So I have a new nickname at work. My boss gives out nicknames to most all of his employees and even though it sounds a little corny it is great having a boss that takes enough time to know who you are, at least well enough, to come up with a legitimate nickname. The Architectural firm I previously worked for was about the size of my current one when I started. I remember playing basketball with the President (now Chairman) and even going to a Gator game with him. He used to really go out of his way to be one of the guys.

As the business grew along with the responsibilities it just wasn’t possible to have that level of relationship. Here they still have that family environment and even though I am not fully adopted yet getting assigned a nickname was a good start to getting the paperwork completed.

As many of you know I commute 75 miles everyday to work on my motorcycle. Why, you ask? 1. Because they pay me to come to work. 2. Because we only have one car and I don’t make quite enough for two. 3. Because it beats walking. 45. The miles/gallon on my bike. So my nickname last Friday became “Joe Rocket”. I have a Joe Rocket riding jacket so that became “my” brand.

I don’t know if any pastor’s out there got a name tag that says pastor which you put on everyday but I didn’t. I do have a license but I am still waiting for my discount card. So I don’t advertise because it didn’t take me long to realize that the title has a huge impact on the way your life is received. I get the whole microscope thing and that is fine because I am pretty transparent but what I don’t want is for people to stop being real. When people aren’t real it lessons the ability for the pattern of my life as a Christ Follower to contrast their life. Plus they think that I have to do certain things just to keep my Pastor Card so they don’t view the love of Christ as genuine.

So anyways…word got out to my boss this weekend. I don’t know if it was the article in the paper or the sticker on the back of my wife’s car that I had to drive one day because it was raining. Regardless he had visited www.TheInChurch.org and now knows which side of the platform I sit on every Sunday.

So my new nickname is “The Right Reverend Joe Rocket”. I wish I was right a little more and my reverence levels are not up to snuff by a lot of standards but I lived up to the nickname this past weekend.

We closed out our Launch Series in Ephesians Chapter 6 and we spent a majority of the time on the armor of God. I tried to bring some new imagery to the verses by exchanging some Roman soldier gear for Suzuki riding gear. So with riding gear and motorcycle in church with us…yes I said motorcycle…we learned some great lessons on preparing for spiritual warfare and responsible motorcycle riding. The National Safety Council would have been proud. So the Joe Rocket Jacket became my breatplate of righteousness.

The more important lesson that I learned is no matter how good your digital camera is or it is only as good as the inexpensive little memory card. So I don’t have any pictures but it was a lot of fun, almost as much fun as the topic of Legalism which we are tackling this week.