Ok, I know it's late ... I still have other stuff I wanna do before bed as well, so is really gonna be a late one. However, have access to internet just now and so am using it to my full advantage, lol.
Firstly - CONGRATULATIONS to those baptised in EMBC on Sunday night. I hear from many people that it was an amazing night and God's presence could be strongly, tangibly felt, woo hoo!!! I'm praying for you all as you continue in your journey with Jesus and I can't wait to see the video of it when I come back.
Have just come back from another form of leadership meeting tonight. Am observing so much here, but what I sense most of all is that this is a church that at its heart passionately loves God, loves people and is seeking to live the Jesus, Kingdom, way of life. As a student who is getting to see all this and is able to comment on things that they either don't see themselves or think is just how every church does things it's great to be able to encourage them. What goes on here is what L. Gregory Jones and Kevin R. Amstrong call excellence in ministry - not perfect, but beautiful none-the-less. They say in Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping faithful Christian ministry that 'beautiful ministry both calls forth and demands the very best we can provide; it calls for excellence in all that we are and do.' (p.g. 20) That is what I see here, and it inspires me.
However, on a different note am suffering from every preacher's worst nightmare ... preacher's block. Am preaching twice this weekend. Once at a new youth worship event that's been set up (Friday night) and once on Sunday morning at the church plant (well, its really a church in its own right - just without a constitution). I have absolutely blinding passages from the Sermon on the Mount, so really its a preacher's dream.
At the youth event have the beattitudes as my theme and through that will be calling the young people to radical discipleship with an oppertunity for them to respond to that as well as an oppertunity for young people to become Christians if that's where they're at. Have sensed what I feel God wants to say, and have a first draft, but am totally unhappy and unsettled with it. Not sure how it needs to change, but it does ... and fast! I think the difficulty is finding some of the points of connection, because it really is a wide-ranging congregation that it's for. But thinking as I write, its more than that. It's putting it together in such a way that it doesn't become a rant or an exegetical sermon that misses the excitment of following Jesus in the risky way that He calls us to. Ahhh, in my head I know what it should sound like, but on paper its not there yet. That's tomorrow's job and prayer is much appreciated for it!!!
Sunday morning is more than half way there, and is from the passages in Matt (4:18-22; 5:13-16) where Jesus calls the first disciples and then calls them to be salt and light. Am going to be looking at what it meant to be called as a disciple of Jesus (Rob Bell's Nooma dvd - Dust really helped solidify what commentators also point out but what we often miss), and then the fact that Jesus called the disciples salt and light before they had ever done anything. He spoke and called out of them the potential that God had placed in them, He believed in them. Those will be the kind of ideas we'll look at, seeking to encourage the congregation so they know who they are and both the command and promises included in these passages.
Am really excited to be preaching again ... feels like its been ages. I love it! Literally love it! It's such a priviledge and joy - especially when it's words like I feel God has laid on my heart for this weekend. But what we realised today is that I'm going to have to be extra aware of my accent. Most of the time people can understand me ok, but sometimes they really can't. Plus the speed I talk at doesn't help ... made worse by the fact I speed up when using any other form of microphone other than tie one (which is what I'll be using on Friday). Am extra conscious of these things here and really pray that nothing of me, whether accent or speed or anything else, gets in the way of what God wants to speak into people's lives. Watch this space for an update of how it goes...
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