Life Lesson #347

Life Lesson # 347: Be careful what you put in your microwave.
Be careful what you put in your microwave because you just might burn down the church parsonage. Here is the word of warning. Never trust Pizza Hut.

So here is what happened...
My wife left town. We ordered Pizza Hut. 20 piece hot wing and two large pizzas. We clean up lunch and there are a couple of slices of pizza and three hot wings left over and they are tucked away in the refrigerator. The boys go to Shockwave. Now is my chance to eat the last three wings. I rip the styrofoam box from the fridge, pop it in the microwave, and hit one minute and I turn back to the fridge to find the bleu cheese dresssing. Wings taste better with bleu cheese dressing. Not ten seconds later I hear a loud crackling noise. I look in the microwave and I observe the literal meaning of the term wings of fire! So I pop open the door, grab the box, and pivot to place the wings in the sink where I douse them with the little spray hose thing on the sink. (Man, am I glad that I did not walk away from the microwave.) The fire is out...but now I see styrofoam soot wafting upwards and then drifting slowly back down to land on literally everything in our kitchen. Everything in our kitchen is white. My wife keeps a very clean house. Dead man walking. She is going to kill me. Did I mention that the refrigerator door was still open. All the stuff in the fridge was covered with this soot too.

The problem was that inside of the box the wings were wrapped in paper. One side of the "paper" was foil. I strongly recommend not nuking foil in your microwave because it WILL start a fire.

Life lesson #347...be careful what you put in your microwave.
Life lesson #347A...there are two sides to everything.
I am sure that there is a spiritual application that can be made here, however I seem to simply be learning to pay more attention to what I am doing.

Have a wonderful week and...boycott Pizza Hut.
Better yet, have a brain wave before using the microwave.
By the way...I am just here to make the mistakes for you. You can thank me later.

White Sox Close The Deal

Well...the White Sox did it and all of Chicago rejoices! Ding Dong the witch is dead, blah, blah blah...
It just goes to show you that good pitching beats bad hitting every time.
So here is to Ozzie, Paulie, A.J., J.D. and the rest of the guys. Let's do it again next year. That means...sign Paulie right now!!!

Let's Go White Sox...

I don't know if you are paying attention or if you care, but my Chicago White Sox are on the verge of winning the World Series. I have been a Sox fan since the spring of 1973 when my family moved from Davenport, Iowa to the suburbs of Chicago. On a cool Saturday afternoon in early May some of the White Sox rookies came and gave a clinic at a strip mall near my house in Addison, Illinois. I was eight years old and I had never met a big league player before so it was quite a thrill to meet Bucky Dent, Jay Johnstone, Terry Forster, and Rich "Goose" Gossage. I have been a White Sox fan ever since and I have to tell you that it is not always easy being a White Sox fan in Chicago. You see, the Cubs are Chicago's darlings with the quaint little ballpark and the white collar fans. They play up on the north side where things are "nice".

When you cross Madison Ave. and head south in the city of Chicago things change. The economy changes, the neighborhoods are vastly different and honestly it is not so "nice" in some places. The White Sox are the step children in Chicago. Much like the Los Angeles Angels of Placentia...er Anaheim here in the southland. (Just kidding. Please no bitter replys from the Angels fans.) In Chicagoland the Cubs rule or they did rule, but now everything has changed. The Sox are about to do for their owner Jerry Reinsdorf and for the city what his other team, the Bulls, used to do for it and for him. Give them and him a world championship. It will be very sweet if they can close it out. (See...this is a Sox fan trying to believe, but not wanting to jinx it!)

I must tell you that I love this team! Not just the Sox, but this group that makes up the White Sox. From their manage Ozzie Guillen all the way down to the last guy on the roster they provide a wonderful example of leadership and teamwork. Ozzie leads the team by serving and teaching and cheering and rebuking. Man, do these guys follow. And the players just seem to pick each other up time after time. It dawned on me last night at about 11:10 PM our time (during the 14th inning of the longest World Series game ever) that we can learn a lot about ministry teams from these guys. There is a love, a bond, and a passion for excellence that is infectious on this team. I pray for the exact same characteristics in our ministries. We want loving, honest, and passionate leaders in our ministries. I want to be that type of leader in our church and on my ministry teams. I am sure that you feel the same way. I want to be on ministry teams where, because none of us are perfect, we pick each other up, we have each other's back, and we encourage one another and we raise the level of play on our team.

As I have watched the playoffs the last couple of weeks it has seemed to me that the White Sox are having the most fun. Yea, I know that everything is always more fun when the breaks are going your way and you are winning, but I think they are just having fun playing baseball together. When ministry goes well it is a lot of fun too. Bill Hybels always says, "There is nothing better than doing God's bidding with people that you love." And listen...we have so much more to live for than baseball! Being a part of a team that is honoring to God and serving with people that you love is way more fun and rewarding than baseball.

So..."Play Ball!"

I Am So Proud

Venice Baptist Church, you are to be commended for your generosity. You gave $3,660.00 to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. A check for $4,000.00 (We rounded up expecting more offering to come in!) was mailed to WorldHelp yesterday. I know that they will put it to good use. WorldHelp is partnering with local churches in Mississippi and Louisiana to meet the physical and spiritual needs in the region. I know that God will bless you and our church as we look beyond ourselves to help meet the needs of others.

Don’t forget that this Sunday there is ONE SERVICE @ 10:00 AM. The men are off on their annual ski-trip immediately following.

Now, about this Entertainment Tonight deal that is coming up on Saturday October 15th… This will be a lot of fun…if you will get involved. I know that many of you have hidden talents. We would love for you to share your “real” talent with us and we would love for you to share some of your, well let’s say, not so real talent with us. I have many talented people in my family. For an example, my wife, Amy can blow a bubble within a bubble with bubble gum. My brother can eat a fully loaded hot dog whole in one bite. I know because I saw him make a good amount of cash doing so in college. It was slightly overshadowed by my friend who would eat drinking glasses in the cafeteria, but still effective in picking up some cash to spend over at the DQ. And you just cannot beat talent like that. So start working on your song, your dance step, your poem, or your extraordinary eating talent and join us for a wonderful time with our church family and friends.

Late,
Craig

Faking It

There is nothing worse than getting a call from someone who just starts talking at you as if you know who they are. I received a call yesterday from a couple that I went to college with. Yea, I recognized their names, but there was no way that I could put a face or any other information with the name. As it turns out, I haven't seen them since before I moved to Venice! They were talking as if we have stayed in touch all of these years. So I did what any warm blooded human would do. I faked it. I lacked the courage and was too embarrassed to say, "Wait. Who are you? Not ringing a bell." I faked it because I should have known them. I talked with them about old classmates and preachers and missionaries and I really enjoyed reminiscing with them...even if I could not remember who they were.

Now, here is the great thing about living in the 21st century. As soon as I hung up the phone I sprinted to my computer to "googled" them. I found them on the Internet and then it all made complete sense. I knew them I just couldn't remember them. They are great folks who are doing a great work for God in Africa. Now I can pray for them and maybe keep in touch with them and next time they call I will not have to fake it.

Brain Cramp

Do you ever wonder why we have brain cramps? You know what I am talking about. You have an idea, a plan or a clue, but somehow and for some reason your brain just locks up and your idea, plan or clue just explodes into a pile of goo. This is fresh for me today because last night I had one of those cramps that stay with you for a while.

We had a wonderful 4th of July. I started the day by mixing my Grandma Henson’s famous homemade ice cream recipe and pouring it into our ice cream maker. One hour later the little motor ground to a halt and we had a canister full of one and one half gallons of the richest and creamiest homemade ice cream ever. After I tucked that away in the freezer I fired up the grill with good old charcoal (none of that gas stuff) and cooked up 10 pounds of carne asada.

The feast began at one. The food was good. The company was average. (Just kidding!! Lighten up!!) The day was glorious and then everybody left and we cleaned up the mess. Amy and I were kicking back, just relaxing. It had been just about a perfect July 4th by our standards.

About 10:00 o’clock, with the neighbor’s fireworks tapering off, Richie, Paul, Ernesto and Becky showed up and things got weird. Richie walked in the house and asked me why the garage door opener was not working. I knew instantly what the problem was. I remembered that the automatic garage door opener had accidentally been unplugged during our teardown. So I scurried out to the garage to plug it in. I cannot quite reach the plug, so I grabbed a church folding chair. (This is probably where the brain began to seize up.) Yes, I grabbed one of those blue church chairs with the wooden seat and I opened it and set it up. This is a no brainer right? You just stand in the chair and plug in the opener. Yea, it’s easy as long as you don’t have one of those brain cramps. I nonchalantly step on the seat of the chair with one foot and as I rise to reach for the plug my foot slips on the seat of the chair and slides toward the back of the seat and the chair just folds up on me. My foot slid down through the back of the chair and went between the legs of the chair while the chair simultaneously slammed shut and folded up. The chair clinched my leg like a vice and I fell to the floor like grizzly with his foot in a bear trap.

I was able to free myself very quickly and I made a quick inventory and every thing checked out, however I am left with swelling in my right leg that has just about doubled the size of my cankle. (A cankle is an ankle that is so big that you cannot tell where the calf ends and the ankle begins.) So at the end of a perfect day the brain cramp strikes out of nowhere and a man is hobbled. Honestly, I am doing fine. I am just a bit gimpy. But I am very thankful. It could have been worse. My kids, or worse, my wife could have witnessed it. It could have been caught on tape or worse on TIVO and my kids could play it back and forth and in slow motion over and over again. At least I was lying on the garage floor writhing in pain alone with my dignity, my trapped leg and my cramping brain!

Still Alive and Kicking,Craig

Pretty Quiet

It is a fairly quiet week on the home front, however I know that it is probably a busy week for you with the onset of summer, graduations, weddings and vacations. So, this touching base will be short and sweet.

This Sunday we will worship together in one service @ 10:00. We are giving our Shockwave Student Ministry a head start on their ski trip. Please pray for them as they head to the lake on Sunday. They will return on Thursday June 30th.
It will be our privilege to have our missionaries Dave & Nan Walter with us on Sunday. I know that you will enjoy hearing how God is working in their lives and ministry.

Reality Television Is For Geeks

Do you remember the good old days when summer television meant reruns? Back in the day we were perfectly content to catch up on the episodes of Happy Days or Three's Company that we missed. We don't need no stinking original programming. All that I needed in the summer when I was a kid was Cubs games in the afternoon and Sox games in the evening and then it really got good in August when the Bears pre-season games would begin. We were doing fine until several years ago when some genius (I think Mark Burnett) came up with the idea of reality television. He said, "Let's put real people in really bizarre situations and see who can 'survive'". Now we have survived 10, count them 10, Survivor seasons and that particular game is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many reality shows now that you can virtually construct entire paragraphs by just using reality show titles.

(Example: My favorite reality show to date is The Contender and it was produced by Sylvester Stallone who starred in Rocky III and it's theme song was The Eye of the Tiger by the band Survivor. There had to be a Fear Factor for Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard his television Apprentice, after all they ran the risk of falling into the vast wasteland of Maximum Exposure that is The Osbornes and The Anna Nicole Smith Show and other Rich Girls who would say, "I Want a Famous Face." Of course it could be worse they could be like my wife Amy and work for The Biggest Loser, who doesn't know What Not To Wear, could use a makeover on Queer Eye For the Straight Guy that she refers to as My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss. Unfortunately The Benefactor of this lunacy seems to be Paris Hilton who needs an Extreme Makeover on her character because she does not live in The Real World. Forget about Starting Over she should adopt the attitude I Want To Be a Hilton because what she really needs is a Big Brother to whip her into shape.)
Enough already!! Stop it!!

This summer has given us three more ludicrous and pseudo entertaining installments of reality TV. The television "off season" of 2005 has given us Hit Me Baby One More Time, Dancing With the Stars, and the WB's Beauty and the Geek. While I haven't watched it yet this last one has peeked my attention simply with its title. Amy and I began to think about the title. Beauty and the Geek. That is pretty much our life since we met 26 years ago, however if you call Amy a geek one more time I'll rip your lungs out.
Websters Online Dictionary defines geek this way:
1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake
2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of
I know that most of us were not familiar with definition one. Definition number two is the one that we relate to. A geek is a nerd or someone smart who is perhaps a bit socially dysfunctional and therefore disapproved of. By the way, if you were familiar with definition one then you need to stop reading your dictionary and get out more, cause you are a geek.

Which brings me to my point. Mark Burnett, while obviously genius, is just a geek when you get right down to it. He and the others who produce these shows are just reality TV geeks and those of us who watch are geeks too! We all are geeks in some area. Some of us are fantasy sports geeks, and some of us are cyber geeks, and some of us are music geeks which means that we are geeked out on our ipod 24/7. When you get right down to it you cannot avoid being a geek because someone will always disapprove of you even if it is on intellectual grounds.

Craig

Not Just Another Day

One of the interesting and sad things about the English language is that we are enamored with the cliche. When we have a special day to honor a particular segment of our society the cliches seem to flow more freely. Such is the case when it comes to Mother's Day. Those of us who are skeptics will make our case that Mother's Day is an occasion that is contrived by the greeting card companies. That may be true, however there is no group of people more deserving of their own day than moms.

I could load this up with a bunch of cliches and bore you with the typical Mother's Day droning, but I will spare you the excruciating torture. What I want to say is that God has blessed us with mothers to care for us, lead us, teach us, and train us to make us more like Christ. God has commanded us to honor our mother and father. We should. We will honor the moms on Sunday. We should honor them everyday. We should thank them for the investment that they have made in our lives. We should thank God for the blessing of mothers. Moms are a gift and every good and perfect gift comes from God. Thanks be to God and to our moms! Give them what they deserve. Respect, y'all!!

Going to Texas

Amy and I are privileged to travel to Luckenbach, Texas for the wedding of Alex Sears and Christy Ware this weekend. We are making our final preparations for our trip. We leave Thursday evening and return Tuesday evening.

Please pray for safe travel for us and please pray that nobody in Texas finds out that we are from L.A. It is dangerous living in L.A. When you live in L.A. you could get shot or something and that is scary, but a Texan will keep you and that would be even worse. "Oh...look at these cute little Californians. Let's keep 'em, you want to?"
(Don't panic. It is just a joke that I stole from Tammy Pescatelli!)

We will miss being with you on Sunday, but I know that you will have a great time together and I know that we will have a great time as well.

Many Blessings and...
Remember the Alamo!

Craig

The Contender

I don't do reality television much. If it were not for TIVO I would not watch any of it. You can skip the dumb stuff and watch a one hour program in 30 minutes or less. I guess I go for the obvious. I watch American Idol. There are some pretty good singers on there. I also watch The Contender. That is the boxing show with Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard. Each week there is a team challenge. The team who wins the challenge will send out their "champion" for the week and he gets to select his opponent. There is just something compelling about one man calling another man out and then the two of them just settling it like men in the ring. Even though you do not get to see the entire 5 round fight, blow by blow, you get the idea and you can tell who won the fight. It is quite entertaining and I have noticed something about the show that is really reflective of real life.

The "Christian" competitors suffer from a very poor understanding of the Scripture. They have been taught false doctrine. They remove Scripture from its proper context and use it to their benefit. I see this a lot in Christianity today. Sunday evening’s episode took the cake. At the end I felt very sorry for the young man who lost. A great deal of the episode centered on this young man's faith. He repeatedly made statements like, "God will give me the victory" or "I will overcome because of Jesus". On his way to the ring he said (and I will not quote it exactly), "It will be just like Samson in the Old Testament when he slew 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a monkey!" (That is not a typo. That is what he said. I know because we ran it back on TIVO three times. For those of you who do not know, Samson did slay 1,000 Philistines but with the jawbone of a DONKEY!) Now, I understand a bit about television. I am sure that the producers played the "let's make the Christian look absurd card". I am sure they played it way up, however he made the statements. He said that God would give him the victory in the ring. He said that he would overcome in the ring because of Jesus. He proceeded to get shellacked and the fight had to be stopped half way through the third round. We have victory over death because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God will allow us to overcome according to His will. The Scripture does not guarantee our success in the ring or in our own personal aspirations. We must be certain that we do not project worldly success onto our lives as Christ followers.

Folks, I am not writing this to kick the guy while he is down. I am not even questioning his faith or walk with Christ. Wait...yes I am questioning that, but that is not my motivation. The point is this. If we want to know Christ intimately we can. If we want to know the Scripture we can. We are capable of understanding the Scripture and interpreting it correctly if we have the desire to dig deep. The bottom line is that you don't have to be on The Contender to have your faith exposed. The reality of our life will be known everyday. I fear that many of us get in the ring everyday, in the fight of our life, and if there was a referee he would stop the fight because we are beaten, bloodied, and bruised. The knees of our faith get wobbly. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can be a contender. You are called to be a contender.
Jude 1:3 (New International Version)
“Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”
We are called to contend for the faith. We can do it. The gospel has been entrusted to us. We must fight for it. I leave you with the words of encouragement that Paul wrote to Timothy.
1 Timothy 6:11-12
“But you, Timothy, belong to God; so run from all these evil things, and follow what is right and good. Pursue a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. [12] Fight the good fight for what we believe.”

Craig

Masters Week

I am a huge golf fan. This is Masters Week. The Masters Golf Tournament is my favorite event to watch. I will be rooting for Tiger, Fred Couples, Phil Mickelson, or another American to win. There is one foreign born player that I can root for. It is Bernhard Langer of Germany. He is a wonderful Christian man. You can read about the role the Masters played in his coming to know Christ by checking out this article.
http://www.golfweb.com/tournaments/masters/story/8359248
Enjoy.

Craig

My Struggle

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Easter Week 2005 is off to a very good start and I am enjoying it so far. Amy, Richie, and I just returned from a couple of days in San Diego. Paul will return with Josh and Jenny today. We played golf. We ate. We survived our respective families.

And I came to this conclusion. The devil has it in for me this week. I know that the devil fights extremely hard during this week. He knows that people’s hearts are soft concerning the gospel. He knows that people are prone to attend a service on this particular weekend. He knows that there is the possibility that people’s lives will be changed and their souls will be snatched from his grasp and an eternity in hell. He hates that. He knows that the lake of fire is his destiny. He wants to take others there with him. The devil knows that I am God’s child. He knows that he can’t get my soul, yet he still attacks with unwavering determination.

He attacks me with Easter stuff. Now, you guys know me. I don’t get hung up on Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and all that stuff. My problem is not philosophical. My problem is Whopper Eggs! I can resist anything except malted milk balls that are shaped and painted like Easter Eggs. I can resist chocolate bunnies and chocolate eggs and hard-boiled eggs don’t tempt me much at all. But the devil knows that I cannot handle Whopper Eggs! The first thing that I see when I walk into my mother-in-law's house is a gallon sized Ziploc bag of Whopper Eggs.

I just wanted to share my struggle for this week. The rest of the week I can handle. The devil will get his. Lives will be changed and Jesus Christ will prevail just as He did on that first Easter morning. My waistline may expand, but God is still good.

According To His Purposes and For Other Whopper Lovers,
Craig

Passion Week

This coming Sunday we embark on one of the most important weeks of the year. Passion Week begins on Palm Sunday and continues through Easter Sunday. It is a wondeful time to share teh love of Christ with your friend or loved one. It is also a fantastic time to invite someone to attend a service with you and hear the Good News.
This Sunday I am going to talk about what Jesus Prayed For Us. Then we have a Good Friday Service (3/25 @ 7:00 PM) and two Easter Sunday Services at our regular times. There are invitations available at the information center.
The day after Easter Brad Jensen and his crew will begin construction on the new handicap accessible restroom in the education building. This will be the first strike in our building project with the major construction beginning right around June 1.
The Vision Team and the Event Team are busy planning a picnic for our entire church family. It will be Saturday May 14th at Kenneth Hahn Park. Mark the date on your calendar. More details will be forthcoming.

Have a wonderful week.
Craig

Nine Years Ago

A new year had dawned. It was the winter of 1996. We sat by the phone. We waited with anticipation for the mail to arrive each day. The phone never rang. The calls never came. The letters never arrived.

Back in the spring of 1995 Amy and I believed that God was calling us to leave our home church in National City, California. God was calling us to leave our quiet, middle-class neighborhood with the perfect little elementary school. God was calling us, like Abraham, to a place that we had never seen and knew nothing about. "I will show you the land," God was saying. We believed that the call was clear, however we went through a process (which I will show you on Sunday) to verify that what we were understanding was coming from God. So I stood before that congregation in suburban San Diego and I told those good people that God was calling us to move after almost nine years of ministry there.

In the fall of 1995 I sent my resume to over 400 churches across America that were looking for a pastor with no regard for geography, because we did not know anything about the land that God was calling us to. By the dawn of 1996 we had not received one call, one response by mail, not even one sniff from those 400 resumes.

Then one evening a guy named Bob Tripp called our house. He began to tell me about working at Dreyer's Ice Cream and about a buddy there who was a believer. Bob happened to ask his buddy one day, "Do you think your pastor knows anybody who is looking for a church to pastor?" His friend said, "I'll ask." He asked his pastor, Mike Kalapp of Calvary Baptist Church in Bellflower. Mike said, "I know a guy down in San Diego named Craig Henson who is looking." Bob said, "Mike Kalapp suggested I call to see if you would entertain the thought of coming to Venice Baptist Church." I thought, "Where in the world is Venice?" I knew about Venice. I should say I knew about the Boardwalk at Venice Beach. I was thrilled for the opportunity. It had been a long time since God had informed us that He had something new for us. The courtship began. I put on my best face. Venice Church put on her best face. We drove up to look around. The search team came down and heard me preach. There was an interview and more visits and then the good people of Venice invited us to come and we said, "Yes. We will come."

That was nine years ago this month. In some ways it seems like just yesterday. In other ways it seems like an eternity ago. The land (LA LA Land) that God showed us has been a land that has been rich and flowing with many blessings for us. Our family has changed dramatically. Richie and Paul have grown from frightened little boys, who were not sure about the land that God had called us to, into young men who love God and His church and L.A. Amy loves L.A. and is the most wonderful wife and help in ministry that any man could imagine. We have seen many lives changed and our church made over. I know that there are many more blessings to come. I know that God has big plans for our church. I know that God wants to redeem our neighborhood and He wants to use you and me to do it. The only thing that I can think of that will be better than living in L.A. and serving Christ with you is when He appears in the air to call His children to a land that we have never seen, but that we know is fairer than day. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. In the mean time I am thankful for our church and the awesome responsibility that God has given me here. I look forward to every day with Jesus and you.

My New Blog

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have ventured into the 21st century and started a blog.
I don't know if this will ever replace my Touching Base Email, however it just might.
It is just two days until we get to be together.
I am looking forward to it immensely.

Blessings,
Craig