Terry Pruitt's Blog

Barb and I have been doing a minivaction together to celibrate our wedding anniversary in recent years. We went to Gettysburg, Rehobath, DE, Philadelphia, and New York City. This year we decided to go west to Hancock, MD. We stayed in a bed and breakfast called the 1828 Trail Inn . The keepers of the inn are a wonderful couple. They enjoyed talking but at the same time respected our privacy. The breakfast was great. There was Belgiun waffles the first day and French toast the second. Bill was the cook. He made a orange syrup that was simply del.icio.us . Having checked out all the places in Hancock, it is easy to say, the 1828 Trail Inn is the best place to stay. We stayed in the Railroad Room. It was decorated with trains related things. It had a porch where I went out on to read each morning and jaccuzi that soaked in each night. What a routine! If you look at the picture, you see the little second story porch on the right hand side of the house. That was my morning han...

My wife said this on the telephone today, so I thought someone would blog it. Here is it is... LiveScience.com Blogs »Blog Archive » Polite Demotion Planned for Planet Pluto : "Pluto will always be a planet regardless of its true astronomical nomenclature. There will always be The Nine Planets. This cannot be erased from history by a simple re-classification of everything. History can not be erased. In the US, Rhode Island is just as much a state of the Union as California is a state. Puerto Rico is not a state, but it could be. Is Maine more of state than Texas? Maine was part of Massachussetts at time and Texas was a independent country, yet as it stands right now both are still states. Just as the US has the Thirteen Original Colonies, our home system will always have the Nine Planets, regardless of further additions to the group which inevitably will happen. Pluto is a planet."

I finished reading this book by Ralph Moore on Starting a New Church . I really enjoyed reading the book. A lot of works of this type spend 80-90% of the book on theory and very little on actually how to get it done. I think I already know the theory but I wanted to know more about the mechanics of getting it done. Pastor Moore is a student of organizational management and leadership. So he mixes in a lot of Tom Peters style of organizational management with his biblical insights. That makes me a little wary, but all in all this is the lessons of an experinced church planter. I highly recommend it.

Ok Go--Here It Goes Again These are the same guys who danced in their back yard and 1 million videos were made by home video artists. I don't think we could get 1 million of this one. The tread mill companies would love it.

The poll on this blog Essentials For a Church Plant has not had any new votes in a while so I am ready to give an analysis of the results. So what did I learn? 1. Sunday School is much more important than I thought. While it was listed as number three results, I did not expect it to rank as high as it did. I have always thought of Sunday School as a specialized small group that meets at a convenient time and place, just before church. Sunday Schools are often run much more like a small group than a class that is evaluates your learning. 2. I would place small groups as high as did the whole group. It is the top item voted for as essential for a church plant. However a vocal minority said in the comments and e-mails that this was not important when the congregation was small. The idea repeated several times was that small group fellowship would be the whole congregation when the whole congregation is the size of a small group or two. I think what this really means is that th...

I am ready for my Corrie to come home. Come home Cor-O-badoro.

jmarkbertrand.com - the Internet site of J. Mark Bertrand : "If you want to learn more about the ESV Journaling Bible and you don't want to wait for my re-cap, head over to Gareth Russell's blog and check out his excellent, well-illustrated review. (Thanks, Gary, for pointing it out in the comments on the last post.) Also, check out the mention of Gareth's post on Moleskinerie, the all-things-Moleskine blog. " Check out this nifty blog.

TheIrvins: Home from the Hospital : "Home from the Hospital" Rebecca Writes mentioned that Tim Irving needs prayer. You might venture over to Tim's blog and read his story and say a prayer for him.

del.icio.us/pruittcommunications : "del.icio.us / pruittcommunications / I have been using del.icio.us for a couple of months now. It is a way of making a set of bookmarks public. So here is my del.icio.us page.

To fight insomnia I played around with WikiMapia. I added a couple of my childhood places to the list of places, and a couple of churches I attended. It is fun way to share your knowledge. Tags: wiki

I thought this article by Doc Searls was excellent. Markets without Marketing | Linux Journal : "As I prepare for that, I thought I'd share some of the curriculum I've come up with. I'm looking for constructive feedback, suggestions and Stories From the Real World that might be useful to the tutorial. Here we go... I. The Matrix is a metaphor for marketing II. As Markets become truly free, we don't have much, if any, need for marketing. III. Advertising is going to die. PR is already dead. IV. The operative word is Relate. V. There's no substitute for a good product. Or the only people who can improve it. VI. Work the Because Effect. You'll make more money that way.

I met with the Gadfly's Muse and the Jollyblogger for breakfast on Thursday. We talked about church planting in the Ann Arundel County area. Bits of wisdom I gleaned from the breakfast time talk. The essential element for a pastor is a love for the people. Preaching is important, but people will endure imperfect preaching if they discern a heart of love. The essential element for a church planter is vision to see something come to fruition. Formal qualifications are less important than actually doing the ministry. Doing the work of the ministry is analogous to scientist forming a hypothesis and then testing it, then adjusting the hypothesis, and continuing the cycle. A scientist starts with an initial hypothesis and it is not so important that he have the exact right hypothesis, just that he has a starting point and make adjustments afterwards. As long as he has a process by which he continually adjusts his knowledge, he is on the path toward truth. It is not so important...

What is the difference between evangelism and missions? Often when we speak of missions, we mean reaching across cultural barriers to speak the good news of God's forgiveness. Some people would define missions in terms of mercy ministry, but I would have to quibble with this definition. My own definition for missions is evangelism that takes the message of the grace of God to every nation tribe and tongue. Every tribe and tongue means those both near and far. Missions means taking seriously the cultural dynamics of the hearers of the message of God's grace. It means respecting the hearers of the message and taking their needs seriously. For most people, evangelism is an unobtainable duty, something that they just don't know how to do. To explain the good news of God's grace in a winsome way is just not within their natural skill set. This is why the work of evangelism must be done in community. So evangelism must take place in a multi-layered fashion. The ...

My wife and I went to Bethel College in McKenzie, TN. This is the Cumberland Presbyterian denominational college. We met many good friends there. Cindy Maddux is one of our friends from college days. She is our guest blogger today. She responded to the poll and sent me some of her comments which I am including here. By the way, if you have not taken my poll on church planting, please do so. It is the post prior to this one. Thoughts of church planter Cindy Maddux who is a part of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church As to voting whether SUNDAY worship is essential to a church plant then I will say no. WORHSIP is essential but with today's society it's more like Saturday night or Friday night and then if you have those that are tradition bound you could say AND a Sunday service. The needs of the initial group drive when and where you meet. I am in a church plant now. It's been two years and we are just now getting to where we need to be for spiritual growth in numbers. Ultim...

Some of you may have been a part of a church plant. Some of you might be qualified because you have actually been a part of a church at some point in your life. I would like to hear what you think. Please take my poll. Free Web poll for your Web site - freepolls.com Technoratic Tags: poll , church planting , Christianity , ministry , new , church .

I have been thinking about leadership and how we in the church choose leaders. I have seen a couple of models demonstrated and in reality, I think a combination of the two models is best. The two models are seminary trained leadership and raising up leadership from within. Seminary training with no practical experince opens someone to a lot of risk. What if you go through seven years (or more) of education to find out that you really are not cut out for it? Then there are those who are gifted but have not taken set aside the time to study. They need to pursue study. Hands on training combined with seminary is prefered. Something on my heart lately is that a congregation needs to be trained how to raise up leadership. Here is what I would think is 10 ideas that I think might be helpful: 1. Identify who future leaders are and encourage them 2. Validate young leaders by listening to them 3. Take young leaders seriously 4. Give appropriate responsibility 5. Allow young leaders...

Are You a Yankee or a Rebel? - alphaDictionary * Free English Online Dictionary I heard this story on NPR. You might want to check out this test. The author does not recognize a seperate dialect for the Ozarks. I guess he has just never heard of roastin' ears. To get a short Ozark dictionary click here.

Wired has a story, err, sort of a story on Disc Golf. I always call it Frisbee Golf, but we don't want any trade mark infringements. So I have played in TX, MD, VA, DE, and NM. My next state to play in is WV. Or maybe PA this summer with my nephews. It is a good game to get out and get some fresh air. Wired News: Disc Golf: It's Not Actually Golf : "So I guess that's why I recently decided to try the sport of hippies, the hippie of sports, disc golf. Because it's not actually golf. I would not have expected disc golf to be a geekish sort of activity -- it involves fresh air and sunshine, it was never featured on Star Trek -- but a surprising number of my geek friends have discs. Not as in 'I have a promotional A&W Frisbee in my closet' but actual, official, PDGA-approved disc golf golfing discs."

Your Scholastic Strength Is Deep Thinking You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal. You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk. You should major in: Philosophy Music Theology Art History Foreign language What Should You Major In?