This week Cee has asked us to have fun with HANDS. Clicking the underlined link can be very “handy” if you want to get to Cee’s site and see all the other hands she has on deck! 😉
My daughter recently had a hand in making some fallow deer very happy at the Southwick Zoo in Mendon MA
This week the Daily Post has asked us to HAVE FUN with the weekly photo challenge.
Here are my examples of fun:
Fun is captured in the moment!
Here are some other samples of fun!
Blending In
I began this series to portray what life is like for a country pastor. So many people think that pastors only work one day a week or on the other end of the spectrum that we are on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Neither of those things is true (however much certain people would like them to be). Church work is work like any other job. There are days I think I work too much, but who doesn’t feel that way.
I get time off. I get vacation. I also work over time. I think the biggest difference between pastors and say accountants is that pastoring is not my job. It is my calling. I work at a church… but I am a pastor. Even if I worked at McDonalds I would be a pastor because that is what God called me to be. My job doesn’t define me. My calling does.
Anyway I am fortunate to be a pastor who (currently at least) works one job and that is at a church.
I think the last time I posted about my “quiet country life”, I was just finishing up worship rehearsal with our second worship team. That was Saturday morning. The ride has been wild and wonderful since then.
Saturday evening I was back at the church to meet with another prayer team to prepare for Sunday morning service. Some people think that prayer is just an endless repetition of requests. But prayer is so much more; It is a divine encounter with the living God. It is a vital soul filling and soul wearying thing. Prayer is work and it is perhaps the greatest work pastors can do!
After prayer I was home and off to bed for service Sunday morning.
I was back in church by 7:15 A.M. for sound check with team one and from there I was in service (we have two on Sunday mornings until 12).
After service I met with the leaders of our worship ministry to go over budgets and schedules for the next quarter.
After that I went home and slept and slept and slept. Monday is my Sabbath!
Today (Tuesday) I was in at 7 to get ready for a wonderful day of meetings.
We met for team prayer at 9 and then staff meeting at 10:15.
Tonight I am meeting with our fall Bible study teachers for training.
I love this life!
Yep! It’s time to SHARE MY WORLD AGAIN! Those of you who read Lillie-Put regularly know that Share Your World is one of the challenges I participate in almost weekly.
For those of you new to Lillie-Put, Share Your World, is a challenge put out by Cee Neuner, a blogger from Portland Oregon. Every week she asks us five questions and in answering them we all share our worlds!
Join in the fun by clicking the underlined link above and sharing your own world with Cee!
Here are this week’s questions and my answers:
If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?
Pizza, most definitely pizza
What is the worst thing you ate this last recently?
I made chicken a week ago. It was so dry it turned to dust in my mouth. Blecch!
You are comfortable doing nothing? For long stretches of time?
I call myself to center down several times a day. Honestly I find it hard to find time to do nothing but the act of coming away from activity to meditate and pray has become an essential part of my attempt at creating effectiveness. That said I am not generally someone who does nothing for long blocks of time. It might be fun to do more of that from time to time.
List of Jobs You Think You Might Enjoy: Even if you aren’t thinking about a career change, it can be fun to think of other jobs you might enjoy.
owner/ manager of a bed & breakfast
monk
professional movie critic
cowboy
archaeologist
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I am grateful I got to talk to all my children and my sister last week . This week I am looking forward to performing the wedding ceremony for two of my former students.
10 A.M. at worship with team rehearsal with team 2. We had a blast!
One of the greatest transitions into the pastor’s life is the realization that weekends are never days off.
This day started as all others in my work room with prayer.
By 8 I was at a pastoral prayer breakfast.
This week the Daily Post has asked us to show WHAT OUR MORNINGS LOOK LIKE.
To me the morning is the reestablishing of a rhythm that was called to a halt with the final good night. It is a return to the slow. constant and intentional meter I marched to the day before. It is a welcoming of routine.
For me, that return to routine starts with a morning walk with my two little friends Jacopo and Mercedes. Mercedes is the one in pink. Jacopo always wears blue.
It is a walk around the same block we visit three times daily. I must have a hundred pictures of this house.
But routine always involves finding a variation on the theme. Everything living changes. This morning we noted Father Mike’s new dog fence at the rectory. As with all new things of course we must express our customary dismay with a healthy bark or two. No worries we didn’t wake up Father Mike or his border collie, Liam. I checked.
After our walk. Jacopo and Mercedes always settle down to breakfast and I settle down to my first cup’o Joe.
With coffee in hand it is time for morning devotions first with this book.
and then with these books.
With life’s rhythm established I am now ready to meet my day!
Here are some other mornings from across the world.
Well not everyday is as busy with meetings as yesterday was. That is a good thing because there needs to be some time to prepare for more meetings and to process the information you have gotten from others.
I got up at 6:30 this morning to get ready and spend some time in private prayer in my work room.
Most of my work today will be done from my office. I have to prep for my second worship rehearsal tomorrow with team 2. I also have to send invites to the upcoming network worship conference to some of the worship pastors in our section. Then I have to prep for the council of churches meeting tomorrow where I have been asked to give an update on a local community project.
At some point I have to prep next week’s sermon and finish up answering and filing the e-mails left over from vacation.
But right now it is time for lunch! Praise God!
Lillie-Put 
