inspiration
Bring Your One Now: Sunday Sermons Cornerstone Church 9-20-20
THIS DAY AT THE VICARAGE 9-20-20
The weekend is finally winding down and returning to a rhythm I can recognize and move with easily. The last two days have been wonderful and busy! But I am glad to be returning to something like slow, constant and intentional as the new week blossoms.
Yesterday’s pace picked up with coffee at Identity Coffee Shop in Rindge New Hampshire at 8:30 A.M.
This is sort of my new go to place for meeting with congregants when I am not visiting in their homes. I met with one of my friends and we chatted about God and grandchildren. Then we both headed off to the rest of our day.
I do a lot of pastoral visitation now. Visitation has always been a part of my ministry, but now aside from prayer this is my ministry. I pray. I write and I meet with people on-line or in person. I am enjoying it even if sometimes I seem to have a hard time keeping it all straight in my head, where I need to be and when I need to be there.
My daughter, Amanda, and I talked about that on the way to pick up my grand-daughter in Lynn MA yesterday. Amanda has this amazing ability to organize and keep things in order. I have trouble wearing the same color socks on any given day (especially if they are colored which is why I usually wear white). Amanda always knows where she needs to be and when she needs to be there. She plans travel time and she plans cushion into all of her work. She reads and retains instructions from instruction manuals and can keep guidelines in her head. I usually end up losing the English directions to things and end up trying to build things from pictures using the Chinese directions five minutes before they have to be assembled. It was a nice ride, and I really got to affirm Amanda in her gifts. She doesn’t often consider what she does as being supernaturally gifted, but she really is.
We got to Lynn and picked up my grand-daughter Dani. I really thought getting her to come with us back to the Vicarage would be harder but she hopped right in the car, kissed her mother good bye and we were on our way with nary a tear.
We stopped at Wendy’s for a late lunch. After that, Dani colored with my mother for a bit. Then we went to pick some flowers and for a walk in the park. We ate pizza for supper and then Dani was pretty well done for the night.
Today was church. Melanie and James came to pick Dani up there and then we celebrated Amanda receiving her license to preach. She is now a fully licensed minister of the Assemblies of God! We had lunch and then the Franklin family got back on the road. A very busy and very wonderful day.
Well tomorrow starts a deep housecleaning because I sensed in prayer this afternoon that The Vicarage has visitors coming…..I have no idea what that means, but I know it is time to prepare.
I am looking forward to tomorrow dear friends!
Pastor J
This Day At the Vicarage 9-16-20
Mom has a Drs. appointment tomorrow with a cardiac specialist.
She is actually pretty nervous. Though of course, she would deny that if you asked her. I can tell she is nervous because today was the day we had to try on her new “Dr’s. Office Clothes”.
Mom hates to wear anything new. I have bought her several new pairs of pants. She likes her old ones. I have bought her several new shirts. She hates them. The problem is, her old clothes have holes in them. They are just worn out. I do not mind her wearing them around the house but I am not letting her out the front door in them. I am certainly not taking her to the Dr’s. in them.
Today I wanted her to try on the new shirt and pants I had for her. The string of obscenities launched at me for that infraction is what let me know she is nervous about the consult. She doesn’t want to hear what she already knows. She doesn’t want to have said to her what she says to us everyday. That is, “She is dying by inches.”
She can confess it she just doesn’t want to have it said back to her. It is that way with a lot of things around here: If we deny the roof is 50 years old maybe it won’t leak; If we don’t go out on the stone porch maybe it will stop crumbling; If we don’t look out the back windows maybe the giant dead maples won’t fall on our house.
I like denial as much as the next guy, but it is no solution to real life problems. Mom is not at a place where she can face the problems on her own. So I am going with her into those problems.
I called the roofers and they fixed the roof. I called the tree guy. Our dead trees are stuck in some town committee, but at least we are in process. There are a bunch of other things to do, but it is not denial that is stopping them from getting done now just a lack of time and cash.
The Dr. may give us a bad report tomorrow. At least we will know what we are dealing with. Then again maybe we will get a line on some treatment for her circulation no one has thought of yet.
This Day At the Vicarage 9-15-20
It has been a busy week at the Vicarage. I guess the pace really picked up last Friday. As Brenda had her first full day at the apple orchard, I performed a funeral and then mowed the lawn at our local art gallery. Meanwhile, Amanda did her on-line children’s church lesson and prepped for Sunday.
Saturday was church clean up day. About twenty of us raked leaves, pulled weeds, dug up saplings and cut down a few bigger trees.
By the time Amanda and I got home from this we both needed Motrin and a nap.
Sunday of course was church. After service one of our congregants had a medical emergency. Thankfully a family from church was able to get her to urgent care. Afterwards, while the family got the lady settled back into her home, Amanda, Brenda and I took a trip to the pharmacy to pick up the meds she needed and brought them to her house.
The last two days I have been out to this dear lady’s home to help her with groceries and banking. Today we went for a follow up to the Dr. The report was that the Dr. wants to check in with her again in another week so…..
I have a feeling a few of us are probably going to be spending a lot of time here in the next few weeks.
In the middle of this time several of my posts have begun to require a bit more time to create. It’s a good thing, but I am finding I am falling behind in my reading of other blogs.
Oh well….Life is all about the seasons. God is the author of each one and we must accept them as they come. It is our job to learn how to utilize the different blessings each season of life provides.
This season is really changing how our church operates as a body. We are deepening the sense of family we have. We are becoming more important to each other. We are learning to be together in new and deeper ways. We are learning what it means to be a people of faith, hope and love.
It seems these lessons should have been learned a long time ago. Maybe the theory has always been there. Now we are being forced to put the theory into practice. It feel like the New TEstament is becoming very real to us right now.
The Lord is doing good things!
I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings Dear Friends.
Pastor J
This Day At the Vicarage 9-10-20
We are just returning from walking the dogs for their last time tonight. The night air is that sloppy mixture of fall moisture and late summer heat that makes the world a clammy box of night time slime. It isn’t raining exactly but the rolling fog leaves me feeling damp and somehow dirty.
We made it just around the first corner tonight when we noted a family walking three dogs: two little ones on leashes and a black lab off leash. Our two boys immediately started barking in the gathering dark. The lab looked up from his meander not taking much interest. Still, neither Brenda nor I were in much of a state to take on a wandering “big dog” should the need arise. We turned around and headed back to the Vicarage. The dogs did their business and are now off to bed.
I think Brenda will not be far behind. She started work at an apple orchard today. The orchard is owned by the nephew of one of our deacons at Cornerstone. His Aunt is doing the scheduling for the orchard. The Aunt has offered part time positions to several people in our church. It is an open door so Brenda has walked through. Who nows what wonders it will lead to?
While Brenda was off sorting apples, I taught a music lesson and then visited one of the members of our congregation. Amanda went in to the church to do some administration work and then went to do our grocery shopping.
Our lives are all moving in separate direction every day. Tomorrow Brenda will be back at the apple orchard, I will be conducting a funeral service and Amanda will be preaching an on-line children’s sermon. Yet somehow God keeps our schedules in some kind of synchronicity so we can do this thing called family. We meet in the middle around the meals I cook (not that anyone greatly admires my cooking but they all put on a brave face). Then we are off again on our tethers to do the work that God has given us to do. There is coming a time soon when this walk in the world’s evening will be done. A big dog, off leash, is coming and God is going to be turning us towards our true home. That truth makes me wonder how important all our doing right now really is. Maybe it is vastly important because these are the last works the church will do in the church age. Maybe it is all just obeying the leash holder on a walk through the park. Which ever it may be, I am going to obey the tug of the lead whichever way it goes and when we come to that final door. I will walk through.
This Day At the Vicarage 9-8-20
I often write with music playing softly in the background. Somehow the rhythm and the sound help me to focus on what it is I need to say. It is like the sound draws the words out of me.
Maybe that has something to do with my years as a worship pastor. I remember one of my mentors teaching me that in order to lead worship effectively, I needed to be able to move beyond the place where I played music into the place where the music played me.
Yesterday I wrote to an Epic Celtic Album on Youtube. Tonight I am playing the Easters. Somehow their music fills me with hope and just a touch of melancholy. Those things might not seem to go together. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they are polar opposites like the yellow and purple on a color wheel.
Maybe that tension is what I am looking for when I write or when I sing or when I do art. Maybe it is what I need. Maybe it is what is required for me to move into my muse. The muse would be God ,so I guess that makes sense. The tension….the inner conflict somehow drives me to seek the Lord and in that seeking I find my creative spark. And that creative spark is the pathway to the music playing me instead of me playing the music or in this case it is the pathway to the space where the Writer reveals to me my story rather than me striving to make it up.
There’s a whole book in there somewhere. The tension is rising within me and that means the story is about to arrive.
Now I am really looking forward to tomorrow dear friends.
Pastor J
This Day At the Vicarage 9-7-20
Yesterday I was back at my usual job for a Sunday morning, as on-line pastor. I am really enjoying this new work. My job starts at about 9:15 A.M. I open my computer and start “inviting people to church”. Mostly that just involves a check in on Facebook Messenger.
I sign onto the church livestream when it comes on, and then from my little perch in the church cafe I begin to engage with people attending the on-line service: I comment as the sermon goes along; I “like” and comment on what other people are saying; Sometimes I move to a private message format so I can go a little deeper with people who are popping up on my feed or sometimes even just in my head.
Who I don’t see walking through the church door in the morning or on-line is just as important as who does come to our service in physical form or through the internet. When someone is missing for a bit I use service time to try and find them virtually. Yesterday I missed several people so I sent messages to them during service.
Yesterday I also used the time to launch a remote fellowship campaign with our artist’s group. In two weeks time we will be starting an artist version of chopped.
One of our artists is donating boxes full of art supplies and so we will make up boxes for all the participating artists and each artist will have a month to create a work of art using all the implements in the box. At the end of the month we will do on-line reveals for the whole artistic community.
Church is definitely different now. People of God are having to find new and creative ways to connect around the Word of God, fellowship and prayer. I don’t know when or if it will go back to what it used to be. Honestly, I am having fun facing these new challenges. I am not sure I want it to go back.
Well, I have blathered on long enough. It is time to sign off for the night.
I am looking forward to tomorrow Dear Friends.
Pastor J
This Day At the Vicarage 8-31-20
Yesterday I preached at Cornerstone Church in WInchendon, A message called “A Message For the Moment.” After church one of our parishioniers came over to the Vicarage to look at the dormers atop the house to see if he might be able to fix them for me before winter. The meeting took all of 15 minutes making me right on time to fix lunch for Mom.
After lunch the sabbath slump hit me. It came as it always does, a sudden rush of weariness that left me able to do almost nothing but lay on the couch sliding in and out of sleep. At three I walked the dogs and then took a short ride with Amanda around the area to see sites. We stopped by the mountain to take a few pics.
When we got back I had just enough energy to make supper before my body crashed once again. The rest of the night was spent watching TV on the couch. I rested. I practiced sabbath.
I have long had a love/hate relationship with this discipline called sabbath. I think I have struggled with it because of what sabbathing requires of me….because of what resting requires of me. Most of the people around me approach the Sabbath and the act of sabbathing as a day off, a day to have fun. They get to their day off. They go to the beach. They rake the lawn. They have friends over for a barbecue. They go and visit gramma. They go to Maine for the afternoon…..Meanwhile I crawl into bed and sleep for twelve hours. A really active sabbath for me is to lay on the couch and watch TV for eight hours after my nap, like I did yesterday.
Now there is a piece of me that is good with this. That piece of me knows I need this if I am to function the rest of the week like a normal human being. But there is a piece of me that really struggles to be like all the people around me. I want to be the guy who gets out of church and drives to Lynn to have lunch with my daughter and her family. I want to be like my sister who got done with her responsibilities at church yesterday and then drove to her friend’s house forty five minutes away and then painted canvas until after dark.
Here’s the thing. I can do all those things on Sunday. I can push off the Sabbath slump for a bit as long as I am prepared to slump on Monday. I cannot escape it. If I schedule myself so busy that I can’t Sabbath one day a week, I become this crabby Zombie monster who cannot function in any form of godliness. I revert to my old sinful self.
I watch other people and think how weak I am because I can’t seem to do what everyone else does. Then I think maybe their not really doing it either. Maybe they really are just better at hiding their sinful zombie monster selves than I am.
Let me ask you dear friends….HOW DOES REST LOOK IN YOUR LIFE? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T REST THE RIGHT WAY?
I am looking forward to tomorrow dear friends!
Pastor J
Notes From the Vicarage 