fun

A Day Off At the Vicarage

/ joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

Sabbath days at the Vicarage come on Wednesdays. One of the things I’ve learned about Sabbath is that the rest that comes with it is really just a change of rhythm.

I spend a lot of time in prayer on Sabbath. That is not different than any other day, but I am not preparing for a ministry work on Wednesdays so the prayer I do on Sabbath is more of a restorative prayer.

I love to start the sabbath with a gentle walk through the gardens.

Again,that is not different than any other day, but the purpose is different. On my sabbath, I walk the garden to notice what is growing, to take time to enjoy the scent of the garden. Every other day of the week I am planning on what job I have to do in the garden.

This morning, I walked the garden with my cell phone as I was talking to Brenda. She enjoyed the garden with me.

I had Sevy with me for the sabbath morning. Again that is not different than any other day. I have been watching him while his mother works at the local community college. Usually my daughter Amanda watches him, but she is recovering from surgery so Sevy has been staying with “Oz” (that’s what the grandkids call me).

Today, Sevy and I went shopping for some new summer shirts, but only after we watched a few episodes of what he calls “Bickey Bouse”

Then we went to one of the local playgrounds.

After picking up my daughter-in-law from work, I went to have fun in the garden.

After some more prayer and a supper of pork Sinagang, white rice and watermelon, the dogs and I are enjoying a cup of coffee while the sun sets.

It was a perfect day off.

What’s your idea of a perfect day off?

DDITW…Well Ok This Actually Came Out Good!

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Here is another episode of “Don’t Do It This Way” With Amanda Lillie. She calls it “Without a recipe”, but as one of her watchers I find myself often shouting at the screen, “No! Don’t do it!”

This time however the results were not that bad. We ate all the dip.

Tune in on Monday at 3P.M. Eastern time for the next DDITW or as Amanda calls it “Without a Recipe”.

DDITW With Amanda( Ice Cream Sundaes)

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It is time for another episode of “Don’t Do It This Way” or as Amanda calls it “Without A Recipe”. This is one of the ways Amanda is keeping our congregation connected during the pandemic.

This was Amanda’s birthday addition. She made ice cream sundaes this week. While she was doing this, I was home making her cakes. I made her two favorite cakes (lemon and carrot) as a consolation for not being able to go to Pennsylvania (which was the plan pre-Covid-19).

Without A Recipe Is Born

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When the shut in was declared we all knew our lives were going to change radically: My life became more cloistered. Brenda was suddenly thrust into the world of Zoom and Facebook meetings. Amanda discovered she was going to be doing a lot of organization, direct ministry and on-line services. She is perhaps the busiest member of the Vicarage now. She still goes into work everyday at the church and she is spending copious amounts of time organizing and administrating long distance ministry.

Every week she creates CD’s for shut ins who do not have on-line access. She planned an Easter Outreach with the help of our Pastor’s wife and then set up the delivery schedule with a team of people from the church. She does daily challenges with her kids to keep them engaged, and every week she also produces two segments for Facebook. Fridays she does her children’s lesson. On Mondays she has begun doing a fun feature called Without a Recipe for kids and parents alike. Here is the first one. I will be posting the others as well, but if you would like to see an episode live you can find her on Facebook live tomorrow at 3 P.M. She will be making Sundaes without a recipe.

J: What Being A Minister Means To Me

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One of the things I hope our little family experiment at the Vicarage reveals is what life is like for ministerial families. I hope we get to give you a glimpse behind the curtain to show you that we are just a real family with all the same struggles everyone else has. Being ministers does not exempt us in any way from the normal trials and tribulations of life. Being a minister doesn’t come with a magic “bless you stick” that makes our trials go away on Sundays.

Being ministers though does indicate that we have embraced a lifestyle that is a bit different from the one most people experience. Our lives as ministers are governed by a call from God through which every job, relationship and schedule gets run. That call often leads us into unique situations like the one above where I had to dress up in this costume and go on stage in front of 1100 teen-agers to help teach a Gospel message.

As ministers we live our lives (or at least are supposed to) by prayer and we walk through our lives by faith (or at least are supposed to). Pastors live in the prophetic realm and are called to listen for the internal spiritual witness of God. That witness, that call can lead us into some crazy, exciting even at times harrowing situations.

The title Prophet has been bandied around about me a lot lately. I am not really big into titles but I know God has been doing something in me for a long time that is definitely prophetic. I feel like this family blog is a part of that prophetic call and I am hoping over the course of the next year to acquaint you more with it. Maybe at the end of this time I will understand more about who I am made to be by God. Maybe at the end of this time you will have come away with a better understanding of ministers, prophets, their lives and maybe even a little bit more of an understanding of who God made you to be.