mention how that he said “just one more verse and we will be done” at least 3 times before he finished (each time making himself a liar.)

But, none of that bothered me as much as his mis-use of his own language to conform to the way another man says things or to the thinking that volume somehow makes your preaching more powerful.

Think!

There should be a reason you do the things you do. You should question yourself to make sure that you are leading the people under you in the right way. No one needs to see this as self-doubt. They should see you as a strong leader in your field and as someone who has authority. However, realize that your authority is strengthened when you do things for a right and logical reason.

Running review

I had a fun run this morning which capped off a pretty good running week. Monday was not so great, but after that, the rest of the week worked according to plan.

Wednesday I just had a 2.5 mile tempo run. I was about 10 seconds faster than my goal pace. Thursday was a 4 mile recovery run. I ran it too fast–about 1.5 minutes per mile too fast. I don’t feel like I suffered for it.

Today I had a 9 mile long run. For me, anything 8 miles and over is a great long run. Up to that point, it is just a run (some people need 16+ miles to call it a long run). I only have an 8 mile course well marked out. Anything longer than that I just guess at and hope I get close to my distance. Today I wanted to go down a certain street so that I could tack on the extra distance I needed. I ended up turning 1 block too late and added 1.28 miles to my 8 mile course instead of just 1 mile. No biggie.

Long runs are supposed to be between 10:31 and 11:31 per mile. I ran it in 10:43. Right on target.

I ate my first Clif Bar today. It is one I have had in the cupboard for over 2 years. I am not sure what it was like originally, but it had the consistency of moist chalk today. I started eating it at mile 5 and it took me 3 miles to get it down. Good thing I had plenty of drink with me.

I felt pretty good after the run and it probably has to do with the Clif Bar. However, I was ready for my afternoon nap about 3 hours early today.

It was 81 degrees as I was out running this morning. I got started about 1 hour late.