and it hurts a little sometimes to have to remember and confess that I am not in ministry because I am a world-changing leader, solely-gifted musician, or heart-piercing teacher (through God I can be any of those things, but not alone). Matter of fact I swear it seems that every time I miss a Sunday God shows up more than the weeks before, and people are blowing water out their face faster than the Hoover Dam. But this ain’t about me. Honestly I have to accept that other leaders (Sarah and John) are extremely gifted when it comes to certain things. Specifically Sarah and her special songs, jeesh. She has a talent for picking songs that fit her perfect and just smash your heart to pieces. She’s a beautiful singer, and God has really gifted her for worship. Sarah and John continue to teach me not to judge a song by its….. well, anything. They are naturally gifted is what I am trying to say, and I am very thankful for their calling and giftings. I strive to continually learn from them and others who have naturally what I have to learn.
is tomorrow, but literally minutes away. Please pray that I will die of hunger…… the flesh of course.
Tonight, at church, we had our first message study group where a few people sit with Pastor Michael and study out his messages with Him. I must say it was inspiring, and sharpening. I think everyone should do it with some friends. We, realistically, are handicapped ministers (everyone) without a good understanding of God’s word, and man it is FUN getting into the bible, historically and spiritually.
We have the real task of finding ways to present people with the word of God weekly and do it in such a way as to provoke change, or at least plant a seed.
I learned that A.D. means “Anno Domini” and does not stand for “after death” but signifies the BIRTH of Christ. That’s awesome. Steven was martyred somewhere around 33 A.D. In that same year the bible calls Saul/Paul a young man. Interesting. Does that mean he was just over 30 or almost 30? If he was 30, that puts him around 60 when he writes Romans. That dude loved God.
and yet hate technology. Twitter.com is so great yet so completely time consuming and potentially useless. I have set up, for the second time, a twitter account, so please check it out @ twitter.com/scottjunior or just grab the link to your right. Again it’s pretty cool to see what goes on in others lives as long as it makes sense. A lot of twitter accounts I see are referencing things that are either out of context or completely random.
“Sassy Sue just laid out 5 yellow hamburgers according to historical documentation.”
Huh? Well, mine will hopefully be as awesome and informative as this blog. Cross those fingers.
felt so weird. Almost alien. I only had one sunday off, but jeez I felt like I hadn’t been to church for half a year. It’s not even that though. It’s that for some reason I realized that for the most part people, some we know some we don’t, show up for an hour every sunday, we sing and we talk to them about God, and then those same people go home. I kinda feel like I don’t get it.
I mean, who are we that we get this attention. Like, what are people expecting from us. And boom there it is. That nasty “church” feeling. I just realized what it is. Church isn’t some seminar that you sit through. Church isn’t a lesson on how to be better. Church isn’t a place to go to shake off your sin. I feel like, even if people aren’t necessarily going to church for those reasons, that a lot of people keep others within the church at an arms length. Myself included in being kept at arms length. I saw a bunch of people today that I really do love and care for, but regardless of how we interacted this week my relationship with them will probably be exactly the same next week. I bet that’s true for most people. I want to do whatever I can to make sure I am reaching people. Encouraging, challenging, loving, blessing people all over the place.
Man, church is a believers meeting where we talk about the things of God or who He is. It’s a time of worship that is for God. It’s a place where our shepherd reminds us what the word of God says, and then tells us to man up and do it. Or at least He should say that, and He does one way or another. Yucky, yuck!!! I got that nasty church feeling today. I don’t like it.
How many people are just sitting? Counting time? How many people are out in OUR community that we are called to reach and impact. I want those people. I want to see, interestingly enough, the community become the committed, the committed become the core, and I want the core to get hotter for God. I don’t want to have church, I want to have contact. With God and His people.
to go back to work. I’ve been joking about this with a few people, but now I’m serious, that I wish we could have had a staff meeting right before our vacations so that way what we have to do this next week would have been nailed down and I wouldn’t have spent the last 10 days sweating it out. I’ve been thinking about work when I should have been resting!!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH
Oh well, I’ll be glad to be back to work. Period. However if certain changes were to take place in these next few months (no i cant tell you stop asking)(ok well actually I can say one of them and it’s the daycare opening)(there I told you one so stop asking)(no I really cant tell you the other things)(well really i probably could but there not that secret so you might already know them) then my weeks will be quite different. Even if I get just one more day a week to focus on ministry, like message prep or worship team strategy, it will make a world of difference. And that might be a reality. I’m excited to see what will happen this next year.
I officially just ate my last meal before this 10 day daniel fast. I’m exited and scared. I am not fast to fast. HE HE. This is really a big deal for me; in the area of food sacrifice and the physical/ time sacrifices I will be making for this fast. While most others are going to have a normal 10 days, my life just might be changed coming out of this. I am extremely excited to look back in 11 days and say I did it!!!!!! It will be an accomplishment. Pray for me for strength and for the worship team in this time that we will see the back of God’s head. HE HE again. (If you didn’t catch that refrence read Exodus, around the commandment stuff. Really all we are doing in this time is asking God to reveal Himself to us. That’s it. It better work. The pain, sacrifice, hunger, bleeding (just kidding), seeking, praying better get God’s attention. That’s all we are doing is saying “God, we hung-ry, we frus-rated cuz we want a steak. We want to watch tv or whatever, but aren’t going to. Please hear us.”
God we want MORE OF YOU!!!!!!!!!! That’s the answer to it all. You.
