Well, the Lillies are back from South Korea. My son, his wife and their son arrived home on Saturday afternoon with no mishaps, except the loss of their stroller. My daughter-in-law managed to keep my grandson entertained with the people movers while my son tried to find out what happened to said stroller.
We have spent the last few days, catching up, looking at pictures, and doing some small business errands while Joe and his family recuperate from Jet lag.
I need to deadhead the Lilys in the gardens. It is an easy job.
Sometimes, I get overwhelmed by the scores of easy jobs that seem to exist in my world.
Do you ever get overwhelmed not by the difficulty of the work but by the sheer amount of easy work there is to do?
8:30 PM at the Vicarage. It is Compline
The kids and grandkids came over last evening. We took a walk to the playground with the kids and while the girls were sliding and climbing my daughter Melanie and I had a conversation about singing. I can’t sing like I used to. I am out of singing shape and my voice doesn’t obey me as it once did.
There was a time when I sang for a living. The congregation expected me to carry its song, and my bosses (the lead pastors) were expected to carry the vision. The song serves the vision and in a perfect world breathes life into the vision so the people are inspired to follow the vision’s path. I guess that is a little heady, but it is a good metaphorical explanation about the place of worship in a church congregation.
I am no longer the worship leader. I am the lead pastor. I now carry the vision and the song is carried by others.
Jody Clapp, our lead worship director and a deacon in the church
Melanie Franklin one of our worship leaders
Patrick Cortiss one of our worship leaders and an assistant at the Worship Room.
Jon Bauver one of our worship leaders and the director of the Worship Room. I am glad for those God has commissioned to carry the song now.
I recently watched a documentary on the addictive nature of social media called THE SOCIAL DILEMMA
It raised a lot of questions in my own heart about how I am using time OR if it is even me using my time or perhaps Social Media is using my time for me.
I have begun making adjustments since watching this show.I have decided I will stop scrolling. I will use messenger for communication only. I will create my articles and videos and do a certain amount of reading based in targeted building of my own platform.
You know what? The whole bell “ding” thing described in the documentary is real! As soon as I put my phone away for a half a day and stopped watching Youtube and Facebook videos, I started hearing the “dings” of articles coming up that I “must watch”.
Has that always happened and I just didn’t notice it before? Or is my phone’s AI “intentionally” trying to drag me back to it? Either way…. I am a little freaked out by how I have been trained like Pavlov’s dog to respond to a bell on my phone and start scrolling again as soon as I hear the “ding”.
Have you seen the video? What do you think?
It is almost here! In just a few short days Joe and his family will be here. We are almost ready.
The screen tents came in this weekend. Melanie and James came to help me set one up.
I also was able to set up the solar fountain for the bird bath.
I have a few random updates for you from The Vicarage today.
For Christmas last year, I bought my mother a subscription to the Storyworth App. I haven’t written much about it these last few months because I sort of fell off the story making wagon. But we have gotten back to it these last few weeks. I have been listening to stories about Mom’s first boss, Josephine Martin, and about how she got her first car. As with most things with Mom these days the stories come in small bits and pieces which I have to put together like a puzzle at the end, but that is half the fun really.
Yesterday I got the new mower set up and running.
It is so quiet. I love the fact that it is electric.
I did the front and side lawns last night. Those are my mowing boots.
Even Amanda got into the fun today. She doesn’t have mowing boots.
We are working hard to get ready for the arrival of Joe, Kristine and Sevy in just fourteen more days. I even bought three easy ups for use as family comes in to say hello to the returning Lillies.
Today the sky is extremely hazy and humid. According to our phone apps this is all due to the fires up in Canada.
I have been awakening in the middle of the night these last several night with severe muscle aches and headaches. I had to get up to take Motrin and stretch at 3 A.M. this morning. I didn’t even consider the cause, until breakfast, when my daughter asked if I have been sleeping with my window open.
Well that’s all for today. It is time for me to spend some time practicing tomorrow’s sermon.
I love what I do and I love the way I am doing it now.
Getting here has been a life’s journey. I have always felt called to this thing called ministry (well since I was twelve anyway). The calling is necessary. The calling keeps you going when you don’t love what you’re doing or the way you’re doing it.
Honestly, there have been many times I have not loved the ministry. There have been even more times when I did not love the way I was doing ministry. I thought about giving it up more than once. I even tried it a couple of times. The calling did it’s job and called me back.
I’ve had jobs before. I’ve even had what I would consider careers before. The ministry is not either of those things and I guess it’s both. It is a calling. It has a job component and it consumes more than enough time and energy to qualify as a career. Still, there is more to it more than job, more than a career. Ministry has an element of destiny attached to it, a hope a predestined future.It’s not a fate you can’t escape, but a direction you shouldn’t try to escape.
I have embraced the call, I have made peace with the call, I have come to love the call.
Ministry is my call, my destiny. What is yours?
The sky has been dark with clouds all day. At nine this morning I was turning on the lights in the house against the twilight. The thunder has been sounding in the distance and rain has been washing the flowers and streets throughout the day.
I was planning on working outside today. Instead I have been getting extra pages written and extra pages read and extra ideas studied and extra prayers prayed. Every day has advantages. They just need to be found, accepted and exploited.
Notes From the Vicarage 