- The offer for our house was ridiculous…so much so that we didn’t even give a counter offer.
- The house had another showing yesterday and will have another at noon today.
- My meeting for small groups went very well and some of you will be contacted soon about hosting a group in your home for 6 weeks. This is a great and easy opportunity to serve and give back to others. I’ll post later in the week more of what I’m talking about.
- The staff Christmas party was a nice time of being able to hang-out with the rest of the staff and their families in a casual and relaxed way. I hardly heard any church talk…it was all about getting to know one another better and just chill out.
- As much as we teased him about not doing it, I think we scared Earl from being his normal jolly Christmas self. There were no games and no Christmas songs about the staff members. Again as much as we teased him, I think in some ways we were disappointed that he didn’t do them. Now what will we have to gripe and tease him about?
- Have a great Saturday…get plenty of rest and come prepared tomorrow to worship and have your life changed!
Archives for January 2008
Random Friday Thoughts…
- Our house has been going through showing like crazy.
- Sort of inconvenient to have to leave all the time, but I guess it’s what you have to do if you want to sell it.
- Our realtor is coming over in less than an hour to show us an offer someone has given…didn’t sound to promising though from her phone call…we’ll see.
- Just got home from the church where I have been learning the lighting software. The programmer we’ve had since we moved into the building is no longer going to be able to do it and at least temporarily I need to learn it so I can train someone else.
- He could do a whole set of songs in 1-2 hours…this was my first try and it took me 6+…great just what I needed…more stuff to do.
- Can you tell this is a subtle plug for volunteers to step forward to help. It’s actually not hard…it’s just getting to know where everything is in the software that takes time. Let me know if you;d at least be interested in taking a look at it.
- I’m excited that this week after the Experience we’ll not only have our normal pastor’s reception but we’re also having our monthly pastor’s luncheon as well as baptizing some of our new believers over in the sanctuary.
- It’s not too late to get baptized…if you’ve never done this since you made a decision to ask Jesus for His forgiveness and leadership, let me know and we’ll arrange for you to do it this weekend.
- Tonight I have a brief meeting to go over some planning for our small groups launch in February and then we’re having our staff Christmas party at the Lighthouse Restaurant.
- Pray for us…Earl loves to play Christmas games….and when I say “loves”, I mean HE LOVES TO PLAY CHRISTMAS GAMES.
- He also promised last year that he would write a Christmas song that included all of the staff in it. That could actually be quite entertaining…then the question becomes will he sing it…let’s hope not.
- This weekend should be great…don’t forget to invite someone!
Live Practice Post
I’m standing at the edge of the stage right now listening to the team practice for this week’s Experience…I’m really proud of our crew…they put in tons of practice time at home and then devote another 3-5 hours per week here at the church in practice and actual worship time. They just finished up working out a contemporary version of an old Beatles song that will really help set-up the gist of this week’s message. In case you haven’t done it at all or in awhile, make sure you thank not only the worship team members but all of our volunteers for all they do to make United and CFCOG such an awesome place to worship and serve God in. If you haven’t yet found a place to serve, let me know…there are plenty of opportunities to get involved.
Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them Series
As the week is progressing, I’m getting more and more excited about the new series. I believe that we’ll be talking during these 4 weeks about some issues that really effect us all and how to best solve them. The band is even going to be breaking out a Beatles song this week for you to chew on as we get started. Don’t forget to invite someone to come along!
The Anatomy of a Message
I mentioned on Sunday that I was feeling a bit burned out and somebody joked with me afterwards (and by the way, not the first time I’ve heard this), “How come your so tired? Don’t pastors only work 1 hour per week?” Now I knew this person was joking but I thought maybe you’d like a glimpse into a “normal” week.
First, there is no “normal” week. As much as I try to have a routine, the truth is pastoring is not something you can fit in nicely from 9-5. Also, because I’m so passionate about what I do, I’m constantly thinking about church. Even when watching TV or driving down the road, I’m looking at things or listening to things through the lens of how can this be used to further God’s Kingdom.
Second, my ministry involves much more than just sermon prep. From being the de facto leader of the worship team to creating videos to being the staff’s IT department to meetings with staff, council, ministry leaders and others, the week fills up pretty fast. About 60%-70% of my time goes into thinking about and planning for Sunday’s at the rest goes to the myriad of other things I’m responsible for or volunteer for.
With that said though…here’s what I typically try to accomplish sermon wise each week:
Monday: I’m usually months ahead in at least ideas for sermons and series. For example, right now I have a pretty good idea of what each Sunday will look like up through the end of May. This means that when things are going good, I’m actually praying, studying for, researching and writing sermons a few weeks in advance of when they will actually be presented. So Monday’s are the day that I pull out the message for the up-coming week, review what I’ve previously written, add or change it and basically shape it 95% into what it will look like by the end of the week.
Tuesday: Final tweaks to that week’s message and then I choose what are the key points that I want to highlight on the insert as well as choose the life application questions. At some point during the day the message will be printed out and I’ll read through it.
Wednesday: Another read through of that week’s message and then I’ll get busy preparing and writing for future weeks. Typically I’ll type everything out word for word the way I want to say it. Then even though it’s rough I’ll verbally say it out loud, allowing the Holy Spirit to make course corrections. I will then add these additions or subtractions to the outline and repeat the process again. By now the draft is a pretty good mix of my thoughts, the thoughts of others and what the Holy Spirit spoke to me not only in the run throughs but in the days and weeks leading up to this writing. In other words, right now I know the general direction I’m going with my Easter message and so for the next month I’ll be filtering everything that happens to me or that I see through the “could that somehow tie into that message.” Now multiply that thought process for every message from now through the end of May and you can see why my brain is always thinking.
Thursday: Sort of a light day sermon wise. If I have some extra time I will either start on Friday’s work or continue Wednesday’s.
Friday: By now through the writing, the run throughs, the Monday and Tuesday tweaking and read throughs, the message for the week is sort of a part of me. I will now take it from a fully written out transcript and condense it down to just the main thoughts that can keep me on track in presenting it. Once this is done I will print this “cheat sheet” and verbally run through the message to make sure I didn’t leave anything out or think my memory was better than it is. Any areas I struggled with I will work on until it’s committed to memory. This is all done before noon. From Friday noon until Saturday noon, I try to have my day of rest.
Saturday: I will at least twice more verbally go through the message trying to commit as much of it as possible to memory. The final run through is usually somewhere between 10:30-11:30PM…then I go to bed…I want the message to be the last thing I’m thinking of as I go to sleep.
Sunday: Guess what the first thing is I’m thinking about when I wake up…yep…sometimes I’m actually running through it in my mind as I consciously awaken. As I shower I continue reviewing in my mind the main points, then afterwards I review any problem spots. During my devotions I pray for me and for you and then I don’t think about the message again until it’s actually being delivered. The tech people have the full blown written transcript of what I’ll be saying and usually I’m pretty close to it and occasionally I’ll veer off if the Spirit is leading me to say something else….that’s rare though…I’m of the opinion that the Spirit can speak just as well to me in the months leading up to the message as He can in the moment. The problem with in the moment is, am I sure it was the voice of the Spirit or just my own good thought. So unless I know that I know that I know that God is speaking to me to say something else, I just trust that He already gave me everything in all the prep time that went in.
So there you have it…the anatomy of a sermon…once it’s done…only 168 hours until I have to do it again.