Friday, September 02, 2005

THE SERMON...Let me go back a few days to Sunday

Last Sunday, the pastor at our church spoke on a theme that he has covered numerous times in various sermons over the last year or so. Maybe he is repeating it so that it’ll sink in to the congregation and maybe God wants me to act on it.

The theme was about getting involved with a ministry at church.

Let me pause real quick and look up the definition of ministry.

Here are the ones that I am interested in (Ministry):
4
: a person or thing through which something is accomplished
5
: the period of service or office of a minister or ministry

Okay, it is easy for me to agree and feel good about myself since I am doing my part by teaching/leading a Sunday School class. But, over the past year I feel like God has laid something on my heart for me to do. About a year ago, we took one of those spiritual gifts, areas of ministry tests and I think I scored off the map for where my heart was and the ministry opportunity provided to fill it.

I am not saying no to God; I am just trying to figure out the logistics. Will anybody care? How will I do it? When will we have time for it? I feel like I need to get the details worked out before I can present it. But I hate that I have been thinking about it for over a year and have done nothing about it. I have talked to one of our pastors already and he’s on board. But after hearing the sermon last week, it was a friendly reminder and open invitation to come talk to the Pastor. Like he said, “if you see a potential ministry that the church that is lacking, then fill it.”

Our pastor applauded a girl in our church who was starting a silly children’s music class that could be a potential outreach to the community. So, surely my silly little idea might has some merit.

Maybe the thing holding me back is “how do you talk to your pastor?” He’s busy. It’s not like I want to stop him in the hall and try to explain to him the complex idea that I don’t even fully understand. I thought about sending an email, but I think I will try to schedule an appointment. I am taking next week off to do some housework and maybe a road trip. I’ll schedule an appointment.

Maybe if I type these words out they’ll move me into action….

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, you have a wonderful blog here! Without doubt I will return for another look !

GoldenSunrise said...

I think the Pastor would be excited to hear about your idea and what is on your heart. He is all about that! He wants everyone to come to him about potential ministries.

T said...

I agree with golden, and I hope this works out for you....let us know how it goes!

Jadee said...

I would definitely sit down with your pastor. Get a feel for where he is on the idea. Many times when God is working on something, there is more than one person He is preparing for it.

Other times, He may want YOU to do something that may not have to go through the church. He is looking for willing hearts to follow His leading.

As T would always tell me, "follow your heart".

windarkwingod said...

God equips those He Calls! It's a much-used & abused phrase that gives me great peace with a new direction.

shakedust said...

Yeah, scheduling a time with him is probably the best way to guarrantee a time to talk with him.

Personally, I am kind of in a limbo state where I am not sure where God wants me. I have some long term ideas, but I am not even sure those are what God wants from me. He tends to work out the things He wants, but it is usually a crazy ride to get there.

By the way, I am glad I am not the only who noticed the theme. I have been thinking about talking about soapboxes on my site for a little while but I have been concerned that people will think that what I am saying is entirely negative. I want to remain uplifting. :)

Dash said...

I'm also glad to hear that I'm not the only one that has wondered why all the messages seem to sound the same. I started asking questions about the Royal Rangers program about 2 years ago after a similar message.

Recently, I've mentioned to T that I've not been getting that much from the morning message since I already seemed to have found a spot to share in. Maybe I should suck it up and give more folks a chance to find their own train.

I suppose I finaly might be grown up enough to not need every sermon to be directed to me.

That being said, this new series (on Nehemiah of all books) has really caugth my interest. I was actully disapointed to miss it this week. Maybe I should get a "tape". Do they have sermons on disc or mp3? I don't have a tape player.

f o r r e s t said...

Dash- they do have mp3's on the churches website.

Dash and Dush, I can always count on you guys to pick up on what I pick up on. You guys are great friends.

I guess he is repeating because it is so easy to have the same group of people do it all and have another group of people to benefit by doing nothing. Vernal got asked to do something again on top of a couple of other things that she is already doing. Thankfully she said "no." I can get burnout easily.

Anonymous said...

You could always do it and ask for forgiveness later. What I mean is that if you start something that does not inherently undermine the church's mission and you would most gladly make it a flagship ministry once they got wind of it, why would that need approval? If I were your pastor, I would see it as taking the initiative to make something happen.

Kinda like a CEO who tells his sales team to increase sales by 20% and shows them the need. Suppose one of those salesperson's thought they could land a client that would meet that goal, but they did so by playing a round of golf with the client and not by setting up a business appointment to give their sales pitch. If I were the CEO and found out what he did and how he did it, I would buy him a new set of golf clubs, a membership at the local country club and let him whirl.

f o r r e s t said...

Taz, are you who I think you are?
Welcome aboard.

Anonymous said...

I am the one who uses anachronisms like "booze." Nuff said?

Anonymous said...

How do you talk to your Pastor?

That is funny ! He is no different than you are, he put his pants on the same way! etc. He is not God but I really don't think you have a problem talking to God!

So why should a pastor be any different that you ?

Say Pastor I need some time with you and if he says fine then so be it ! If he says can we set another time so be it! If he says I haven't got time, then you take him aside and tell him he does have the time!

Guess who wrote this? Ya just may be right! No one is above God or his children ! That includes any Pastor!

Wink !

Anonymous said...

Maybe this will help No one is Above the Law !

Wink!

f o r r e s t said...

Hello Uncle Doug,
Glad your alive and hangin in there!

I didn't mean for it to come across as I am afraid to talk to the pastor. I meant that he's a busy guy and everyone wants to talk to him and I am a busy guy, so how am I gonna find a chunk of time?