ministry life

DEAR FAMILY- JUST KEEP SWIMMING

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Dear Family,

Normally I would not be writing on Wednesday as it is one of the busier days in my week, but as yesterday was awash with work I did not have time to get to my posts for the day.

Yesterday was a constant pace through most of the daytime hours and by night my brain was mush and the rainy weather made me a candidate for Motrin therapy. I got a lot done for sure. The house got cleaned. Paperwork got done (well at least some of it…I am amazed at how much paperwork there is for a lead pastor to do and I am minimizing my paperwork compared to my predecessors). The weekly staff meeting was finished. Grocery shopping and library run was finished. I even had time to do my daily devotional for the church before I had to go off to a hospital visit.

I did not complete my prayer regimen yesterday, but today is another day and so I am getting off to a good start finishing up this work and a few other bits before my my senior staff meeting. I will also fit in at least 45 minutes of prayer before that meeting happens and then I have to go into the church to get a check signed for one of the two funerals I planned this week and then I need to get a court waiver filled out and sent for one of our widows who the church is helping with guardianship proceedings. All that will be accomplished before our prayer meeting tonight.

It is a season full of ministry. And I am learning that in all things…like Dory…I need to just keep swimming.

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DEAR FAMILY- THE NEW IN THE OLD

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Dear Family,

It has been a busy two weeks. We are now 21 days in The Vicarage Annex. We have gotten used to this place. It is wonderful. It is comfortable. I am so thankful to God for this place. It is everything we need. Except it is not home.

I am Painting Pictures of Egypt.

I am quickly realizing that what we are going through is more than a temporary change. We are being launched by this renovation into a new season. I guess I didn’t anticipate that. I thought we would get the necessary job done and we would go back to our same old patterns.

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But I am now realizing that our old patterns will not fit into what we are going back too. We are changing. We will have changed and The Vicarage will be a new home for a new people.

DEAR FAMILY- ASBESTOS AND NIAGARA

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Dear Family,

We are well into week three of our stay at The Vicarage Annex. So far everything is going to plan and I am very excited about the prospect of returning home soon. Well, by Memorial Day at any rate which is soon to me.

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Today marked two events on our calendar of work. The asbestos guys came, and Amanda headed off on her vacation to Niagara Falls.

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We are not quite halfway there, but somehow in my mind I have placed these events as the turning point…the hump day of our project. Get through this week, I reckon, and it’s all downhill from here!

Love, OZ

DEAR FAMILY- WATCHING THE LAUNDRY SPIN

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Dear Family,

At this writing we are well into Day 16 of our time at The Vicarage Annex. We are also plunk in the middle of Easter Weekend. So no work is happening at The Vicarage today.

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Happy Easter everyone! I have been doing my cooking for tomorrow, today. Since Easter itself is such a busy day, I am keeping dinner simple….Ham (which will be cold sliced tomorrow), potato salad and fluff. I am thinking of cake for dessert with ice cream since it is someone’s birthday in a few days and she will not be around to celebrate.

This morning, since there was no work going on at The Vicarage. I decided I would start doing some of the laundry from there that will need to be done to get back in. It’s a start of what will be a very big project, but it is only day 16…. so no rush just yet.

Sitting at the laundromat, the day’s first cup of coffee in hand with only the sound of the dryer’s rhythmic thumping to keep me company helped me set my own internal timer: slow, constant and intentional. Just the way I like it.

We have a carpet to get rid of before the rain comes in and then I want to bake a cake and get my studying and practicing done for tomorrow’s service…slow, constant, and intentional. Just the way I like it.

Love,

Oz

DEAR FAMILY- BREAKING DOWN

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Dear Family,

I have to admit I am feeling more stress about this move than I thought and truthfully I thought there would be a lot. It is different than I thought it would be though. I expected to feel constantly overwhelmed. I don’t feel that. I just feel tired.

The truth is there is so much going on not just with the house but with the church that I have little time to dwell on my anxieties. I am in a constant mode of response and each response seems to create a new set of realities with their own sets of responses which require more thought and more work.

The downstairs bathroom.
he upstairs bathroom.

In the last three years our church has been through a breaking down. Like our bathrooms we have been taken back to the studs.

It has been hard work and it has been good work. But the breaking down of our church….going from 350 to 120 has only caused me to realize how much more work there is underneath to do. The stress is not manifesting in feeling overwhelmed or like I don’t know what to do. I am just tired and I realize we are just at the beginning of a long journey. Here I am talking about bathrooms and churches like they are the same thing. Principles hold true for all forms of reconstruction I guess. The first step is the breaking down. The next step is the rebuild. It’s all good.

Love,

Pastor Oz

DEAR FAMILY- THE PASTOR OF CONSTRUCTION

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Dear Family,

Here is my next ten minute letter. That is right I am trying to add an atomic habit to my life by writing these letters as a part of my daily devotional regimen. Mostly I want to have some record of how this project advances at The Vicarage…for posterity of course.

I never in a million years I would be in charge of building projects as a minister. But here I am doing a major renovation on The Vicarage and major renovations on the church. It amazes me how God has prepared me for this through all the house projects we did as a family when you kids were little. I didn’t really have anything to do with them as far as the real construction. We all know that was your mother, but I at least learned how to work around those projects and I am putting the skills learned then to good use now.

Deconstruction of the bathrooms started yesterday!

Before
After

A Note To Brenda 2-9-22

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Dear Brenda,

May be an image of sky, street, road and tree

Well it would seem like 2022 is starting off explosively right from the blocks. The world is changing around us and the Kingdom of God is coming more clearly into focus with each new sunrise.

Here at the Vicarage I am learning the year’s rhythm…figuring out how to accomplish the new thing God has given me to do in life and ministry. That one thing is moving from DLT behavior to DLT character.

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I don’t think we really know how to make this shift as a congregation, but I ask confident God is going to show us how. I believe that everything God has put in the calendar is a tool to help me/ us learn just how to do that: Our studies, our opportunities, our trials, even the upcoming Vicarage project and my first ever sabbatical coming in August.

My word for the year is “COLLABORATE”.

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And a big part of me learning to collaborate is me getting out of the way so God can use others to accomplish His purposes. I think one of my passages for the year is Ephesians 4: 11-13 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Now that right there is collaboration!

I am so glad that things on your end of the pond are moving as fast as they are here. I love the new car!

May be an image of 1 person, standing, car and outdoors

I am also glad that lockdown has pulled back far enough for you to launch the first Bridge artist gathering!

And So It Begins!

Brother

A Note To James and Melanie

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Dear James and Melanie,

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It strikes me that it is time to have some new family portraits done. I am scouring my database for a picture of the four Franklins and I am having trouble finding one.

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and finding one. of the current James is nigh on impossible. We have to get us some pictures of the whole fam in its currency.

I am so glad that you are here in Winchendon with us now. While it certainly puts you folks farther from your work, seeing your faces in church every week and being able to be together for family events is doing my heart so much good.

I know too Gramma is enjoying having herm great granddaughters around. I know she will probably never admit it but they are one of her few joys remaining.

Honestly I don’t think Gramma would have allowed anyone else to touch her adult coloring pages never mind turn them into a carpet into the kitchen. I am so glad you have chosen this place to live. Thank you for making and old man’s heart so glad.

Love, Dad

A NOTE TO AMANDA

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My Dearest Amanda,

No photo description available.

It really is amazing how fast the years go. It seems like just yesterday I was watching you play in the backyard of The Vicarage (we didn’t even call it that then) in a pile of leaves. I remember a small dust devil came and whipped the leaves up into a circular whirlwind around you. It’s a picture forever etched into my mind.

There have been lots of dust devils , whirlwinds and outright tornadoes since then and somehow we have walked through all of them and we have come out on solid ground. Watching you grow into the minister you now are has been one of the great privileges of my life.

I loved the sermon yesterday. The unity and flow our staff is experiencing at Cornerstone is so amazing to watch. The picture God is giving us through the Word being preached is just so amazing. I cannot wait to see where He takes us all in the days ahead.

Love, Dad

PASTOR AMANDA’S SERMON FROM YESTERDAY CAN BE HEARD HERE.

A Note to ‘Lella 2-2-22

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Good Morning My Sweet Granddaughter Daniella,

My goodness! How time is flying. When I was younger I always heard about how time went faster the older you got. I never believed it, but now I know it is true.

It seems like just yesterday we were picking flowers in the gardens at the Vicarage. But that was months ago now. Today we are getting ready for our second block buster storm of the year. Your dad is getting ready to get stuck any work again, I imagine, and we are all knocking ice out from under the wheels of our cars so they don’t shake when we drive. Those are minor hardships of winter.

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I suppose some people think that your old Oz is just a guy who hangs around waiting for Sundays so that I can preach my piece and then sit down on Monday to write my next Schtick. But this season really does move ministers into action.

I was in prayer this morning when one of our congregants called to borrow heaters from the church, for their garage, which was full of water from a burst pipe. Next on my agenda, as the storm approaches I have to get groceries for the Vicarage and for another lady in our congregation who is shut in. Then there are the calls to make to several of our elders whom I have not heard from since our last storm over the weekend.

Y’know ‘Lella this job…it’s busier that any other job I have ever had, but there is so much joy in it…. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I hope when you grow up you can find the joy I have in your life’s calling. I guess that is the message. Don’t just work a job. Live out a calling. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it unto the Lord.

Love, Oz