Welcome to the Perry Boiler Room for those of you who might be reading this for the first time.  PBR is a quiet place for me to share my life and work with friends, family and stakeholders.  The blog has been up and running for few months now, but at any point if want to backtrack through earlier posts feel free to catch up.

Since March I’ve been collecting team mates for a new chapter in my life – Graduate Faculty Ministry with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  Many of you are new to IVCF having joined my timeline somewhere in the past 11 years.  Many of you have been through this with me before.  Whichever part you’ve played, please know that on the brink of my first official month of employment with InterVarsity I am so grateful for your presence in my life!  The last 15 months have been quite an adventure.  You’ve blessed me and my family far more than you realize.

On Sept 16th, my supervisor decided that our funding was looking strong enough to begin employment at 3/4 time.  I’ll be on payroll but not allowed to work my full job description till I’m at 100% of my budget.  100% means all the resources for a year’s worth of budget are either in the coffers or pledged.  As of today I’m at about 68% and hoping to find the rest in time to start the full job, full time in January.

The chunk of GFM I’m joining is blue above – that’s the South/Central Region.  The chunk of the chunk I’m preparing to supervise is the Central Area Team.  Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.  Currently there are seven of us GFM staff in these four states.  Lots of room for growth.  More on my team in coming posts.  God is doing terrific things among med students at University of Iowa, faculty and internationals in the “little apple” (K-State),  a Veritas Forum is coming this spring at Kansas University in Lawrence while a thriving faculty ministry is happening at Wash-U in St. Louis.

This summer I got my first look at “them” at a regional staff conference in Nashville.  About 30 of us across the 17 state region gathered for 4 days of training and networking.  I’m honored to be a peer with such gifted, bright and experienced staff and look forward to learning from them in the years ahead.

Thanks so much for helping me get here.  As I sit in the boiler room banging in this post please know how grateful I am for you and your family.  Thank you for checking in with me countless times these past 15 months.  Thanks for praying for me, coaching me and encouraging me.  Thanks for welcoming me to this new space I now call my vocational home.  Feel free to hit the comment button and leave me a thought or two – or send me an email if you’d rather.

Be blessed.

Be well.

tim.perry@intervarsity.org

Interested in donating to my work click here.

Nashville…famous for its music and lively night life on Broadway Street!  Where else can you walk in and sample a $12K guitar…

We all love the feeling of getting a new gadget, pulling it out of the box for the first time and plugging it in.  Then there’s that tiny little hesitation right before you reach for the ON/OFF switch.  Click…  “Awesome!  I’m such a genius for purchasing this device.  It even works.”

That is exactly where I’m at with this GFM thing.  I’m so close I can smell it, taste it, touch it.  But I can’t push that shiny green button till I’m another 10 percent toward my full budget.  Once I’m at 70% I can actually begin as an InterVarsity Graduate Faculty Ministries employee.

Here’s the link to my giving page online if you’re excited and want to help me get there.  Many thanks to the 28 people who’ve gotten me this close.  I’m so grateful for your help!

http://givetoiv.org/timperry

1/0 …  I’m coming for you.

 

Ok, I’ll never complain about having to sing worship songs again!  And I mean it!

In my former job I constantly encountered people on the skeptical edge of non-belief.  I was a pastor at a church.  But I was a pastor specifically tasked with reaching the unconvinced among our weekend attenders.  And among this group of people a frequent, painful experience for them was “worship time”.

“OK, everyone, now is when we stare at words on a glowing screen with no house lights on and sing worship songs to God.”  Most skeptics and not-yet-convinced spiritual seekers loath this part of the Sunday morning experience.  One guy I know used to  synchronize his nicotine routine to coincide  (in liturgical precision) with the first worship set.

It isn’t just the smoker-seekers, though.  Lots of us Christians actually fake our enthusiasm for corporate worship.  Its because many of us don’t really get why we have to do it.  I became convinced of this last week – due to a sermon I was asked to preach by a friend at his church.  A sermon that may have just cured me.

This might convince you to NEVER complain about worship again.  Ever.

Pastor Roo picked the most intriguing passage for his series, God Mode Activation – bringing God into everyday life.  In 2 Chron 20, the southern kingdom of Judah finds itself under military threat.  Jehoshaphat, king and commander in chief of Judah’s army proves true to his name (Let Jehovah Decide) and seeks Yahweh’s direction in prayer before going into battle.

Here’s where things get weird.  God decides.  God brings in the big guns to deal with the Moabites – instead of Jehoshaphat calling the shots, Jahaziel gets the nod.  Jahaziel the Choir Director!  Yup.  Do you know how awful the average choir director is at military strategy?  Just think about how awful the average tone-deaf drill Sargent might be at singing.  Somewhere south of that.

God gives Jahaziel the clear directive to station the choir at the front – armed with nothing but their hymnals and dressed in nothing but their best choir robes!  Everyone else (presumably including the army) is to stand behind them.  Jahaziel selects a famous psalm of Asaph as one of the songs the choir (and everyone else) will be singing.  “If this works like Yahweh told me, NONE of you will have to lift a finger.  God will fight this battle for us!”

Evidently, worship must mean something vastly different to Yahweh, than it does to us.  Humans get in trouble when we pretend to know more about God than he’s told us.  No one today would put something like this on a list of good reasons to worship God.  Most today bicker about whether or not we like the music, whether or not we like the worship leader’s style, or whether it “moves us” emotionally/spiritually.  We’re incessant consumers – especially of over-produced worship experiences.

I guarantee you NO ONE in Jahaziel’s audience that day gave a thought about the play list, the instruments, the lyrics, or how freakin long they had to stand and sing.  “Yahweh has asked us to honor him this way.  Worship means we invite Yahweh’s saving presence among us as we face our enemy.”   That’s it.  Turns out that was enough.  That was what was so important to Yahweh.

The narrative goes on to describe how Yahweh smote the ruin of Judah’s enemies that day.  Right in front of their eyes.  Right in the middle of the first worship set.  Maybe if we could figure out why worship is so important to him today, he’d show up and do the same.

Post Script

I must say it felt great to prepare a message and preach it.  I haven’t had the chance to teach to a crowd since July of 2016.  Here’s the whole ugly mess of notes I used for the sake of my most avid readers.

Message Outline

Praise and Presence Message

June has been a great month for MPD!   Thanks to a number of people jumping on board who I connected with back in March and April I’m now 46% funded (piktochart).  I’m so encouraged with the progress.  Among my early backers here are some of the champions God is sending me:

• a couple whose wedding I got to perform a number of years back
• three people who Cheryl and I used to be in a CCC Journey Group with
• two former IVCF staff who led and supervised me years ago!
• two couples I’ve led Christianity Explored groups with
• a high-school friend living on the west coast
• a leader in my evangelism ministry back at Christ Community
• a couple of my family members who were former IV supporters 10 years ago
• couples who were students of mine from the 90s!
• swell friends from our old hometown of Normal, Illinois
• former and current CCC staff who want to bless us to get a good start with GFM
• two couples, all four are university professors and instructors

As this list grows, I’m excited to think about the team of people behind what I’m being called to.  Out of love for the Perrys, out of love for IV or love for the university, people are giving to my work.  I’m amazed that I get to be an intermediary between God’s people and such a strategic mission field.  If you are reading this and you are one of those on my list, I’m so grateful for you helping me move from where I started in March, toward being fully resourced and ready to go.  Thank you so much.

(text at the bottom of the chart):

When I first applied for InterVarsity staff last August, the application process required me to submit an initial prospect list of 100 giving units – individuals, couples, families or churches.  My MPD coach (Ministry Partner Development) urged me to expand my list and prioritize it.  I plunged into contact work starting the second week of March.

As of today (June 30th) after 40 asks I’ve been able to raise $44,517.  19 giving partners have sent donations and or pledged monthly amounts.  Another 17 are in process – looking at their budget to see how they can help.  The strategy is to find a combination of monthly sustaining gifts as well as larger annual or one time donations.

I’ve been extremely encouraged with the response.  Progress is being made toward full budget at about 10% per month!  Thank you so much for your incredible partnership.  InterVarsity will allow me to begin using funds for salary when I’m at 70%.  Pray for me to keep making progress – my hope is  to be at 70% by October and at full budget by year’s end!  Stay tuned via perryboilerroom.com on WordPress!

http://givetoiv.org/timperry

So here’s a look at my life and family – timeline below.  Places we’ve lived.  Kids, parents, weddings.  School (a big deal with the Perrys).  And work.

Cheryl and I met in college – I first saw her and heard that delightful, raspy St. Pierre voice at a prayer meeting of all places!  We were in InterVarsity together but didn’t know it till we went to the same meeting (IV was a big group spread out all over Illinois’ huge campus).  I kept hearing that “Cheryl St. Pierre is moving to our side of the campus.”  Intrigued!  I must confess I don’t remember a thing that we prayed for that day in the meeting.  But I remember Cheryl!  No one who meets this lady ever forgets her incredible smile.  After 29 years of marriage to me – she still has that same incredible smile.  “She smiles so much, with so much of her face… even her eyes smile.”  That’s what my mom said after meeting Cheryl.

Perry Timeline

State Farm or Mutual of Omaha?

“Just like a good neighbor… State Farm is there.”  Remember that one?  The two towns my family has spent the most time in are home to these two insurance giants.  If you ask someone “Hey, what city is home to the insurance company Mutual of Omaha?” its a bad joke – like “What date is the 4th of July celebrated on?”  But far fewer people know that Bloomington Illinois is home to State Farm Insurance.  Cheryl and I spent 14 years of our child-raising life in Normal, Illinois (twin city to Bloomington).  22 Briarwood was home to the Perry kids as well as Dawntreader Academy.  Dawntreader was the name we gave Cheryl’s homeschool.  Cheryl graduated her first student about 6 months after we moved to Omaha.  Perry kids graduating from Dawntreader went straight to Omaha Central High School, one of Omaha’s biggest, oldest, most diverse schools.  Aaron and Phoebe loved Central.  Central loved my kids well, investing in their gifts for learning.  Phoebe just graduated from UMKC in Dance.  Aaron and Savannah are graduates of University of Illinois.  Aaron is currently working on his PhD in Aerospace Engineering.  Silas just finished his first year at Central High – the third Perry to have Mr. Wilson for Honors US History (a very big deal believe me).

The guild or the factory?

I’ve done two kinds of ministry work.  If you compare ministry to guitar-making (bear with me here) there are luthier guilds, and then there are guitar factories.  InterVarsity is a ministry guild.  Christ Community (and other large, commercial-esque churches) are ministry factories. 

A craftsman’s guild is a network of individual builders.  Here’s a brief list you’ll find at the Guild of American Luthiers.   Plenty of them!  Probably not many names even most guitar players would recognize.  All of them, incredible artists with mad skills!  Of course factory employees are also skilled – machines can’t do everything.  But on the whole, a custom built guitar will have multiple times the energy, creativity, skill, attention to detail, and dare I say passion invested in it.  The materials used will be painstakingly hand-selected.  

I once got the chance to meet a world-class builder in Holland, Michigan – Del Langenjans.  At the time I was putting together an instrument from a kit – an Appalachian lap dulcimer.  It was so inspiring to have this guy show me an instrument he was working on and give me a couple of random scraps of advice.  Del would produce incredible guitars – just a handful of them a year.  Very, very expensive.  North of $4K on the lower end.

By comparison, you can have this starter guitar made by “Fender” in a factory in Guangzhou, China for $119.  Your average guitar factory worker in China makes roughly $1,000 per year (yup, per YEAR) and works on a production floor that makes hundreds of guitars per shift.  If you’re as much of a guitar freak as me, you’ll find these two articles on the global starter guitar market of interest: 

Guitar making in China, Indonesia, Korea and Japan by George Gruhn

Are guitars made in China of comparable quality?

From my 3 decades of ministry experience, guild ministry versus commercial ministry is just about as stark a comparison.  Mega-churches can be a matter of 3,000 to 10,000 or more people in a single ministry environment per week.  The guild… could be a tiny church of barely 100 participants or a parachurch group working with 3,000 people spread out over three states at 75 different locations.  Numbers, budgets, and goals are important to smaller churches and parachurch organizations to be sure.  But the guild will just never be economically driven the way the mega church typically is.  Great people with mad skills lead commercial churches.  Great people with mad skills also lead guild ministries.

Commercial churches do “make a good product” if you want to put it in those terms – the volume of good quality is undeniable.  I wouldn’t say that if it weren’t my own experience from the past 10+ years.  Yet, the mega-church alone isn’t enough.  The mission of Jesus will move ahead best with church and parachurch working well together.  As I return to the environment of the ministry guild, I’m eager to regain a sense of artisan camaraderie in my work.  We’ll see how this chapter plays out.  Time to dig out all those sharp knives and clamps I used to be so familiar with.

I’m so grateful I have a terrific wife and brilliant kids.  Silas – thanks for helping me find Piktochart!  I knew infographs weren’t exactly rocket science, but was having a lot of trouble finding a free tool I could use.  Silas uses Piktochart all the time in school.

I’ll let the graphs do the talking.  The update at the bottom is also in this post below the graph.  I’ll post more about my work later, but for now to the uninitiated, I am a new (not really) staff member with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  I began my provisional appointment with GFM (Graduate Faculty Ministries) back in March.  Before I can fully engage my job description as a staff manager, I need to recruit the resources for my first year’s budget.  Here’s how it’s going so far.

When I first applied for InterVarsity staff last August, the application process required me to submit an initial prospect list of 100 giving units – individuals, couples, families or churches.  My MPD coach (Ministry Partner Development) urged me to expand my list and prioritize it.  I plunged into contact work starting the second week of March.

As of today (June 9th) after 37 asks I’ve been able to raise $30,517.  17 giving partners have sent donations and or pledged monthly amounts.  Another 17 are in process – looking at their budget to see how they can help.  The strategy is to find a combination of monthly, sustaining gifts as well as larger, annual or one-time donations.

I’ve been extremely encouraged with the response.  Progress is being made toward full budget at about 10% per month!  Thank you so much for your incredible partnership.  InterVarsity will allow me to begin using funds for salary when I’m at 70%.  Pray for me to keep making progress – my hope is  to be at 70% by October and at full budget by year’s end!  Stay tuned via perryboilerroom.com on WordPress!

Need the link that goes to my support page at InterVarsity?  http://givetoiv.org/timperry

 

My family and I live in an incredible 1929 arts & crafts brick home in Dundee.  It’s a small castle.  Eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, the booth, the computer room, the DDR room (don’t ask), the creepy room (I said, don’t ask) and the boiler room.  The boiler room is where I hang out with our water heater and our Peerless Cast Iron whole-house boiler.  It’s a space that’s 8 ft X 14 ft.  Its also home to my desk and a few bookshelves.

Boilers are great because they’re always tucked away in the basement where they burn like a blast-furnace.  Bertha (my name for our Peerless unit) ignites on cold winter mornings, bossed to life by the thermostat on the main floor.  The sound is a deep whooosh capped off by a polite explosion.  “Nice!  Bertha’s awake- everything’s going warm up in 15 minutes.”

My hope is that perryboilerroom (PBR) will become like Bertha to its reader.  Maybe not exactly where you want to be sitting when she ignites, but a source of much needed heat in an otherwise cold, lifeless space.  I don’t mean warm in a sentimental way.  Sentimental warmth comes from things like vanilla sugar candles, your pet cat warming your chair up for you or (dare I mention) a freshly filled diaper!  Try heating your house with any of those things on a Midwest winter day!  Sentimentality isn’t what boiler rooms deliver.  I want PBR to bring some heat!  Too hot to touch at its source, but just right once it bathes the innards of your cast iron radiators.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot.  Would that you were either cold or hot!  So because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out…”

This summer my plan is to give you some back story on my life and family.  I’ve also started a new job – details in the next post.  I’m currently recruiting sponsors for my work.  My hope is that each one will track with their investment here at PBR.  Let’s light this thing and see what happens!