More Than Today

I noticed that a friend of mine had his Facebook account hacked recently. It made me start thinking about the things that might be put as my status posts that if you knew me and you saw them there, you would know my account had been hacked. What would they be for you? What things if someone saw them with your name on them, your friends would just know they weren't from you and know that your account was hacked? I am also wondering if the same thing could be associated with our credit cards? The companies will often contact you if you have purchased something somewhere that is out of context for you. Before we traveled to Tanzania this summer we contacted the banks and credit card companies to tell them so that they would not shut us down when purchases were showing up there. What purchases would be out of character for me that a friend would know I hadn't made. And a scarier thought? What statuses are there and what purchases do I make that are out of character with my tr...

For those of us who struggle with "marketing" the church in order to reach more people for Jesus, these words may prove helpful...or at least food for thought. They come from a book I am reading that is made up of prayers and then after the prayers the author reflects on the topic of the prayer. One of the most helpful parts of this for me is not just about marketing, but about what the kingdom of God was meant to be even before Jesus came and what it had become. Makes me wonder what the kingdom has become in our hands today. "No one has ever provided a better example of marketing than Jesus did. He inherited a situation in which his movement, the kingdom of God on earth, had been taken over by small-minded legalists who had reduced its majestic principles to a rigid set of codified behaviors. Its inspiring orientation toward the future had become a stultifying preoccupation with history and tradition. Its singular focus on right relationships with people and with God...

Wondering today, just wondering not worrying. I will still be able to buy food, gas, clothes, pay the mortgage payment, give money to the church and others. I may still face health or job issues along the way as does happen in life. Friends will laugh at my jokes, or wish I would get a sense of humor. Strangers will pass me by and not even see me, as I them too many times. Others will not have the same opportunities as I do because of their own choices or many of them because of no fault of their own but where they were born and the family they were born into. Sharing love with others will be just as difficult as ever but still necessary regardless of someone's life experiences, passions, or personality.  The world has not ended. My failures are still the ones to be confessed instead of looking to blame someone else. My selfishness still keeps someone else from eating today or having a place to live. My smile can still light upon an unsuspecting person and brighten t...

Myself (left), my sister Rosalyn, and my brother David in 1957. Sometimes throughout my life when I have been asked why I continue doing Pastor/ministry jobs for a living I have said, "It's who I am." While reading this morning I was reminded that is not true. Being a Pastor is not "who I am." Who I am is a child of God. Me, Rich Thornton, a child of God. You too, whatever you do for a living, whatever your role in or out of your family, and every other task you take on in life, who you are is a child of God.

It was Tuesday morning, June 8, 2010.  I got up to see my daughter Emily before she headed off to school for her next to the last day of high school.  She had finals and was studying before driving to school.  I didn’t want to miss these last few mornings with her before high school ended for her so I was up to talk with her, pray with her, and see her out the door to school. After she left, I headed out the back door to walk around the track at Lehr Park that is in my backyard.  That morning I listened to music on my mp3 player and had a variety of thoughts sifting through my head.  After three laps of the track, a total of a mile and a half, I went home, picked up the daily newspaper and got out my keys to go inside and get ready to head to work. It was then that I discovered that I had the wrong keys.  I had the keys to get in the church shed but not the keys for the house.  So I rang the doorbell and knocked for awhile in hopes that my s...

I remember back to when my children started school each day. Most of those years my wife went to work earlier and I was the one who got them up and made sure they were fed and prepared for school. Before Rosie started school I remember thinking about how people were saying how bad it was that prayer was taken out of school. Yes, "in my day" there was prayer in school.  We recited The Lord's Prayer each morning in homeroom until one year when it wasn't permitted any more. Regardless of the importance of having teachers, who may not even believe in Jesus, lead classes in praying a prayer, it just isn't done any more. Yes, there is a time of silence and that is a good thing to prepare for the school day. But I decided that whether there was a time of silence, when I hoped my children would be quiet and even say their own silent prayer, or not and whether there should be a prayer recited out loud, that I would pray with them each morning and read the Bible with t...

I am thankful for thunder. Not long ago I walked to lunch, walked back, and started working again in my office. In just a bit I heard thunder. It got my attention...because the windows on my car were down some to cool it off. The thunder warned me so that I could go out and put the windows up. Just in time...then the rains poured and poured. Sometimes I need to be more thankful for the warnings, the thunder, the things that get my attention that I better change, get moving, push on...or I will be sitting in a mess. There are enough messes that I cannot avoid...best to hear the thunder and act and avoid the potential messes that I can.

While in Raleigh the other day I was blessed by many things that people said and one came to mind today. My friend Justin Meier  said, after I had shared that I had planted a church that had ended and I felt like a failure in some ways, that my experience there played a part in the movement in Raleigh beginning. I appreciated his words not only because of their kindness, but because of their truth. We learn a lot from the things that don't go well and the point is to keep listening to God and trusting Him by just keeping on and seeing where He leads, even to helping to birth a church multiplication movement in Raleigh and throughout the southeastern area of the USA. I am glad that God cares more about us than about what we do for Him, while taking who we are and leading us to touch lives for Jesus far beyond ourselves and our own abilities.