Confessions of a Shiftless Mind

I wrote on this once before, but this week I started getting back into it again. I am a crummy memorizer. But I am really beginning to recognize its importance.

I guess this new line of thought first occurred to me as I was reflecting on my experiencing preaching. It occurred to me if I knew more of the Bible cold, it would make it easier to deliver a message extemporaneously. It is hard to really get excited by reading off a page. On the other hand, if you are speaking from your heart, it becomes much more powerful.

I know this is kind of stupid for me to realize this now. But better late than never eh?

So this week on my walks with Kenzie I have been working on some verses. I am going to type them out - see if I have them here.

2 Corinthians 5:7 - for we walk by faith, not by sight.

Romans 10:9 - because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 8:5-6 - people who live according to the flesh, set their minds on things of the flesh. But people who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit. To live according to the flesh is death, but to live according to the spirit is life.

–checked–

I score myself 90%. The only errors were in Rom 8:6, where it ends with “life and peace“, and instead of “live according to” it was supposed to be “set their minds on”. They are equated in the first verse though, so that is why I was confused.

Now, next project: to catch up on the books of the Bible! I am sitting in on a basic theology class taught by my pastor (because I am supposed to be teaching it), and everyone in the class knows all the books of the Bible in order cold… but me. How embarrassing. I still maintain I could beat any one of them in a game of “Draw Your Swords”!

One thing that is frustrating me a little bit though is my community group. It really feels like I am talking into the air when I talk about spiritual disciplines. I get this feeling from them that they expect their leader to do these things, but can’t imagine doing them themselves. The funny thing is I know at least some of them are doing stuff like what I have talked about, but refuse to allow anyone to hold them accountable for it, or do it as a group thing. I am trying to figure out where I am not leading as I should.

You know, I have talked about how much stuff I have heaped on my plate right now. And I think I am mostly nuts for continuing voluntarily under such a massive burden.

Then the other part of me notices just how much time I waste every single day and says to me, “Is that all?”

However, the last week, plus or minus a couple of days has been… to say the least, hectic. On the 18th, we welcomed Kenzie to the family. That whole weekend was exciting but exhausting as we tried to get her acclimatized. Then the whole next week we were on baby watch. At the same time, I worked in the evenings on the message I had been asked to preach. It wasn’t the way I wanted it until Wednesday, and I didn’t get a chance to go over it with the pastor until Saturday night! Of course, Dannan arrived on Friday, and you can guess what all was going on there.

So, Sunday morning arrives, and I am not quite feeling ready. But you know what? The whole month since they told me, I’ve been leaning on a very soft prop - the understanding that 1. this isn’t my message - it’s God’s; and 2. He’s going to do the bulk of the work in the hearts of the people who hear, so it doesn’t matter a whole lot what I say.

We start back on the 18th. That day I picked up a year and a half-old yellow lab. Getting her acclimatized to us (and vice versa) was a whole exponent of change. Then Friday the 25th, Dannan arrived. Well, the day started much earlier - he arrived in the evening, and I had to knock off from work early (bemoaning that we as a family needed the money I could have made by staying), then go to the airport and pick up the mother-in-law, then be there for the delivery.

Saturday, I enjoyed the day, but by the late afternoon I was definitely starting to get a little edgy about what was to come.

Sunday morning rolled around. The nice thing about the way our church is structured is the first service is all the “core people”. The people who have been around from the beginning, that I know really well. So I could be a little more comfortable. I managed to get through it, though in retrospect I was in such a state of nerves that I didn’t get to be as natural as I could have been. Not a lot of joking around.

I spoke on John 4 - the woman at the well. I tried to camp out on who this was, how much of a lonely outsider she was, and what it meant that this Jew, sitting at the well, was even willing to talk with her, let alone offer her not only knowledge of the Messiah, but a chance at complete restoration in the eyes of God.

It is amazing to me, (on a completely different note), that people accuse Christianity of being anti-feminist. I mean, Jesus was there to bring his message to the Jews, not to anyone else. It was his purpose to prepare the Jews to spread his favour to the world. But yet, early in the Gospel of John, he’s exhausted, and stuck in “pagan” Samaria. He encounters a woman, is given insight by the Father into her sinful life, but loves her and tells her the best news the world has ever seen. It is amazing too in this context, his disciples themselves have done next to nothing to spread the word about Jesus, but this woman brings many in her own town to faith. She was a disciple of Jesus to Samaria, and a successful one. You think of this story, then you think of who it was who Jesus first appeared to after his resurrection (Mary Magdalene), and you see a pattern of trust and faith he had in women and their gifts.

Are they the same as men? I don’t think anyone except hopelessly deluded hyper-feminists claim that men and women are really the same. I think Jesus needed the 12 to be men because of their unique purpose in establishing his church. By the same token, other roles talked about the Bible that are ascribed as specifically to men, are ascribed that way because of the way men are, and what the purpose of those roles are. It doesn’t denigrate women - it recognizes their unique qualities and plays to their strengths.

And there is always room for the exception. There always are, which is why I definitely do not get dogmatic on points like this.

Update: if you would care to listen to my efforts, you can listen here.

Thanks to all of you who have wished us well on the baby front.  Mother and child are doing great.  Cheryl is very happy with her rate of recovery - she’s feeling much better and the afterpains aren’t as intense as last time.

Little Dannan (I am thinking of nicknaming him Taser - his middle name is Taylor and I like sticking “s” on things… Taylor -> Tay for short -> Tays with the “s” -> Taser like a nickname… we’ll see how well that goes over with my wife…)  is such a cuddlebug.  He’s happy to get snuggles all the time.  I had a nap with him for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, then I realized just how much he was sleeping so I decided to try and wake him up.  We played look around the room for a good hour after that.  My MIL Judy got some good snaps of him with his eyes open.

Her mother flying in Friday afternoon has been a huge help to us.  Thanks also to everyone from church who has been bringing us dinners to take the load off.

Mummy and baby and Nanna are off to a shower tonight, so that will be their first outing.   The older boys and myself will be hanging out with another banished man or two as the women gather to dote on the new baby.  I wish I could afford to take a little more time off but I am back to work today to start paying some more bills.

8:15pm Dannan popped into the world with a yell. He immediately commenced snuggling with Mommy, and then relieved himself. Apparently he had been holding it for 9 months.

7 lbs 10 oz, 21″.

I am at home now, my wife called me home from work at 7:30 am… not much to report, but when things start seriously, I probably won’t be blogging.  Still, anyone who watches my blog or facebook will know.

I suppose I am not the first person to try holding down a 40 hour a week job, finish a master’s at seminary part time, take an active role in the leadership of a church plant, and raise 3 (almost 4) kids, a dog and 2 cats.

But sometimes it feels like it.

For the moment though, I am feeling slightly euphoric. I knocked off a draft of my sermon last night, to be preached this Sunday. If you read this on my blog or on facebook, you are invited to attend if you live close enough to get to my church (Strawberry Hill Odeon in Surrey). I’d love to have some good friends heckling my first attempt to pass on a message to the people publicly.

It is hard to get too high though, as I have to get my second draft done for my grad essay proposal at seminary ASAP. It is probably 90% done, but as you might guess, there’s a lot of other things demanding my attention right now. On the bright side of that task, I have been contacting more people in the field of study I am working on and have received some valuable replies. I am still very hopeful that the subject is doable.

Oh, in case you were wondering, my subject area of exploration is “Issues in Church Planting in the Resort Community Context”. I want to find out what the major issues are in this type of community and how it differs from urban or suburban planting, or even rural or small town planting. I also want to survey current academic thought to come up with some fresh approaches to addressing these problems.

Enjoy.  Lots of good reads there.

I find such displays to be inspiring.  It makes me want to blog more.  To think that one day, if I take this seriously enough, and have something to say, I might get noticed.

That moment of self-centred-ness was brought to you by my humanity.

I didn’t sleep much at all Friday night.

Didn’t get much sympathy though, from my wife as while I put up with a dog kicking and scratching on my bed, she was putting up with an unborn child kicking and scratching from the inside, keeping her up.

Yes, Kenzie was so excited to be at our house that she stayed up pretty much all night Friday night.  My wife fled downstairs to get what little sleep she could, and that put be behind for Saturday.

Still, we made it through Saturday.   It was Sunday that I truly paid the price for lack of sleep.  I had very short nerves.

Kenzie is having a blast.  She is getting to play with kids and frolic and run and terrorize cats.  A female dog dry humping one of the boys was one of the odder exhibitions of overexcitement (female dogs don’t mount!!!) but luckily that was broken up.  A crackdown ensured at dinner time last night as my youngest figured out that the dog likes people dinners much more than he does.  The boy was disciplined - the dog wasn’t (though later that night I caught her putting her paws up on the kitchen table - she knew it was bad and bolted when she was caught!)

I think she is doing some boundary testing right now.  It is evident that she has been trained in a lot of things, but she seems good at ignoring much of it right now.  The “Quiet” command doesn’t work well when she is barking at a cat.  Walking her, she isn’t much for walking at your side - she pulls a lot and stops suddenly to explore every scent (typical doggy behaviour) but she’s been allegedly trained to not do that…

On the other hand she does toilet on command, and other than stealing cat food, she doesn’t eat her food until she is told to.  She will just sit staring at her food dish until we tell her to eat.

Ah, adventures with a new pet.

She has arrived and the boys love her. Aydan especially. She seems to prefer me, as she got quite upset when I went off to Wal-Mart earlier today to get her a bed. Of course, it may have had something to do with the fact that she stayed in our room last night. She kept on hopping on and off the bed and would not settle to go to sleep. Finally Cheryl fled downstairs and I was left with the dog.

I am exhausted, and I can’t believe the dog still has energy.Hopefully the dog bed helps tonight. And we’re going to give her a bath tonight, to make sure she doesn’t have any hives from stress or anything. She was scratching like crazy last night, but we think it was nerves. She hasn’t scratched nearly as much today.

I am not sure what spurred me to google “pet bear” but this man is who came up.  The dude has kept a pet black bear since it was a cub - it had its claws removed for whatever reason, and they couldn’t release it to the wild, so he adopted it.  An astonishing story.

What was perhaps more astonishing was the record of his journey in 1998, driving from Montana to Tierra Del Fuego - that’s right.  Cape Horn, Argentina - the southernmost point of land a human can get to that isn’t Antarctica.

I’ve always dreamed of travelling to Argentina and Chile.  Driving there - that is beyond cool.  That is perhaps the most interesting journey I can conceive of.