Author: nickcady

On a mission from God. Pastor of White Fields Community Church in Longmont, CO.

Back from Costa Mesa

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Last week I was in Costa Mesa, CA for the annual Calvary Chapel Senior Pastors Conference. It was a great time of encouragement and fellowship, catching up with friends from all over the world who I only see at events like this.

This was the first SPC since Pastor Chuck Smith died, and the focus was on not forgetting the past, but not living in the past either – rather pressing ahead, building upon the foundation we’ve been given.

The messages at the conference were great, particularly what Brian Brodersen shared from Haggai ch 2, about how “the glory of the latter house will surpass that of the former”. May it be so!

Many of the sentiments shared at the conference, such as that Calvary Chapel must not be insular, but must understand its place in the wider body of Christ, and that we must stay on mission rather than being distracted by peripheral issues, definitely resonated with me.

I’m looking forward to everything that God will do through this movement in the years to come.

Reasons Why I Love Tim Howard

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Team USA goaltender Tim Howard made a record 16 saves at the World Cup game between the US and Belgium, but couldn’t save the American team from being knocked out in the 2-1 Belgian win.

Did you know:

  • Tim Howard is HUNGARIAN!    Tim was born in New Jersey to an African-American father and a native Hungarian mother named Fekete Eszter!  He is a dual citizen of USA and Hungary, but unfortunately, aside from a few words, he doesn’t speak Hungarian.  Szeretünk téged, Tim! Hajrá magyarok!
  • Tim Howard is a CHRISTIAN.   Tim has spoken about his Christian faith, saying: “The most important thing in my life is Christ. He’s more important to me than winning or losing or whether I’m playing or not. Everything else is just a bonus.”
  • Tim Howard has Tourette Syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder.
  • Tim is 35 years old and has been on the US national team since 2002.  I don’t know if this was his last world cup, but after this performance today, he seems like he is at the top of his game!

Local Busses in Longmont Free

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I took the bus today, and I liked it.

I’ve always thought about riding the bus here in Longmont; there’s a bus stop about 100 feet from my house. The thing is, that the bus doesn’t run very often, and it costs just as much as driving my car around town. I’d rather get around without my car – but there’s no real incentive to do so, until now.

Starting today, busses within Longmont are free. If you ride from Longmont to Boulder, you will be given a voucher to reduce the price for the in-town part of the ride.

Unlike my car, the bus is air-conditioned. And even though the ride to where I work on Tuesdays is 30 min by bus, as opposed to 12 min by car – I always have plenty of work I can do on my phone while I am sitting on the bus, which makes it time I can easily spend productively.

I’m not sure if this initiative is motivated by the desire to be environmentally friendly or simply because no one was riding the bus (my guess would be the latter), but I say: Good on you, Longmont! I love that this city does cool stuff like this. I will definitely be riding the bus a lot this year and using my car less.

 

Boulder County clerk to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses

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Boulder County clerk to begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses

Same-sex marriage has made it’s way to Colorado, and unsurprisingly, the first place it will begin is right here in Boulder County.

Boulder County will begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses immediately, County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall announced Wednesday afternoon.

The action was in response to the 10th Circuit U.S. Appellate Court ruling earlier in the day that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process.

There are a lot of opinions out there, even amongst Christians, as to what our stand on this should be.

Earlier this week, a Methodist pastor, who had been defrocked for going against church regulations and officiating his son’s wedding to another man, was reinstated.

Some Christians might say: Who cares? If homosexuals want to get married, why should I care?  There are plenty of things that are legal, but are not in accordance with God’s will or desires. It doesn’t affect me – I’m just trying to follow Jesus.  

My guess is that this is the majority opinion amongst most in the younger generation.

Others might say: Our laws shape our society’s understandings of what is acceptable and normative. Redefining marriage is bad for our society.

Here’s one thing I noticed: on social media there’s tons of praise for this. That doesn’t mean that everybody is in favor of it – it means that those who don’t like it are less and less willing to speak up and voice their opinion, because they know the kind of backlash that will come upon them if they do.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

Pastor Tip: Preaching Outside from an iPad

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This morning I officiated a wedding, and as I usually do, I had all my notes on my iPad, which is attached to a mic stand by an iKlip2. It's a really great solution, because it leaves my hands free – which is nice for me, because I talk with my hands a lot, but also nice when officiating weddings, for things like handling the rings, etc.

But here's what happened to me today: It was an outdoor wedding that started at 11:30 – it was a bit overcast, but about 80 degrees out. And as soon as the wedding started, I noticed that my iPad was started to get hot – like really hot!

And then I started to worry… because I know what happens when the iPad gets hot – and it has happened to me before… It shuts off and won't come back on until it cools down.

At one point, I was convinced that my iPad was about to shut off – and I started praying… and thinking: what do I do if this thing shuts off? I mean, it's one thing if it happens at church – I can probably preach without it, but not at a wedding! They had written their own vows, and I hadn't memorized anything…

At one point, the bride and groom did a symbolic act together, so I took the chance to turn off the screen on my iPad, hoping that would give it the chance to cool down a little. But as soon as I turned off the screen, I started thinking: Oh no…what if, now that I've turned it off, it won't turn back on?!?!

I started praying, and asking God to have mercy on me for being so dumb as to not give myself any back up in case of an emergency like this.

God was merciful, and I was able to finish the wedding from my red-hot tablet without it shutting off.

But I learned an important lesson that I want to pass on to anyone out there who might benefit from it: If you speak outside from your iPad, especially for a special event like a wedding, ALWAYS have a set of printed notes that you can fall back on in case of emergency.

I realize now how many opportunities there might have been for something to go wrong with the iPad, from getting knocked over on the stand and breaking, to rain – not to mention the glare, which made it almost unusable anyway.

I learned my lesson today, and I'm thankful that God was gracious to me (and the bride and groom) and didn't make me learn it the really hard way.

 

White Fields on the Radio

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Starting this week, you can hear me on the radio here on Colorado’s Front Range, on 89.7 Grace FM.

White Fields is doing a series of 1-minute devotional messages called “Word from the Field”. Our thought was that instead of just airing our sermons, we could do something a little bit unique, that would also run multiple times per day at different times. This way we can stand out from the crowd and reach people who listen to the radio at different times of the day and week.

We are also uploading these recordings to SoundCloud, so that people can keep up with them online and share them through social media. You can follow us on SoundCloud here, and below you can listen to the messages we’ve recorded so far.

Having Passed the Baton

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For many years, the third week of June was one of the highlights of the year for my wife and I. That’s because this is the time when the Foundations Conference takes place in Vajta, Hungary. Foundations is a conference for Calvary Chapel missionaries and national workers from all over Eastern Europe to gather together for a week of fellowship and teaching. It was a time for us of seeing friends we often only saw at that conference, as well as a time of being recharged physically and spiritually, and seeking the Lord.

This year I’ve been keeping up with some of what’s happening at Foundations on Instagram, where I get to see familiar faces and places.

Today on Instagram I saw this photo, which filled me with so many emotions:

In that picture are friends of mine, and they are praying for a young man named Jonathan, who is serving as a missionary in Eger, Hungary at the church Rosemary and I started 9 years ago. Standing behind him is Jani, a man who I first met when he was not a Christian, but who I had the privilege of leading to The Lord, pouring into, raising up in ministry, and who is now the pastor of that church in Eger.

I remember how on the last night of one of these Foundations conferences several years ago, I was up front praying for people, and Jani came up and asked me to pray that God would bless him and his wife with a baby. Only a few months later, we got the good news that Tünde, his wife, was pregnant with their first child.

I’m a bit jealous that I can’t be there withy them right now, but it fills me with so much joy to see these guys who now carry that baton, going for it with all they’ve got. It is a good feeling when something you started takes on a life of its own.

How Does Marriage Affect Violence Against Women and Children?

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How Does Marriage Affect Violence Against Women and Children?

This article in the Washington Post this week showed that statistically, women and children in married families suffer far less domestic violence than those in other situations.

Married women are notably safer than their unmarried peers, and girls raised in a home with their married father are markedly less likely to be abused or assaulted than children living without their own father.

As Christians, one of the best things we can do for society is to uphold and promote strong biblical ethics.

If Your Bible is Falling Apart…

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I finally went ahead and bought a new Bible.

My old “go-to” Bible was an NASB that I bought at the Tattered Cover in Denver back in 2002, on my first trip back from Hungary after moving there as a missionary. I read that Bible and preached from it for years. It has coffee stains, ripped pages, and a broken binding, which I superglued back together twice.

I still plan to use it. How could I just put an old friend on the shelf?

There’s a saying, that goes: “If your Bible is falling apart, your life probably isn’t.”

I plan to read this new one until the cover falls off of it too.

 

The Interactive Sermon

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The past 2 Sundays at White Fields we’ve been trying something new, where our background slide invites people to text or tweet their questions in during the sermon. Once we get these questions, I will answer some during the service if we have time, or I will answer them on The City – our church’s in-house social network.

The response we’ve gotten to this has been really good! I’ve really enjoyed engaging with people and answering their questions. You can read some of those discussions here. Look for the posts titled “Sermon Follow-Up”.

I think that in this day and age, with the proliferation of the internet especially, sermons need to be more interactive. Finding the right way to do this though, is what is hard.

Timothy Keller, at his Sunday night services in NYC, has had a question and answer time for years. It’s a main part of the service – and it invites skeptics to come and do what New Yorkers do best: be skeptical and inquisitive. Tim Keller has said that the average young adult in New York is a thinker and thinkers have questions, and if you want them to really consider Christianity, you have to give them a chance to have their questions answered.

Nowadays, any news article you read online gives readers the option to engage in a comments section, where they can have a discussion about the content of the article. Any attitude in churches of “don’t question anything” is completely disconnected from where our culture is at today, especially with young people. Furthermore, I feel that if pastors are not answering the real questions that people are asking and struggling with, if we are not addressing the issues that people are really wondering about and discussing, then we have become irrelevant talking heads. If everywhere in the world there is transparency and discussion is encouraged, but at church we have smokescreens and we don’t like questions, what does that communicate to people? Perhaps that we lack the confidence that is required to allow people to ask questions? That shouldn’t be the case.

However, the danger in opening up to engagement like this, is that it inevitably gives a platform to haters – people who don’t have sincere questions, but who ask questions in order to be critical or in an attempt to trip others up. This is something that Jesus dealt with a lot from the Pharisees and Sadducees, who put a lot of effort into tripping him up. I’m sure that Timothy Keller gets tons of people like this as well, but it doesn’t deter him from encouraging people to ask questions and give him the chance to offer a biblical answer.

What are your thoughts on encouraging engagement with sermons? How have you seen it done effectively – or ineffectively?