Lost in the Busyness

Last week was a busy week. Not only did we have Good Friday and Easter, I had a funeral to do on Thursday. The thing that I found out was that it was really busy. But I tried to make sure that I didnt get lost in the busyness of the week. It would have been very easy to get lost in making all those sermons and planning the worship services.

I am extremely thankful for people who are willing and able to help during a busy week. There is one person who really helped me with the planning of the Good Friday service as well as Easter. It was a relief to be able to sit with her and plan the service. It took a major weight off my shoulders. As a result I was able to enjoy the worship services on Good Friday and Easter and not be too stressed out about them. These are highlights of the Church year and to get lost in the busyness of it all would be a shame. It was great to hear the story of how Christ was crucified for our sins and then on the Third day he rose from the grave! A story that we hear each year, but yet never gets old!

I was thinking that I am probably not the only person who felt overwhelmed with how much was going on. A lot of people have big Easter celebrations. Many people get stressed out over these things. I am sure they too could have felt lost in the busyness. I hope that they too were able enjoy the special day and that they were able to remember why we celebrate this each year.

Exciting News

For those who read this, (I dont know who reads this generally), but you notice I dont post on Sunday's because generally I am too busy, tired, etc. But, my wife and I wanted to be able to share our exciting news with everyone. So, I thought it would be good to write this today.

My wife and I are expecting our first baby in October 2009. We are really excited about this, but also nervous as it is a major adjustment. That along with the fact we dont have our families near us. That is one of the hardest things about this, but know that our church supports us in all things. Anyway, that is our exciting news, I would love to hear any comments you migt have. Thanks

Work or Play?

One of the interesting things about ministry is that sometimes the line between work and play can become very fuzzy, if there is a line at all I wonder sometimes. For example, each week we play volleyball at the local school. Generally it is all people from church who play. Now the question I ask is: "Is this work, or is this play?" One that I have no real answer for.

Another example in ministry is our monthly gatherings of local pastors and spouses, (if they can make it, since a lot have other jobs.) We meet once a month on a Monday at someone's house, and then go for lunch. Usually it is a nice time of talking and also a time of prayer with each other. So, is this work or is this play? Monday's are usually my day off, so should I attend this on my day off, or is this outside of work?

Another little example is going to the Christian school spring program. Is that work or play? The reason I ask that is, would I go if I wasnt the pastor and there are 8-10 kids from church in it?

Another example is playing basketball on Wednesday nights. I go and play pick up ball with a bunch of random people, generally the same crowd. For the most part they dont know what I do. There is another pastor who organizes it each week. It is great to get to know these guys and talk with them about what is going on in their lives, but they dont go to our church, is it work or play? But if I take members from church, or meet people there from church, is it work or play?

And then another example from yesterday. I was supposed to go skiing with my wife and someone from church, but then I hurt my ankle and cant ski. So, I was going to get some more work done. My wife was going to play cards with somoene, and her husband asked what I was going to do. He called and asked if I wanted to go and shoot some gophers as he had to go to see his bees. We spent quite a bit of time shooting gophers in the field. Then went to his bees and we had to dig out some pallets of bees. There was a lot of snow around them and so we had to get at some of the pallets. I could only do a little since my ankle is hurt. I helped him with treating the bees and then we went back to shooting gophers on the way home. Is this work or play? Especially since we could talk all the way too and from the bees.

In general, I guess almost anything I do, could be considered work. The way I look at it, we are all called to be Christians at all times. Sure my job is a pastor, so then I should be who I am at all times. But those who call themselves Christians should also be who they are at all times. They should also represent Christ. For many people it is easy to distinguish between work and play. My job makes it a bit harder.

Psalms for Lent

This year for Lent I decided to use Psalms for a Lenten journey from the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship (www.calvin.edu/worship). The psalms that we have looked at so far are: Psalm 1, 34, 32, 91. This week we will look at Psalm 73.

It is amazing to me to read through these psalms. I love the psalms and love to preach the psalms. Last week I was able to read a sermon on Psalm 91 by Cornelius Plantinga Jr, which was simply amazing. It made it that much more difficult to write my own, because his was so good.

As I have been preparing these sermons, I am realizing how much I love the psalms. The biggest theme that we covered last week was that the Lord is in fact our Refuge. This phrase is a phrase that is often times over used in our world. It has become a quainte cliche that people use. But really, if we think of the image Psalm 91 gives us, it talks about complete coverage. It does seem to paint a pretty optimistic picture, some would question if it is reality or not. But the main point is that God is able to completely cover us.

As we celebrate lent we prepare ourselves to remember what Christ did for us on the cross. He is able to completely cover us and protect us because he spread his arms out for us. He took the pain so we dont have to. As long as we acknowledge him and fear him, he will protect us. What an amazing promise. It has just been a good reminder for me this year during lent.

Still learning

Yesterday I was able to go and enjoy the outdoors again. There had been some real warm weather recently, but also some new snow on Sunday, so I thought it would be great to go skiing again. I drove up to the mountain with some snow in the morning. I got to the ski hill and no one was there. It was awesome. Skiing on Mondays are perfect, no one is there.

As I am still learning, I decided to take another lesson. This time I had the director of the snow school. He had seen me each time sign up, so he took me himself, and he asked how far I have come. He then told me, we are getting you to ski parallel today. We are getting rid of the snow plow. Well, It took some work, and I finally feel like I am starting to get the hang of it. It was such a nice day. He made me go faster than I had gone before, he wanted me to feel the speed to get used to it. It really seemed to help.

I hope to go again next week, and maybe take one more lesson for the year. Hopefully there will still be some good snow. It was really great to be in the Mountains again, it is so awesome there. Anyway, it is coming along. Still no expert though.

More thoughts on the trip

This past Sunday our group from the Dominican trip was able to give a presentation in church. We had a brief slideshow followed by members of the group talking about their experience. I thought it was really great to hear what people had to say. Each person learned something different. We all experienced the same thing, but we all experienced it differently. It was really fun going through the pictures and remembering all that we had done. Hearing people describe it too, brought back good memories.

I was really pleased to talk to a couple different people who told me how the trip impacted them. It is amazing how 10 days on a trip like this can really have an impact. I think it is a great experience for people to have, but especially people who have never left home, or far from it anyway.

Like I said before, it was a great experience, it challenged me more than I realize sometimes. It really causes one to think about all the blessings that we have and how often times we take everything for granted. I would encourage anyone to go on a trip like this if they are able to.

Trip - Day 10, Feb 20

Short night with not that great of sleep. 6:00 am the alarm goes off, a.k.k Jerry knocking on our door. Pack up and head to the airport. Mano drove us in his van, whoa what an experience. Our first flight left at 10:00 to San Juan. So we had breakfast, with Duane helping everyone order one last time. We said goodbye and off we went. Everything went fine on that flight. We cleared customs in Puerto Rico, we quickly grabbed something to eat. The next flight was scheduled for 12:45 left at 1:15. No problems as we arrived in Dallas a few minutes late. After a nice meal at T.G.I. Fridays we wait again as our plane is a bit late. It will be a late night again.

As I am flying, I finished the second book of the trip and try to sleep. It just isn't working. As I sit here I begin to reflect on the trip even more. I begin to think about the questions Kyndra asked me, "So, did you enjoy it?" This will be a question I am sure I will be asked a lot. The easy answer is yes, I really enjoyed it. The hard thing to do in my mind at least, is to answer - why? What about the trip really made it enjoyable? As I think about this more, I think it really has to do with the fact I can truly see what Paul is talking about in Galatians 4:26-28, we are all "one in Christ Jesus." We spent a lot of time talking about how in our culture, money talks. When frustrations ariseon the jobsite, it is easy for us rich North Americans to want to buy our way out of those frustrations. What I mean by that is that we can buy more supplies, we can buy more equipment, etc. But is this the right thing to do is the real question.

This trip has stretched me. I feel I was blessed in my upbringing of having a lot of diversity around me in the suburbs of Los Angeles. But this trip got me out of my little bubble that I was comfortable in. This trip allowed me to see brothers and sisters in Christ in a whole new way. Often times we can become complacent, comfortable in our faith, in our way of doing things. This trip has helped me to see how passionate people are for the Lord even though it appears as if they dont have anything.

The question I posed to the group is: "What can we take home from this experience?" Does this change how we live? Or do we jump back into our materialistic mindset and culture? Or do we challenge that mindset, do we challenge our families and friends who have this mindset?

The thing I wonder about is how do we as a group, or me specifically as a pastor, challenge our church to see as a reality we are in fact one. That even though there are differences in culture, race, skin color, worship styles, etc, that we all worship the same Lord. This trip sort of reminded me that in North America we are very self-centered in everything we do. If worship doesn't meet my needs I will find a church that does. But we are putting the focus on ourselves rather than on God. At their church service, we were like honored guests. How do we treat others in our churches? We are one, but we tend to put our needs first in North America.

I definitely learned a lot on this trip. I am glad I went. I am sure I will add more thoughts in the days and weeks ahead. I hope to have the group over and talk about these things again in a few weeks.