Church camp, recovering from church camp, and preparing for my 10-year reunion with my ACU MFI family has exhausted any energy I might channel to write posts on this blog. But, that is all behind me now! I am feeling renewed.
I am anxiously anticipating the upcoming Leadership Retreat, or whatever we are calling it now. I have been thinking, and more importantly praying, that God's work in us will proceed unhindered. I sense that I am nearly the only one that gets excited about the leadership retreat, sometimes that discourages me a bit, but that's o.k. We all have our roles. I suppose part of mine is to get excited about things that bore others to tears.
Unusual enthusiasms have always characterized my attempts at ministry. I recall, many years ago, teaching the youth group about the significance of the Dead Sea Scroll findings. I was pumped, they were less than moved. Then there was that time, just a few years ago, that Terry asked me to lead a discussion with the young men regarding masturbation. Once again, my enthusiasm was not shared by the audience. Actually, I don't think any of them actually lifted their head off the table. Very few give a flip about our Stone-Campbell heritage or hermeneutic principles, two areas of study that I find exciting. BUT, that's O.K.
I am very blessed to be a part of the Sunshine Church of Christ. God has made us all unique. We have all the necessary ingredients to bear marvelous fruit. We are a family. We need each other to be faithful to Lord that works in His community. I do not need you to share in any of my unusual enthusiasms, but I do need for as many who will, to get enthused about the power of God at work in us.
What do you say?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
I'm back in the saddle
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4 comments:
I too am enthused about the men's retreat coming this fall. I have already made plans to attend. I agree with you that we all do not have to be excited about the same activities or organizations within the church, as long as we are all excited about what God is doing in our lives and church.
Maybe the kids were not excited about your topic, maybe they were just embarrassed.
That was truly a funny experience. They would not hardly make eye-contact with me. I knew they were embarrassed, I assured them I was not going to ask for a show of hands, or any such thing.
I get excited about things involving God and His mighty work in the church as a whole. This is why I get so excited over things like David Phelps singing, Zoe and her adoption, adoption in general (for that matter), new people coming to church, people going forward for prayer or to be baptized, children loving to come to class, etc. I see God is all of these things and it renews my strength and willingness to get excited about......Him.
If I back something 100% I can get excited about it and I tend to talk to everyone I know about it and that enthusiasm is either contagious or causes people to laugh at me or roll their eyes.
There are alot of people in my life who do not get excited about anything except the next opportunity to complain. So, I tend to be a hinderance to them. I choose to get excited about happy things that bring about life to the fullest.
I wish everyone did.
Jen
Well do I remember the time you tried to excite us about the Dead Sea Scrolls! Unfortunately that stuff didn't excite me until college.
As for the other topic...Don Lemon and Jon Coriell talked to my groupa about the "m" word. Draw your own conclusions about our response.
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