I’m not making this up! Really! There is such a thing as parabolic harmonious oscillation and I’d like to see more of it in the church! Can you figure it out? It’s a fancy physicist’s term for the movement of a swing. Leonard Sweet, nationally acclaimed author and professor, introduced this to the church in a workshop several years ago. Parabolic Harmonious Oscillation (even more fun to say aloud than read) is simply doing two things at the same time—leaning back and kicking forward. Try this sometime! You can’t make a swing move from a dead stop unless you lean back AND kick forward. (more…)

There is such a thing as critical mass - the point when we have enough people that we can function well and attract more people.  A lot of churches do not grow due to their inability to reach critical mass.  Many new church projects are encouraged to postpone launching a weekly worship service until they have collected enough people in their orbit that they will have a minimum number of people - a number usually chosen on the basis of our desire for critical mass. (more…)

The word “coach” immediately conjures up negative memories for me. I was a pencil thin 6’5” gawky teenager with two left feet when I decided to join the high school basketball team. The coach was, at first, thrilled with the prospects of having another towering dude on his team. His enthusiasm, however, gave way to disappointment when he watched me in action. I moved like a spider with seven broken legs. Painful! My “coach” let out a string of obscenities, threw the ball at my head, and told me to get my act together. I managed to dodge the ball hurling at my head but I could not dodge the humiliation I felt. I left the court and never went back. I don’t care much for basketball even to this day. (more…)

I was twelve years old and glued to our television set as grainy images were beamed onto the screen of humanity’s first step onto the surface of the moon. It was 1969 and the crew of Apollo 11, Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, had me pinned to the edge of my seat. I was hooked! From that moment on I wanted to be an astronaut. As a kid I built model rockets (remember Estes?) and launched them high into the air. I infected my two sons with this “space bug.” Every now and then we’ll dust off the stuff and send another rocket skyward. Living in central Florida has afforded me many opportunities to watch the space shuttle leave and return to earth. There is nothing like being just a few miles away from the launch pad—the roar of liftoff. Goose bumps just like when I was twelve. (more…)