Bloggin' from the Blackberry

The elusive eBay-purchased Blackberry arrived on day 14 (October 27) at 3:PM.

It was as advertised, but I learned a few caveats for eBay buyers...
--make sure you ask for all books and manuals for electronic devices to save searching and downloading PDF's.
--You'd think a bluetooth headset would include a charger, but you can't assume it unless it says it!

New toys/new tools.

How amazing is this?
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.

What is a Semicostal?

When people cold call the church office, they have several standard questions they ask:

Where are you located?

When are your services?

What kind of church is this?

The first two are pretty easy to answer. The third is more complex.

They are hoping for a simple descriptive term by which they can make some assumptions, and I am hesitant to give them that label. Once we attach a descriptive label to anything, we preclude exceptions and deviations from the stereotype. If someone is trying to determine where you stand politically, they are hoping you will say liberal, conservative, libertarian, Democrat or Republican. Even though your own voting practices and beliefs on individual issues might defy stereotype, once you give them a label, an entire set of assumptions are made. "Oh, you are a Democrat?" (Assumption: anti-Christian, pro-abortion, anti-military, pro-same-sex-marriage...)  It works the same with religious labels.

Are you Calvinist or Arminian?Evangelical? Fundamentalist? Reformed? Charismatic? Cessationist? Pentecostal?

As soon as you identify with any of those terms you accept the baggage that is attached. What about those of us who are not precisely Arminian, but are also not Calvinists? Can one be a 2-point Calvinist? That's my problem with telling a caller that the church is Pentecostal.

I have absolutely no reservations about identifying with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit as manifested on the Day of Pentecost. I have great reservations about identifying with much of the excess, heresy and just extra-Biblical nonsense that has come to typify much of the modern Pentecostal Movement. A lot of good has come from Christian TV, but a lot of garbage has spewed forth also, and it has colored the perception of Pentecostalism in the public mind.

It started out almost as a joke, calling our church semicostal as a reaction to pentecostal excess. The label seems to have stuck. Now I get lots of questions about the precise meaning of that label. The time has come to begin to craft a definition.

I am working on it.

Desires of my heart (Part 2)

This pile of steaming asphalt is part two of an answered prayer!
Unscheduled and unannounced, the same crew and supervisor arrived at
7:00 AM in my parking lot to complete a road repair immediately in
front of the church. As before, I went out and unlocked the front
restrooms for the workers, and waved to the supervisor. He
remembered me, waved back, and pointed to the parking lot, and
motioned thumbs up.

I went back in the office to do some paperwork and, a few hours
later, heard some noise, and saw the trucks dumping material in the
rough area of the lot.

God has some awesome secret agents all over, in all kinds of
businesses, and I am thankful he sent these folks to patch the road
on my street.

Day 12 of the missing Blackberry

The eBay experience has not exactly lived up to expectations. 12 days
after money changed hands, 19 days after I started the bidding
process, I remain down $250 and have no Blackberry to show for my
efforts.

In the seller's defense, he insists that there was a problem with the
scanning of the shipping label at the USPS, and once he discovered
the source of the problem, he retrieved the package and sent it 2nd
day FedEx. Really. I have a working tracking number and everything.
The latest ETA is no-later-than 5:00 PM on Thursday, October 27.
That will be day 14. Maybe.

9th day of the eBay saga.

It has been 9 days since I made my first eBay purchase, and it was
supposedly mailed Priority Mail via the USPS. From La Canada,
California to Kaneohe, Hawaii should not take nine days.

Although I still have not received the merchandise (did I mention it
has been NINE DAYS?) I got the seller's phone number from eBay and
called him. Voice mail, and little expectation of a return call ---
but 2 minutes later a very nice man called back, assured me the
package was shipped promptly by his assistant, and he completely
understood my nervousness.

It was a bit reassuring to put a voice (and a phone number) with the
name; made me able to wait out the weekend.

But, NINE days!

eBay is not for the impatient.

I confess; I am not as patient as the rest of you. Yes, I have bought an item and opened it in the car before I got home. Okay, one time I bought new shoes and wore them out of the store, carrying the old pair out in the package. And then I get the bright idea to check out eBay.

It started innocently enough; I am spending way too much time tied to my office and not enough time on my MBWA - Management by Wandering Around.  There is a sensed need to be more visible in the community at this stage of our church growth, even if it is walking through the mall with a cup of coffee awaiting those Divine Appointments some call chance encounters. Needing to free myself from the tyranny of the urgent, but with a Type "A" need for connectivity and instant access to information, I decided to buy a Blackberry.

The T-Mobile store wanted $350 with a $50 rebate. Too much. The T-Mobile lady suggested I check eBay, as there are always new devices being released, and lots of the must-have-only-the-latest-and-greatest types sell great merchandise to move up a notch. This was my first real experience bidding on eBay, and these are my observations.

(1) Impatient, impulse buyers struggle with the concept of a 7 day purchase process. Are you kidding me? Offer a price and then wait? Please.

(2) The buyer is at the mercy of the seller. I "won" the bid --if it can be deemed 'winning' to be given the opportunity to give a complete stranger your money in advance and hope they ship the item and it is as described-- and then the mess began.

In my Paypal transfer I added $23 +/- for shipping, foolishly believing that would rapidly move a small package under a pound in weight from California to Hawaii in 2, maybe 3 days. In the instructions block I clearly requested that the seller use that $23 to ship via DHL, UPS or FedEx. I have had bad experiences in Hawaii with delayed, damaged and even missing merchandise with the USPS. The next day, the seller shipped the Blackberry -- via Express Mail using the good ole USPS.

That was on Friday, October 14. I am writing this mid-day on Thursday, October 20. The mail carrier has come and gone, and no Blackberry.

Now, I realize that there is some 2,500 miles of Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii, but we have been part of the United States since August of 1959, and we are, in a sense, California's neighboring state. Am I expecting too much? I already delayed my need for tech gratification for a week during the bidding process, and now I sit here nearing the end of week two with no Blackberry.

I feel a need to blame someone. Should I blame the seller who clearly ignored my shipping preference and used the Postal Service? Should I be upset at the USPS for failing to move an Express Mail package from California to Hawaii in 6 days? Should I blame President Bush? (I mean, some people seem to think he is responsible for everything that goes wrong, so...) This should not be, and I don't handle "Wait!" well.

This is a metaphor for my spiritual life, in many ways. There are things I want to see happen -- things I believe are MEANT to happen -- and often I pray and ask God "When?" and He answers "Soon."

I have learned to ask a follow-up question: "Lord, do you mean your soon, or my soon?"