MINISTRY

Meeting Day- You Never Realize What Your Doing Until You Look At Your Agenda.

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Social distancing has changed the way we do church work for sure. That said church work still needs to get done. Tuesdays is still staff meeting day and we have continued to meet using Zoom tech. While it is called Zoom that is no indicator that our meetings are any shorter. Today we met for two hours.

Time Flies Images, Stock Photos & Vectors | Shutterstock

I know most people think that pastors only work on Sundays and Wednesday nights, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our Tuesday meetings as a staff of nine cover a lot of territory, and there just is no way to shorten up the weekly business. I have actually been to weekly staff meetings which take up to five hours. One deacon board meeting I attended recently engaged us in six hours of business, and that was with us pushing things along.

Now with Covid-19 entering the discussion we have even more to talk about as we plan for the future. Like the rest of the country, we are looking forward to reopening, and discussions are being had on the regular about just how to do that, and of course when. Here in the North East we are bracing ourselves for a long haul.

Scratching My Head

All that to say Tuesdays- Meeting Days are busy days and sometimes I don’t really realize how busy they are until I take a look back at the agenda and see all we have done. For instance: The house started stirring this morning around 6 A.M. By 9 I prayed, ate breakfast with Amanda and Mom, walked all three dogs (which is something of a process as Mercedes is in heat), got ready for the day, got Mom’s morning supplies, fed the birds, washed a load of laundry, changed out my pillow cases and folded yesterday’s laundry. At 9:30 we found out that we lost a congregant last night to the disease (she had several other health conditions as well) . At 10:30 we found out another congregant was being sent home on hospice after a long battle with a series of health issues.

Then staff meeting. While Amanda and I had staff meeting, Brenda took some time and sat with Mom and then with the dogs who were beside themselves with heat. Then she did some writing in her study.

After staff meeting Brenda and I finished up some errands Amanda had started yesterday for an elderly congregant. Then it was back home for afternoon prayers and the afternoon dog walk (in the rain).

My little puppy at bath time. My instagram: @sgeuter stock photo ...

Brenda had an on-line meeting with an artist from the South and I made dinner for the house while Amanda got herself ready for youth group.

In the midst of all of this I have even had time to write! Amazingly, I have not felt rushed at all. I’m kind of marveling at that in fact, and I am wondering how it is possible that I do not feel half out of my brain. Maybe it is just the fact that most of this did not involve me leaving the house…..hmmm. Ok it is time to walk the dogs again because one of them is beginning to howl like a six pound wolf.- See Ya Soon!

Back To Singing

/ joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

I have not really been able to sing since the pneumonia. But recently I was asked by THE REACH NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER OF SPECIAL TOUCH DISABILITIES MINISTRY to put together a brief video for their virtual service coming up.

I gave it the old college try Friday. I am definitely out of practice, but at least most of the notes are right.


The Wall Pt. 2

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Just over a year ago God gave me a vision during a Sunday morning service. In this vision I saw a satanic force coming against our church. The Lord showed me that for a season we would be able to thwart this spirit power in the strength God had already given us. But the Lord told me that there would come a time when the enemy would be too powerful for us to face in our own strength. The Lord instructed that when that time came we were to call the church to pray and He would send us divine helpers to strengthen and revive the church.

I believe we have come to that time when we cannot face the enemy in our own strength…. and so we have started THE WALL prayer meetings to call the church to pray and ask God to send us the help He promised. This is our prayer meeting from last Wednesday night. Perhaps you can use it to spend some time focusing your own prayers. Please join us this Wednesday night from 7-8 to pray.

Without A Recipe For a Birthday

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

I am so proud of this lady. I would say girl but that is not what she is anymore. She has proven herself to be one of the most capable adults I know.

Today is Amanda’s birthday. If you want to know how old she is you are going to have to ask her. Because I try never to tell a lady’s age. I can be old school like that sometimes.

Amanda was supposed to be in Pennsylvania celebrating this week. Covid-19 has changed all that. It looks like none of us are going anywhere for quite a while. So instead of doing normal birthday things today like going out to eat or heading out for a movie, Amanda will be doing another episode of “Without A Recipe.”

Check in with her at 3 P.M. to wish her a happy birthday and to tell her how to make an ice cream Sundae.

Here she is making a dessert lasagna.


The Wall #1

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Just over a year ago God gave me a vision during a Sunday morning service. In this vision I saw a satanic force coming against our church. The Lord showed me that for a season we would be able to thwart this spirit power in the strength God had already given us. But the Lord told me that there would come a time when the enemy would be too powerful for us to face in our own strength. The Lord instructed that when that time came we were to call the church to pray and He would send us divine helpers to strengthen and revive the church.

I believe we have come to that time when we cannot face the enemy in our own strength…. and so we have started THE WALL prayer meetings to call the church to pray and ask God to send us the help He promised. This is a prayer meeting from a week ago but perhaps you can use it to spend some time focusing your own prayers.

Life By the Bells

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Many years ago, after taking a course called 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I started planning out my week using an agenda. Over the years I have adapted a shorthand that helps keep me on track throughout the week. My agenda looks like this.

It’s pretty simple really and covers everything from sleep to daily exercise and even prayer.

I found that just writing down what I planned to do in a weekly agenda did not help me to do the things I planned. The agenda helped me to keep track of my meetings ( which as a pastor is important, you don’t want to be missing funerals or weddings), but as far as the big rocks went (the disciplines of everyday living I valued like prayer or exercise) just writing them on a weekly to do calendar did not help me prioritize them. I found it too easy to let the work of ministry supplant the everyday disciplines because the work seemed so much more urgent than the time spent in the things I valued for my personal life.

Then I got a smart phone and I discovered two things: the Bible App and the timer/stopwatch app. I had heard how monks lived by a series of bells telling them when to go to certain activities and when to move on from that activity to the next one. Of course we all did that in school didn’t we? I personally loved when the lunch bell rang.

I tried it where my personal disciplines were concerned. When it came time for prayer, I would set my timer for twenty minutes and when it rang I could go on to the next activity…or I could set it for another twenty minutes, if I had nothing pressing me, and pray some more. But while the clock was counting down precious few things were allowed to interrupt me from my timed task.

Soon I was using the timer to time my exercise sessions, my reading sessions my writing sessions and even my housework. I found living by the bells had two advantages: For some reason the idea of doing a timed task made me more committed to the task and less likely to allow myself to be interrupted. Also, if I found myself not wanting to do a task, telling myself I only had to do it until the bell rang made the task more palatable somehow.

It still took work and time, trial and failure, but life by the bells has worked for me. As we have shut ourselves in during this time of quarantine, life by the bells has helped me organize and structure my days even while I do not have the big events like church services or worship practices or community events to attend to.

How do you structure you daily life?

In the Midst

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Last week our grocery store started limiting the number of people who could go in at one time. One in one out, is the new rule.

This week we were asked to start shopping in two week stints to limit the amount of exposure each of us have to the public, as cases of the Covid-19 mount across the state. I could feel the fear as I was shopping yesterday. One man yelled at me when I pulled down my face mask for a moment to defog my glasses.

In the midst of our world falling apart around us by bits and pieces, I have been “attending” an on-line retreat regarding the sorrows of Passion Week. Today our leader in the retreat wrote this:

“Where is our hope? Our hope is in a God who died publicly humiliated outside the walls of a minor city in a great empire. This God is not a God for winners, not a God who makes us great again. We believe in a God who throws the rich from their thrones and lifts up the lowly. Our God dies daily, alongside the poor, the outcast, the immigrant child, the fearful and victimized, the one who dies alone. Our hope is in a God who chooses humility, a God who bows deeply, who suffers with us, even unto death. A God who dies daily alongside those in this plague, who knows the fear of those who serve others in this pandemic, who knows the avoidance of those who would rather go back to sleep.” Almut Furchert

I am struck by the phrase, “Our hope is in a God who chooses humility, a God who bows deeply,”

When, besides the cross, in all of the worlds religions did a god choose humility? IN the cross God bowed low!!!!

For me this time has been a very humbling experience. I got sick at the beginning of the shut- in and my voice has not yet returned (I am thanking God that this sickness was not as serious as it could have been). I have not led worship in something like seven weeks. This has been one of my lamentations during this season. It felt like a loss ( not so much the loss of worship but of my voice), but God has showed me that this is the moment I have prayed for. In my inability, younger men have stepped to the plate and worship has gone on, and there is actually a liberation in that!

The whole church is being humbled as we approach this Easter weekend. We are being forced to do away with the pomp and circumstance which generally go with this season. We are being forced to return to the simplicity of the cross: no frills, no stirring music or acting, no lights or crowds, just a naked Savior hanging, dying on a cross. Perhaps in the midst of our world falling apart this will be one of the most powerful Easters the church has experienced in many years simply because we cannot make it about us or our attempts at personal kingdom building. It must be completely about Jesus.

God is changing me through this experience. He is moving me ,in the midst of it, into the new place He has been promising to being me. He is accomplishing His prophesied move in our church at Cornerstone and He is fulfilling His prophesied word in the church world- wide. The church is being humbled. As the crucifixion of Christ was God’s plan to bring about Christ’s Resurrection then, this crucifixion we are experiencing has a resurrection attached to it as well. Hold onto that.

The Way We Do It Now.

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

In these days of social distancing, this is the hub of church life now. The staff and board are all on line first thing in the morning or on the phone connecting with people to show up at on-line church. All through the service Amanda, Brenda and I are here at The Vicarage “greeting” people as they come on line and gathering info through private message convos and on-line comments. We follow up on these throughout the week by phone and Facebook.

After the service, Amanda goes in and makes a few copies for people who do not have internet service and then we distribute the CD version to the doors of those individuals homes.

I hope you enjoy our pastor’s message today.