You know that it has been a good service when, afterwards, the preacher has to clean his own blood up from the floor…
It sounds so much more melodramatic than it actually was. I would love to concoct some great story about how I got into an argument about Supralapsarianism v. Amyraldism, which lead to a fist fight, but I’d be lying. The real story is so much less dramatic or cool.
At “The New Angle”, the congregation that I now pastor, we have the first half of our service (usually made up of singing, prayer, a special spot of some kind, and sharing time… but not always all of them), then we have some supper & chat for a while. During this time I ended up going outside in the drizzle with a couple of the kids, because they wanted to see how I can spit a grape & then catch it again in my mouth (a must-have trick, in my humble estimation *1 ). Anyway, this then moved on to “how far can we throw a grape that Tim can catch?” and while I was picking up a grape from the ground, a little leech must have grabbed onto me.
It turns out that Shona noticed it just as I was about to start my Sermon*2. She didn’t want to interrupt me, just in case I was feeling the flow, so she let the little sucker keep on drinking over the next 20 or so minutes.
the first I found out about it was when Greg, sitting next to me, told me after the sermon, by which time I had bumped it off with my other foot & there was blood all over the hall-floor. Anyway, it did make me worry that any interested look that I received during the sermon could have been because of the extraction that was happening on my person at the time.
In other news… I am not sure what the other news is. Just plugging along.
Dan & Harriet (two good friends from college, who will be working down the road at Kincumber) get back from the Middle East on Friday morning, so I’ll be going down to Sydney to pick them up at 7 something on Friday. Praise God for family. P&K have let me stay at their place, which will make the travel that much easier in the morning.
Oh, yeah, for those who pray…
Praise points
I really enjoyed having a meal with parishioners last night & the Ash Wednesday service this morning. Some aspects of church are quite foreign to me up here, but much of it is very encouraging.
Shona had a conference on Mon/Tuesday, which means I have her home for the rest of the week!
Prayer Points
Continue to pray for Shona as she looks for some part-time work.
Pray for me as I get ready for my first Youth Group on friday night.
Pray that I might be bold in calling people up to meet & stuff. I am a bit shy when it comes to calling people I don’t know well (embarrassing for a 32 year old guy, I know)
————————————-
*1 The only trick that outdoes that (not true, there are a thousand, but this is my favourite) is Sam Chan’s ability to play two recorders at the same time, using his nose as the wind-source!
*2 Romans 10:9-15. I really focussed on 10:9, looking at the Simplicity of the Christian message. The beautiful simplicity should be a great comfort to the Christian, but all too often it leads us to consternation. I think we all want things to be more complicated. Surely we have something to bring to the table? Surely I am actually earning some of my salvation? No, even the faith that I exercise is a gift from God! (Eph 2:8-9)
Still, as I prepared, I was struck by my/our need to constantly ask myself how I am transferring my belief from being a noun to a verb? How am I acting out my faith. I think Paul certainly had public confession of our faith as a way of living our beliefs, hence the placement of v.14-15 after the 9-13 section.
Anyway, that’s just a couple of my thoughts. I was challenged by Justin & Tubeo posting stuff before. Partly I have felt embarrassed to do so. Surely I’ll just get picked apart.