Reading Time: 3 minutes

I was at a friend’s church yesterday, Jason Neville – Praise Chapel , when I saw this guy worshipping God with his hands raised. Then I saw his watch on his left wrist. Then I saw his watch face on his watch on his left wrist, with his hands raised, worshipping God. I know, i’m not supposed to be distracted by such things like a watch, but I was – so judge me.

This guy’s digital watch had some kind of branding on it. I was several feet away, but I could see it was a letter, like an “F” or something. That’s when it hit me, “wow, I never thought about a branded watch face before.” I wonder if I can do that on my Apple Watch. It turns out, you can!

First I needed an app to design a font. A logo will work, but the watch face is kinda small, so a single letter or similar is better. Yes, you can do color, but that just makes it harder to see from a distance. I needed a simple app that let you control font style, color and background. I already had it and had used it before. It’s called Typorama.

 

First I used the app’s Watch Face template.

Just tap on the letters to change them in the app. Ignore the warning and click continue anyway – they don’t know what your creative jam is.

Then I choose a letter, mine’s a “g” because I like g’s – I have two of them 🙂

You’ll need to experiment with the app yourself to get the results you’d like. Just a hint, if you want to add the time and date and other info below your branded watch face, you’ll want the letter to ride high on the screen.

I recommend a white letter on black background, but feel free to do whatever.

Save it to your photos, I created a watch face album for organization purposes.

Once that’s done you open your watch app on your iPhone.

And go to Photos at the end of your face selections.

Click ‘custom’

Then click ‘add photo’ at the bottom

Select the photo of your brand (letter or logo) and click done.

Scroll down to add things to your watch face.

And click ‘save as your current watch face’ if your happy with it.

That’s it. You’ve branded your Apple Watch face.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

That’s right! It felt like LOVETOUR 2018.

Three months ago Robin and I experienced something that has never happened to us before – I was terminated from a ministry transition plan (succession plan). Short story, the church leadership did not want to move forward with me. I mean, honestly, there have been a few times I could have, should have been fired from ministry before, mainly because I was being a turd. This was different. I wrote a blog post about What Happens When You Fail? a couple days after our last Sunday at the church.

I would love to tell you that the experience was humbling, but it felt more like humiliating. We experienced pain at levels of betrayal that we had not experienced before. I know you’re thinking, “haven’t you been in ministry awhile, this couldn’t have been your first heartbreak?” Actually, yes, this is our first major blow to our core. Go figure! I mean, Robin was raised in church, and as a Pastor’s kid she has seen a lot of crazy stuff. I wasn’t brought up in a Christian home, so yeah, I thought Churches were more… hmmm, morally responsible, and that sort of thing. However, I’ve seen plenty of situations where power and immaturity in the church has made for combustible confrontations. Thank God I never let that reflect on my love for Jesus or His love for me. Idiots happen. Bullies happen – #dealwithit.

After a few days of grieving, spinning and feeling like zombies, I started getting phone calls, emails and texts from friends. They would say, “hey, can we get together?” I would say, “sure, I’ve got some time on my hands, why not?” The first few friend meet-ups really got a earful of grief, just plain ol’ “this ain’t pretty” kinda stuff. There were a lot of tears – which is super embarrassing to have a couple of guys in a restaurant bawling, “could you please bring some more napkins,” I would say to the server. Then one by one our amazing, kind friends would do what friends do – just listened and loved on me. One friend said, “I just wanted to look you in the eyes and make sure you were okay,” (cue more tears). Come on! How much more biblical can you get than that?

It didn’t stop with just a few meals. For a solid two months I got texts, emails, phone calls and a calendar full of local friends for meals. It has been very overwhelming to receive that level of love! For forty years we’ve been on the giving end of love NOT the receiving end – not to this extreme. We have people praying for us constantly. I think that’s the only thing that has sustained us. It’s folks reminding us that they are praying. I told God, “Hey, a lot of our friends are watching out for us, you gotta come through on this one.”

#LoveTour2018

So for those of you who want to know how we are doing, we are still believing forward and restlessly leaning on the grace of God.

So to wrap up the lovetour, let me just tell you, from Robin and myself, THANK YOU for your friendship, love, kind words and prayer. You are the best! You have shown us the meaning of Sympathize with One Another.

 

Reading Time: 3 minutes

We think we live in tumultuous times.

If we are truly listening to the signs in our culture, politics, education, healthcare and even religion, its all there in the full inglorious-cacophony of our own humanity – we’ve lost our minds.

Our conversations have been reduced to name-calling and sound-bitten tweets hoping to go viral (like a disease). It feels dire and divisive even within our specific tribes.

However, are things really that bad?

I’ve been reading an amazing book, Introduction to The History of Christianity (3rd Edition, edited by Tim Dowley) and came across SEVERAL hundred chunks of history, spanning the two thousand years since its beginning, where the Church flourished in the absolute chaotic environments of political and cultural upheaval. I mean absolutely horrible periods of persecution, death and societal ostracizing.

I’m not trying to say that we are NOT living in difficult times or that we are NOT living in the “end times” (although the Church has had more “rapture alerts” than Trump’s had lawsuits), its just that I hear people say, “It can’t get any worse.” Really? Just a quick glance at the past tells me, “oh, it HAS been worse – much worse!” Maybe it’s just that I feel so ill-prepared to face the challenges ahead and so helpless in finding handles of truth. Shouldn’t I be content to simply label these times as INSANE? And I mean that in the most non-PC, insensitive way – WE ARE CRAZY. I know you’re fighting the urge to say, “I’m not crazy… it’s THEM – THEY’RE crazy.” Sure, but who’s “they or them?”

Modern Day Peace Meets

I just read this morning that there was a Congress of Christian Leaders (CCL) to “Bridge the Divide in Evangelicalism,” like a good ol’ modern-day Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. It seems that word “divisive” is synonymous with Christian. We need a new apostle Peter (they called him the bridge-man between Paul & James) to come in to pray some sense into the saints or a neo-Paul to stop and drop some Ananias and Sapphira raca on folks.

Cool Church History Stuff

I came across a refreshing letter written during the second century (that’s like in the 200 A.D. range) that tries to defend Christianity to a possible official (secular or saint). The letter is so simple and elegant in its description of what is supposed to “set us apart.”

Here is chapter five of An Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus. 

“Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

I’m still exploring the different ways the first and second century Church dealt with strange beliefs, cultic practices and powerfully charismatic leaders who were off their Biblical rocker. You already know the main ways, excommunication, branded a heretic and sometimes even put to death. It was pretty messy.  If I find anything interesting in Church history (which is ALL OF IT), I’ll let you know. So, if I get in some cultural knock-down-drag-out-fight over something, I’m going to remember to do this, “A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult.”