Decision Fatigue

March 29, 2023March 29, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

My daughter says I need a real Sabbath. I do take one… sort of. I come home on Sundays after service and I try not to do anything other than my Monday devotional until Monday night men’s group.

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Some weeks I do better than others. After last week, when I didn’t get the sermon done until Friday night, I got nervous. Since I already knew what I was preaching for this next Sunday I wrote the sermon on Monday which meant of course…no day off.

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Yesterday I had staff meeting, came home to do bills and to work through my own health insurance options while also working on Grace’s next steps into the world of Medicaid. Then I got a call to attend the bedside of a man preparing for his eternal journey. So I decided to cancel my regularly scheduled evening meetings with other parishioners.

This morning I woke up to two e-mails pushing towards decisions for the health insurance and some changes around the Vicarage. Neither of them were pushy or terribly serious they just started the day on an emphasis of decision making before I had even had my first cup of coffee.

I have been learning in my NOOM app about decision fatigue. I know this is one of my issues. Too many decisions….Noom says one of the ways to deal with decision fatigue is to automate some of your decisions. Move them from the plate of conscious decision to automatic action. Things like: What to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner, The order of activities in the day, what clothes to wear.

I also think my daughter is right. I have to be much more intentional about building in a decision free day…a real sabbath. And I think I need to build some actual decision making/ planning time into my schedule. It is there I am just not using the planning time to its proper advantage.

HERE’S A QUESTION. WHAT ARE SOME TRICKS YOU USE TO INTENTIONALLY PLAN YOUR LIFE?

WHO NEEDS THE RADIO?

March 23, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

I love to listen to music of all kinds. My car is equipped with a radio, a CD player, Bluetooth for Apple Car play, and Sirius XM capability. I use none of it.

I listen to the radio maybe .5% of the time I am driving. Even on long drives, like any drive up to Claremont I seldom listen to music on the radio.

Driving is my thinking time.

Driving is additional talking to God time.

The Good Lord is doing so much just now. My life is so full of His moving in new and wonderful ways I find myself needing every spare minute to put into context what He is doing.

I keep hearing Him say, “You must see what I am doing.”

Seeing what He is doing takes time and lots of deep consideration. Who needs a radio? The music of the spheres is constantly playing in my head.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU ARTE DRIVING?

EMBRACING THE HOLY RHYTHM

March 22, 2023March 22, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

I just finished reading through my comments from my most recent blogs (it is a habit I used to have that I am trying to reestablish). Sister Brenda commented, “if I don’t keep my sabbath holy who will?“

I will take it one step further, “If I don’t keep my daily rhythm holy, who will?”

Sabbath is a part of a holistic life rhythm that leads to a Spirit-led life.

Some time ago God told me that “I needed to start allowing life to flow out of the prayer place rather than letting prayer be informed out of the living place.”

A rhythm of prayer flowing into living and then living flowing back into prayer, prayer being the source of the living rather than allowing living to be the source of prayer is necessary.

I am…have been learning to make my life a response to prayer rather than allowing my prayers to become a reaction to living.

This lenten season I am intentionally calling myself to seven times of prayer a day.

My “midnight prayers” are times of dreams and visions that are beginning to carry more and more weight in my daily living.

My “prayer of arising” is a time of meditating on the life of Jesus among the people.

My “midmorning prayer” is a time of hearing the heart of the Psalmist.

My “noon time prayer” is a time of hearing the heart of the Psalmist.

My “late afternoon prayer” isa time of joining my voice to the voice of the Worship Room either in person or most often remotely.

My “vespers” is another time of joining my voice to the Worship Room or to the Cornerstone Church prayer room.

“Compline” is that time just before bed to meditate through the Psalms as I prepare for the dream space of the midnight once again.

My position allows me to extend prayer deeper than most people can, but I know that in the days ahead we will all be expanding the prayer space.

WHAT DO YOU THINK GOD WANTS YOUR PRAYER SPACE TO LOOK LIKE?

THAT APOSTOLIC FEELING

March 21, 2023March 21, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

I am in the middle of a preaching series entitled, “Jesus Doing Life.” The emphasis of this study is on how Jesus worked through his various roles to build His community, the church. I am focusing on Jesus in His roles as:

AS A HUMAN BEING

AS A PRIEST

AS A PROPHET

AS A SERVANT

AS A TEACHER

AS AN ENCOURAGER

AS A GIVER

AS A LEADER

AS A WORKER OF MIRACLES

AS A HEALER

AS AN APOSTLE

AS A PASTOR

AS AN EVANGELIST

AS THE MESSIAH

It’s the final stretch. Today I am writing the sermon on Jesus as Apostle. Next week we will cover Jesus as Pastor and Evangelist and finally on Easter we will talk about Jesus as Messiah.

Amanda and I had an opportunity to travel to Wilbraham MA this morning for a gathering of pastors from the Western Region of the state.

We are preparing for our All Network Conference. So each region is meeting in the next two weeks to go over some of the ideas that are going to be at the forefront of our conference.

One of the things we were greatly encouraged in was the importance of our mission, not just our individual missions to our specific towns, but also our corporate mission to reach the world with the message off the Gospel.

This call to the larger call is the apostles heart…It is not just my church or our church but THE CHURCH.

“How do we work together to get it all done?” is the question that burns in the heart of the apostle.

It is about unifying around the big picture, the finishing of the whole mission, not just the little part of it in our own corners of the world.

The apostle can never lose sight of the words of Jesus from Matthew 24.

this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Ma 24:14

DO YOU THINK THERE MAY YET BE APOSTLES IN THE WORLD?

THE SWELLS, THE STORMS, THE SABBATH

March 20, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

The swell of life’s ocean. A beautiful storm: Love… adventure…community… the wonder of the now… the blessing of eternity.

I am finding labor and rest in the fullness of this ocean: Church…prayer… The Vicarage… The larger community… personal life… health… elder care…ministry… Sabbath…

All these waves to be surfed in the continual up an down rhythm of life’s tide.

I need to take advantage of the spaces between the waves, the little sabbaths of each day. And I need to simply ignore the waves at least once a week for a day…give these aging muscles some time to not meet the requirements of the ocean.

I was going to drive up to Claremont again today to visit Grace. My body said no to that. So I am going to drive up on Friday instead. I will call her this morning. Then I will let my mind wander through some of the study material I have on my desk. I will write and pray and take it easy. Maybe I will nap.

HOSPICE FOR GRACE

March 18, 2023March 18, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

The week has been eventful as far as it concerns elder care. The snow storm was a huge challenge for mother. She hasn’t quite recovered her sleep schedule yet or her best grace. This morning she told my son that when he comes to live here she is going to make him live in tent on the side of the house and she will make sure he had an outhouse to use.

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Yesterday I got a call from Sullivan County Health Care, where my ward Grace lives. Her appetite has been very poor for some time, but since the storm she has eaten almost nothing and she is drinking very little as well.

It is now to the point where hospice has been suggested. This next turn of the wheel has finally come.

I got the call from the visiting nurses out of White River Junction last night, and set up the appointment to sign paperwork for 9:30 this morning.

I am so thankful for the support network I have to help with mother. Amanda is away at a family life conference in Shrewsbury MA today, so my daughter Melanie came to sit with mom for the four hours I would be gone this morning.

I was driving the road along the Ashuelot River by 8 A.M. By 9:30 I was pulling into the driveway at Sullivan County Health Care.

The nursing home is under major reconstruction. The new stucture is going to be absolutely beautiful.

As I walked through the hallways, filled with temporary storage containers for the current construction work my heart felt such sadness. Grace will probably not be here to see the finished work on her current home.

During this visit, though, there were lots of wins to celebrate. I got to introduce the hospice nurse, Jen, to Grace personally and we both had a nice visit with Grace before Jen and I had to step aside to sign paperwork. Grace was having a good morning. She has lost quite a bit of weight now, but she was in good spirits, and pain free.

One of the things I am most glad about is that Grace will now have a weekly visit with a chaplain. She has really missed the in person spiritual direction and Scripture reading. I will also have a weekly check in from the chaplain to let me know how things are going on the spiritual- emotional front.

HAVE YOU OR A LOVED ONE EVER BEEN UNDER A CHAPLAIN’S CARE?

NOT SLEEPING IN WINCHENDON

March 17, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 5 Comments

On Tuesday the power went out. It was out for thirteen hours. We had to use candles for light. It got cold in the house. Mom got nervous and very talkative. Amanda and I got zero sleep. When the lights came back on at 3:30 A.M. mom thought it was early evening not early morning.

By the time she went to sleep. The sun was well up and I was well into my day. Wednesday night after prayer meeting I went to bed and found myself awake until probably 1 or 2 and then I was up for a full day on Thursday.

Last night I slept from about midnight to about 3 A.M.and was awake off and on from that point forward. I have noticed that not sleeping is affecting how I eat and how I process information emotionally. The lenten fast has been thrown pretty much out the window since the snowstorm, interestingly I am finding that the prayer structures I was trying to achieve are coming a bit more easily. Being awake at 3 A.M makes Matins and Lauds a lot easier, but my eating schedule is all over the map.

I am going to give myself another day or so to normalize and then I will make some other considerations. I definitely need to have one good night’s sleep before Sunday morning.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO GET TO SLEEP?

LEARNING TO “PREPARE”

March 16, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

I am sitting here this morning drinking my coffee,

and I am thinking about the storm we just came through in light of a prophetic word that came to our church back in August.

That word was “prepare for tragedy and prepare for witness”. It came in varied ways to ten different congregants during the time of our pastoral sabbatical.

I am wondering what does it mean to “prepare for tragedy and to prepare for witness.”

On Monday night the snow began. When all was said and done we had 30 inches of very heavy wet snow that plunged the entire town of Winchendon into darkness for 13 to 24 hours.

My cell phone battery was dead by 6 P.M….hour four of the cold darkness. My daughter was wiser and immediately put her phone into airplane mode and on low power mode. It hardly mattered though the cell towers went down at the same time the power did and internet was completely useless

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No cell service meant no way to communicate for anyone who didn’t have a landline. No electricity meant no heat for anyone who didn’t have a generator or alternative heat source.

I was pretty proud that our house with new insulation held the heat pretty well. We were just below sixty degrees in the Vicarage when the power went on. Thinking about it though what if we had had a repeat of the ice storm of 2011? Three days without power? What would we do? Mom is not really mobile any longer. I have to be prepared for the next time an event like this comes. I am absolutely sure that a next time isn’t too far off.

But it is not just about preparing for my household. We must prepare for our community.

WHAT DOES PREPARING A COMMUNITY LOOK LIKE?

GETTING READY FOR THE NEXT SNOW

March 13, 2023March 13, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

It has been a pretty mild winter up until the last few weeks. Here in Winchendon MA, we have gotten the majority of our snow for the season in the last three weeks. At first it was just dribs and drabs, and then last week we got a foot in one night.

Today will be a day of preparation for the net snowfall which according to my phone is going to start around supper time and the time of our town’s special town meeting to vote on the community preservation act financing.

When all is said and done we will have somewhere between 16 and 20 inches of the white stuff and the promise of rain beforehand means we will be shoveling slush throughout the night and into tomorrow.

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Of course that also means that it will be good snowman snow. I haven’t built a snowman in…. forever. Lately I have hand hankering for it. So maybe tomorrow will be the day.

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WHAT KIND OF WINTER ACTIVITES DO YOU LIKE?

LIVING “CALLED”

March 12, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

This morning, at breakfast, I was talking with Mom about Amanda’s upcoming ordination. She will be ordained the Rev. Amanda Lillie in May.

At that point she will hold the most advanced credential in our church. I held my first level of credential for nearly 25 years without advancing and now that I have entered the second level of credential I have to hold that for two years before I can be ordained myself.

My mother asked why it took me so long to move forward and my only real answer was a lack of ambition. Always I have been more about the call than the credential. I have ministered and gone where I felt the Lord wanted me to go and very seldom have I thought about my qualification. Honestly, the level of my credential has seldom factored into the call.

I now pursue ordination in order to walk in obedience before my presbytery. It is an act of submission. Amanda feels the same. The call is the thing. The credential feels like an affirmation of that call in the eyes of men, but the call is the thing I must walk out before God.

Just now that call is getting very exciting as we prepare the church to walk in a deeper manifestation of the love of Jesus than ever before.

Notes From the Vicarage

A minister's family living in a micro forest garden

MINISTRY