Friday, February 29, 2008

Reading this week



A price for a people:

The meaning of Christ's Death


By Tom Wells

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

I dream

The words I dream was the beginning statement for a bunch of poems I read today at a local elementary school while waiting for my daughter.
Whatever grade these poems/stories came from were interesting while I can't remember them all I do remember a few.
* I dream off a world with no beer, so people won't drive drunk.
* I dream off a world with no animal cruelty (this was repeated a lot in the posters)
* I dream off ....

I am glad to see the kids have dreams, I think I'll give this as home work for my mid week group.
to see how they fare as mostly seniors.

Well Sunday is past and i am glad for I have been preaching through the sermon on the mount and this week we came to Divorce, so as I am working through this passage in small bits the idea came to me, I'll give some George Barna quotes and show how sadly the church has become victims of this sin, then to keep things moving i read the Wesleyan church position on it from our articles of religion then moved on to the section on oaths.
Where I wanted the people to see the value of their words and that we are constantly under the listening ear of God, hopefully we are working on it.

And Yesterday (Monday) I got my mid week lesson prepared, and decided for March to switch from the sermon on the mount and prepare for another mount - Calvary.
So using a book(used) I picked up a month ago LENTEN-EASTER SOURCE -BOOK from their list of 100 topics and text for lent choose mine for the week, " If Jesus had not come" John 15:22
the challenge comes now to take this title and give it a body. Which I enjoy.

Later

Monday, February 25, 2008

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Hockey People

This weekend will end our complimentary tickets for the Maritime Mariners in the MJAHL hockey league, its been great to have the tickets, till the previous owner (who gave us the tickets) was forced to sell the team and give up his team that he planned to develop, so goes business some win and some get burned.
Well for the season we have sat by the same people every game.
Which is cool! Seeing how people react week after week. [ kinda like church lol ]
The man on my left never talks the whole game you would never know he was there. ( the kind of guy I like sitting by) then there is the two older ladies to my right who have the two isle seats, which once they park , they don't like to move - even stand so you can get by.
And when they do stand up to let us pass by, they always make their thoughts known as we go by getting to our seats, but it's worse when our kids go back and forth they are nasty in their comments.
When you take the end seat be prepared to move.
It's funny though that between the second and third period my wife and I move quickly because that's when they leave their seats so really for the season we have been held hostage.
Then there's the family that sits in front of us -parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts nice people, sons and daughter in laws. They are polite and make conversation , and even take pic's and put them on face book for us to see.
Then the people behind us who are involved with the team as investors, event coordinators, billets for the team players and great hockey fans.
And there's the seat spotters , who move closer and closer to the game by sitting in un occupied seats, And man can that guy yell, I'm sure he is heard in New Found land at every game, he's loud, rude and knows it all about hockey, when the music plays he sings with it . I know he is enjoying the game in his own unique way, but man it hurts the old ears ( a sign of my turning old:( )
Then there was the guy who I say was a senior that was at the Second hockey game of his life , and in good fun he cheered for the opposing team when they scored. To this he was booed by " loyal fans of Yarmouth"
I liked that Guy he had a great spirit.

So now that our tickets have run out , our family will have to find a new way filling up the weekends , so we can have fun.

But while my season tickets are gone I still have my son's team to watch and cheer for , and just yesterday i learned my daughter is on the school basketball team so it will be off to watch her play.

The joys of kids these days,

Later

Friday, February 22, 2008

Todays sunrise







Ps. 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon,

will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.






Thursday, February 21, 2008

Today's quote


Preaching
is effective as long as the preacher expects something to happen—not
because of the sermon, not even because of the preacher, but because of
God.

— John E. Hines

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Tuesday

Here it is just about mid Feb.and the winter is going and fishing season is coming up quick, so to help me pass the time I am reading this week ...
Pursuit of the Holy by Corey Russel
and The Last days by Joel C. Rosenberg
.

While trying to blog more I am looking for events interesting enough to write about, I am keeping my eyes open to life.

so here is an interesting thing that happened two Sundays ago a 'goth' gentleman game into church , i'm 6'oneish and I had to look up to him to talk. He had the black look right down to his fingernails. I have seen him around town for he stands out and asked my son of grade 8 if he knew him, to which he thought his nick name was Jesus. So he sat in the Back pew - while the pew was waiting for its regular occupants who sat in the choir to come down and take their usual place except for mid Nov. till Jan. because of Christmas objections.
So he sat and at times looked as board as my son. I was glad to see people talk to him, and made a effort to befriend him. Later i learned he had been invited to church that Sunday but invited to go to the baptist Church, not ours. He didn't come back this week. But unfortunately we are more inviting to the 50 and older crowd who like hymns.
I wish we could attract more , But I must work with what we have.
And I do appreciate our church and our worship.
We don't have a worship team ( which I don't like anyways, ) and were open to more musicians but we do our best!

Later





Friday, February 08, 2008

Great things to wak up with.





This morning I woke up to see another great sun rise over a layer of fresh snow.

While My wife woke up this morning to see Her ( actually my son's) Science Fair Project Done and ready to take to school, after what seemed like an eternity of work getting it done.

I hope he realizes what a great mom he has to help him through grade 8 .

Either I can't remember well or life has changed a lot but I don't remember grade 8 as hard as he has it.

It's Friday my sermons done, Bullitines are done, song service picked out, and a plans for a senior home service are under way , I can say this is a great day followed by a great week.

Later

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Today






Today the radio announced that schools were cancelled due to the snow storm !

So here are some picures showing the results of todays storm in Yarmouth N.S. and note the grass .
After Living in Bristol N.B. and really seeing snow this is a funny.
Today was a full day off- yesterday school was cancelled early due to forcasted freezing rain.
So the kids have had mini break !
Today I have started a new book titled....
John Calvin (His Life, HIs Teaching , and Influence)
Later

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

This week

As a Pastor at times I get to hear people whine about life ... and usually its not as interesting to hear it as the whiner thinks. But for the last two sundays I have been glad to hear a guy whine that he gave up tickets to Ozzy Osbourne in Halifax. And I keep telling him his mother and wife are really glad he gave them up.
Maybe I'll lend him the copy of the stryper concert dvd I picked up this week when I was shopping with out my wife. Or I'll watch it and see how my pre-teens re-act to Stryper and try to tell them how it's superior to what they hear now.

Another Pastors story! Two sundays ago I watched as my other music leader lead the service with singing. While leading it he used 'overheads' and one was the hymn COME, THOU FONT OF EVERY BLESSING, a great hymn , but when he made the over head he used a Baptist Hymnal instead of our Wesleyan Hymnal ( the one we use) . This is not an issue with me,
In fact there isn't much of a difference till the last verse, and the gap opens wide between positions. And as I'm singing and watching our people in worship, I noticed some folks frantically getting their hymn books out and turning to the right page and singing from our hymn book instead of the over head. Thankfully no new people were sitting by them.
But would they have been contaminatted by singing the words ?
Words from a free will Baptist Hymn Book
"O to grace how great a debt Daily I'm constrained to be! Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to Leave The God I love; Here's my heart, o take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above."

Here are our words
" O to grace how great a debt -or daily I'm constrained to be! Let that grace, now like a fetter, Bind my yielded heart to thee. Let me know Thee in Thy fullness; Guide me by thy mighy hand Till, transformed, in Thine own image, Im Thy presence I shall stand."

I wonder what will be the heavenly version will be we sing ?

Thats it for Pastor story's .

This week I'm reading No Holiness No Heaven by Richard Alderson.

Later

Friday, February 01, 2008