Ok, so this "revival crusade" is still going on, theres two more days of it after today, and I have to be honest, I'm very much looking forward to the last meeting on Wednesday night. I'm sitting in the sound booth as one of the twins preaches.
It's been a great time of learning and growth but so tiring and, really, we weren't meant to be working 18 days in a row...it's not Scriptural.
I could go on about the different things that bug me about these old guys, but they are rather trivial and basically a result of the era in which they grew up and all and not so much a really huge issue. For example their constant mention of the "evils of rock music"...it gets me a little excited and wanting to fight back, but I hold off for the sake of learning something and not causing a disturbance.
There's lots of stuff to be able to take from these meetings that have been going on, but the presentation is a little....less than up to date I guess you could say, and it's, well, too long of a time all at once.
So my question that has been running through my mind for a while now...I'll share it with you...Does God work through people who aren't really in touch with the current culture and use vocabulary years out of date? The only answer I can give is YES. I've seen some pretty incredible workings of the Spirit of God the last couple weeks, even if these guys are old and still pray using "Thee and Thou" and use the KJV fervantly.
God can stretch across a generation gap as such, it's really cool to see, especially when youth are getting up and testifying to the things that God has been revealing to them. How can you not get at least somewhat excited about that? I sure am, even if it means some painful endurance of things that cause me to want to vomit sometimes...God still uses even old people, am I surprised? No, I am humbled cause sometimes I don't want to listen...
Monday, February 26, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
This is Daniel Cook, I mean Troy Dunham writing a sermon...
So obviously the sermon writing has taken a bit of a break, actually I haven't even really started on it for the day yet, but when I have other things on my mind I can't really focus well enough to write up something for a sermon, so I'll get all my nastiness out here because I can and I'll write as many run on sentences as humanly possible.
The truth about me today is that I'm just tired...I don't think there's really any other way to put it. I honestly don't know how people do it with families and spouses and everything. I'm single, so nobody else is really affected by my busy schedule, and not only busy but long hours (like by the end of this week it will have been 80+ hours of work), if I had a family they wouldn't deserve that kind of treatment from me. How does one do it? I'm actually pretty thankful at the moment (though I don't always feel this way) that I am single at this point in life cause it would be way too hard to maintain a healthy/strong/godly relationship with a woman and try and figure this ministry stuff out all at the same time. I guess God really does know what he's doing after all.
Knowing full well that I'd not be able to treat a wife properly as I learn to live and breath a life of ministry, He's allowed me freedom to struggle on my own so that I can gain some ground before bringing someone into my life. I pray it will happen soon but I guess I can't be anything but thankful deep down (though I've been struggling with that lately) that I am where I am and know that God has placed me here for some purpose beyond my limited understanding.
But alas my sermon doth call my name, I shall resign to writing of the great things of God instead of my lonely little world.
The truth about me today is that I'm just tired...I don't think there's really any other way to put it. I honestly don't know how people do it with families and spouses and everything. I'm single, so nobody else is really affected by my busy schedule, and not only busy but long hours (like by the end of this week it will have been 80+ hours of work), if I had a family they wouldn't deserve that kind of treatment from me. How does one do it? I'm actually pretty thankful at the moment (though I don't always feel this way) that I am single at this point in life cause it would be way too hard to maintain a healthy/strong/godly relationship with a woman and try and figure this ministry stuff out all at the same time. I guess God really does know what he's doing after all.
Knowing full well that I'd not be able to treat a wife properly as I learn to live and breath a life of ministry, He's allowed me freedom to struggle on my own so that I can gain some ground before bringing someone into my life. I pray it will happen soon but I guess I can't be anything but thankful deep down (though I've been struggling with that lately) that I am where I am and know that God has placed me here for some purpose beyond my limited understanding.
But alas my sermon doth call my name, I shall resign to writing of the great things of God instead of my lonely little world.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Good times on the zipline
This is a video I made to show at our district's pastoral prayer retreat to promote peer networks among pastors.
Who knew pastors could have fun?
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
New perspective
It's 5pm on Wednesday, in just about 2 hours my students will be rolling through the doors and I'm still not completely finished preparing for youth tonight, but that's ok, it's just a matter of filling a few things in, for once I'm not panicking to get everything finished in the last 5 minutes before people are due to show up to the church.
Why am I not just finishing and then taking a few minutes to catch up on some sleep that I've sorely missed the last couple days? Well because just now a thought has illumined my mind and I have to write it down before I forget it (for you fellow Bill McAlpine Homiletics students, WIDOLIF).
You see, I've been struggling a lot lately with my work habits, with the setting I'm in (not the people, just the laid back/easy going/small town atmosphere) and I see all these people around me (in the bigger picture of the Church in North America), I read books of great leaders in the church. I watch videos of successful pastors, and hear sermons from the "big wigs" of faith and I get discouraged. Ironic isn't it? We're supposed to be encouraged from guys like that, God speaks through them, they're leaders of other leaders, they are admirable people.
As I sift through such messages, sermons, and whatever other training that they provide I find myself discouraged cause I don't look anything like them. Well most of them, I'm glad I don't have their physical appearance cause they're just funny looking (Philip Yancey anyone?), but where they are in life, how God's used them, the tremendous leadership qualities that exist in those guys and their success in ministry, I don't look anything like that.
Then it dawned on me, I'm not supposed to look like that. Maybe I'm not ever going to lead a congregation of 20,000 people. I might not have a youth ministry of 1000+ students. I may never write a book, or be sought after to speak at big events, or have youth pastors across the nation asking me the tough questions in hopes of an answer. I'm not supposed to look like them. And even if any or all of those things do happen in my life...It will have nothing to do with me, but everything to do with God's faithfulness.
And...if any of that stuff happens to me, it's often (I say that because of course there are some exceptions) not those guys who have just started out in ministry and still don't know the names of everyone they serve in the church, it's not the guy who's fresh out of Bible college and 6 months into his first real job in ministry. It's not usually the guys who are fresh off the line who are the ones that others look to for those things...It's those guys who have been around a while, they've put in years of service, they've tried and failed, they've crashed and burned (not all of course) they've been tested and they passed.
I'm not that guy, yet. I haven't been around long enough to try and fail, or try and succeed in big ways like that. I don't know enough to be able to give answers to other people, I've got little to write in a book that can help other people.
Scripture clearly speaks of young people and the significance we have in the church and the leadership potential that there is within us. Lots of us will automatically think of that famous verse 1Tim 4:12 "don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set and example...." This is all true, I can set an example for the believers (though I'm not always a good one), but there's still an element of that "seasoned leadership" that I just won't have, unless it's bestowed upon me by God, it's called the "seasoned" part.
I don't have that kind of experience, I'm not that old, I've not been through those kinds of trials and situations.
BUT I do have my own experiences to learn from, I've got the situations I'm currently in and those I've been in before.
The big question is....am I going to learn from them? What will I do with them as they come and go? Will I learn from mistakes/failures and successes? Will I repeat the good and drop the bad?
Maybe that's what I should focus on, instead of comparing myself to someone I'm not.
Why am I not just finishing and then taking a few minutes to catch up on some sleep that I've sorely missed the last couple days? Well because just now a thought has illumined my mind and I have to write it down before I forget it (for you fellow Bill McAlpine Homiletics students, WIDOLIF).
You see, I've been struggling a lot lately with my work habits, with the setting I'm in (not the people, just the laid back/easy going/small town atmosphere) and I see all these people around me (in the bigger picture of the Church in North America), I read books of great leaders in the church. I watch videos of successful pastors, and hear sermons from the "big wigs" of faith and I get discouraged. Ironic isn't it? We're supposed to be encouraged from guys like that, God speaks through them, they're leaders of other leaders, they are admirable people.
As I sift through such messages, sermons, and whatever other training that they provide I find myself discouraged cause I don't look anything like them. Well most of them, I'm glad I don't have their physical appearance cause they're just funny looking (Philip Yancey anyone?), but where they are in life, how God's used them, the tremendous leadership qualities that exist in those guys and their success in ministry, I don't look anything like that.
Then it dawned on me, I'm not supposed to look like that. Maybe I'm not ever going to lead a congregation of 20,000 people. I might not have a youth ministry of 1000+ students. I may never write a book, or be sought after to speak at big events, or have youth pastors across the nation asking me the tough questions in hopes of an answer. I'm not supposed to look like them. And even if any or all of those things do happen in my life...It will have nothing to do with me, but everything to do with God's faithfulness.
And...if any of that stuff happens to me, it's often (I say that because of course there are some exceptions) not those guys who have just started out in ministry and still don't know the names of everyone they serve in the church, it's not the guy who's fresh out of Bible college and 6 months into his first real job in ministry. It's not usually the guys who are fresh off the line who are the ones that others look to for those things...It's those guys who have been around a while, they've put in years of service, they've tried and failed, they've crashed and burned (not all of course) they've been tested and they passed.
I'm not that guy, yet. I haven't been around long enough to try and fail, or try and succeed in big ways like that. I don't know enough to be able to give answers to other people, I've got little to write in a book that can help other people.
Scripture clearly speaks of young people and the significance we have in the church and the leadership potential that there is within us. Lots of us will automatically think of that famous verse 1Tim 4:12 "don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set and example...." This is all true, I can set an example for the believers (though I'm not always a good one), but there's still an element of that "seasoned leadership" that I just won't have, unless it's bestowed upon me by God, it's called the "seasoned" part.
I don't have that kind of experience, I'm not that old, I've not been through those kinds of trials and situations.
BUT I do have my own experiences to learn from, I've got the situations I'm currently in and those I've been in before.
The big question is....am I going to learn from them? What will I do with them as they come and go? Will I learn from mistakes/failures and successes? Will I repeat the good and drop the bad?
Maybe that's what I should focus on, instead of comparing myself to someone I'm not.
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