Sabbatical

Greetings folks,

Well, for those of you who weren't in church on Sunday, I officially preached my last sermon until September. We have started our Sabbatical, although it doesn't really seem like it. Sunday afternoon was the crazy day we like to call Baccaluareate at Dixon High School. I don't quite know how we started this trend, but we brought all of our sound equipment from the church to the high school, and assembled it all and provided the music for the Baccaluareate service. So church got out around noon, the praise team kids and friends started disassembling things right after church and loaded it into my car. Then we had pizza together so that they wouldn't be famished when they played. Then we got to the school around 1pm, with a steady downpour putting a damper on attendance. But we got all the sound stuff into the auditorium and got it set up, all within about 45 minutes, it was awesome. John Lightner who is our sound technician, did a fabulous job. We also managed to get Kevin Dagner from the Sauk Valley Comm. Church to play guitar and sing with the girls. He's a wonderful musician with a pastors heart, and added a lot to the group. It was a nice service, although someone said that one of the class officers is Bhuddist, which surprised me that she felt like she had to participate in a Christian service. I think we'll clarify that in the future. So that was the afternoon of our sabbatical kick off.

That night proved to be another challenge. James barely slept all night with an earache/ear infection. Then Monday we thought he was feeling better so we went to a Memorial Day picnic with friends. He did alright there, but we left early becuase John was pretty tired and James became lathargic as the day wore on. He had a better night, but still woke up a few times. John on the other hand, only woke up once. (good job). It's funny how our perspective changes about what is a good night.

So our Sabbatical has not started out as spiritual as I had hoped. I wanted to sit and read and rest most days, but being a parent, that's not possible. I think I might take the boys to day care, just so I can rest and read a few days. I have high hopes for my reading list, but it's not getting off to a good start. I also have the responsibility of doing VBS this next week. I'm not a VBS kind of guy, I enjoy doing camps and games, but I was stuck with this responsibility, and I know I'm not very good, I just hope it goes alright. We are joining forces with First Presbyterian so there are added challenges in combining resources and personel. We'll see how it goes.

Back to Sabbatical, I got the resgistration for the seminar and the different workshops that I can take. I'm very pleased and excited to be able to go to Princeton Seminary, even for only a week to study preaching and to be challenged and educated a little bit more about the craft of preaching. I've always known preaching was important, but then my preaching prof. at Northern Sem. said that he led a church through transformation and growth primarily through preaching. Which I saw my dad do, but it was good to have it re-enforced. So I desire to be a good preacher, but I have to balance that with being a good dad/husband/ and pastor. I don't just want to be an orator, but i want to be a shepherd of sheep. I feel that is my calling. So we'll see how God leads me during this time of rest and rejuvenation. I pray that this will lead my to deeper sermons, which will yield deep thinkers in the congregation, and hopefully a healthy and robust church.

I'll keep this post updated with Sabbatical happenings.
Peace.

Love Thy Neighbor

Everyone shows shows love in different ways, but as Christians there is no question we must show, this most excellent virtue to neighbors and enemies and everyone in between. The question is how to does this play out in everyday life. Does love mean we give everyone a Valentines card or roses? No we need to redefine love according to Jesus' definition, and his definition (as evidenced by his actions) of love is desiring God's best for a person. When the woman who was accused of adultery was brought before Jesus in John 8 how did he demonstrate God's love? He not only saved her physical life, but he cared for her spirit in this famous phrase, "Go and sin no more." The question for me is, "Do we love people enough to tell them, go and sin no more?

In our permissive culture it seems that no one wants to stand up for truth, everyone is ok, everyone is a nice and good person. No one these days takes criticism well because in a post modern culture there is no authority save oneself. Yet for Christians our authority is Christ who calls us to obedience and to discipleship through discipline. No one likes discipline but endures it for a time because they trust that it will produce the desired results. No kid wants to give in to the discipline of his parents, but they trust the parents are acting in the kids best interests. Should we think any less of our relationship with Christ. Does God not discipline those He loves? Doesn't He tell us to go and sin no more? Should we not then do that same to the people we love?

I know this seems like a tall order, but imagine the alternative to tell somone you love them and let them destroy their life. How is that love? Too many parents have enables their kids to make bad choice in the name of love, which turned out to be anything but love. In fact it is laziness on the part of parents to correct their children, or ignorance on how to in fact to teach them to live a virtuous life. Parents cannot teach something they don't know. So my hope is that as Christians we can be a voice of love and salvation for our society, a voice that says, Go and sin no more. We need to hear Jesus say it to us each day, and at the right time in a spirit of humility and peace, with respect we should say it to others to save them, and truly demonstrate God's love to them.

One of my seminary professors was fond of defining love this way. "To love someone means that I am unwilling to wallpaper their jail cell for them." What a superb definition of love. We want someones best, we don't want to make them feel good about their addiciton, their oppression, their sinfulness. Hollywood would have you think that love means we all go about our business and not get involved, and not care what other people do. But loving someone demands action, demands involvement. To love our neighbor means that we care about their well being now, and also their eternal salvation.

So my question for you is, "How well do you love?"