Near and Far Faith

Rory and I got haircuts this weekend. She was rockin' the mullet but we thought if she really knew what that was she'd be quite upset. Then she pressured me to cut mine too.

Ok so I believe that I may have scared away any of you that may comment on this Blog. It wasn't on purpose (OK for some of you it was - happy to see you go). But I want to ignite some discussion here and post some of your comments.

On the way to Chesapeake last summer we had a 7 hour van ride (it was a bit warm seeing that the van came from Lucifer himself) but along the way we began a "top Ten Bands of All Time" discussion. I'd like to spin off of that and hear what you think on a similar topic. The best Musical God Combo. What do you think would be the best, most glorious, awe-inspiring, go-out-and-learn-guitar combination of 2. Now keep it to 2. It could be bands or individuals, dead or alive, Christian realm or secular. And we'll keep this going for a while. Throw in a few ideas. And whoever you are in Texas that keeps checking out this site, Welcome! I love Texas. LOVE!! Hope you come back!

Here's my first toss-in: I want to see John Mayer and U2 do something together. I'm a huge John Mayer fan and U2, I believe, has transformed the face of music today.

The first few posts on my blog were mean. I admit it. I knocked some people around. So maybe this post is a bit late. This is the point of this blog:

Since September of this year, the leadership of Carpenter's has been accused of lying, stealing from the church, usurping authority from each other, strategically moving only for personal gain, not caring about old people, using only Rick Warren's messages (that cult in Cali... remember?), and much more. Personally I've been accused of buying alcohol for students and one of my staff was accused of getting a DUI on our mission trip to VA and then conspiring with me to hide it from the leadership.

Not one of these things are true. Every one (and there's a lot unsaid) was born out of gossip - almost no one went to the source to inquire about issues, mainly because they were not really concerned with the issues as much as their own pride and personal gain. One particular person has worked overtime, and I mean really hard, to dirty up my name all in the name of rescuing the church.

Our responses to the false threats were bold, but true. We didn't admit to anything that wasn't true just to shut people up and we were accused of then being prideful. And now it's March. Believe it or not, despite many of these people moving on, they're still hell bent on taking a piece of us.

All that to say... we're tired. I took today off. And I'm taking tomorrow too. Steven's taking a vacation in April. Jim's leaving the country for 2 weeks. And I want it heard loud and clear that we are tired, but we are here. We forgive those who have tried so hard to hurt us. Personally I'm praying for compassion for them. I'm disappointed that so many have been selfish and left Carpenter's because they weren't getting want they wanted out of it. Steven quoted Perry Noble a few weeks back and I stand with him:
We have the option as pastor's to be Prostitutes or Prophets. Prostitutes get paid to deliver a service that makes you feel good. Prophets repeat what God said. I (we) will not be a prostitute.

I am blogging so that you know my heart. It may not interest you. But if you question my motives, read the stuff I write. It's from my heart. If you still think I'm ignorant or prideful and want to disagree, that's fine. But do it elsewhere and don't you dare try to bring others down. I'll call you on it. I am confident in what God's called me for. I'm blogging so that you can come along for the journey and be inspired with me at God's movement.

I love people. As hard as it is, I love the people that have beat us up over the past few months. In fact, I'd even shake your hand. That is where my heart is now - seeing that Christ, my designer, would infact have love and compassion in spite of it all. And if it wasn't for the past few months, I wouldn't have learned what I have about myself and who I am. Honestly, if I could do it again, I wouldn't change a thing.

Not sure how many of you have enjoyed the illustrious software for this giant, but you have to try it. In a recent interview, Bill Gates actually said that it was the one internet mogul he was keeping his eye on as a competitor.

First check out "gmail'. It's Google's email service. It has great spam filters, allows you to simply forward email from other accounts (so you don't have to switch), let's you IM other gmail users, and (this is awesome) it classifies conversations together. In other words, when you look at an email that's one in a conversation that's gone back and forth you can see all the emails in that conversation.

Steven recently showed me a new service though that I just love. You have to have access to the HTML code of the website to implement this. It's called "Analytics". Once you plug a few lines of code into your website - in my case, this Blog: tuckerhibbs.com - it will let you track who visits your site. So right now as you read this, I'm getting info on you. I will now know what town you're in, what service you use to get online, how many links you clicked on my page, and stuff like that. Don't freak out, I don't know your name and I'm not looking in your windows right now (maybe later).

So check out Google - set up a gmail account and get into the up-and-coming of the 21st century.

You must check out this blog post by Perry Noble - a pastor at a church of 7000 in S. Carolina. A few weeks ago their congregation took permanent sharpies and wrote the names of their unsaved friends on the walls of the sanctuary.

click here:

perrynoble.com

How sweet is that!

Clicking on this picture will take you to my flickr account where you can see more pics of me and my family and the Students and V-Staff of Ignite. I'm married to the HOTTEST woman alive. I call her Cher, but her name is Cherie (actually, that's short for Cherisa - sher-EE-sah). For the first three months that we dated I spelled her name like this - Cherrie - like Cherry but with an "ie". She was too awesome to tell me though.

Just a tid bit about my ignorance.

Now don't get me wrong - I love our small group and and I believe that small groups are Biblical and crucial to spiritual growth. And know that I'm writing now to myself as much as anyone else (I usually am). But today I got a call from some of our best friends. We met them at the Evangelical Free church we attended in Scranton a few years back and instantly got along. Months after getting to be very close, they left the EV Free church and began to attend the Catholic church. They were in search of true Christianity and that is where Christ led them.

Today on the phone with... let's call her Jane... she was asking if we had attended a church in Palmerton when we lived there right after we got married. I told her no and asked why. Jane said that she had been taking the kids to a play group at a local church and thought we may have gone there. The she said "they keep trying to save me." They assume that because she and her family are Catholic they must need salvation.

I can just hear the small group conversations now: "There's this girl that comes to our play group and she's catholic - can we pray that she gets saved?" or "I know who I'm inviting to the Christmas Cantata! That Catholic girl! I think she really needs Jesus." or "God I just lift up (what does that really mean? Is God really up?) that Catholic girl. She's misguided and thinks she's following You, but show her the True Path."

Whatever.

I'm not saying that everyone who is Catholic is saved. But you and I both know that there is most likely as many in evangelical churches that are not as well. Christ himself said that there will be many that claim to know Him but do not.

Now please know that when we watched our dear friends go through their faith transition, I had all the same questions that the typical Evangelical would raise. But as we journeyed through life together with... Dick and Jane... we realized that their God was our God and at no time did eternity hang in the balance for our friendship.

We who have grown up in church (what a paradox) have a closed mindedness that many times blinds us. Myself included. God is God. God is not religion. I know that we say that often but our parents taught us such fouled up things about Catholicism that I believe we often are trying to "save" our own brothers and sisters from the same God we love.

Let's (you and me) grow up a bit, eh?