Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 February 2007 20:52:46
It's quite a daunting prospect at last to find myself free to take up my local preacher training once again. Nine months... it's a long time. I can't remember anything much! To say nothing of being able to find the paperwork for the first part of the course which I know I put away somewhere......... the question is.... where! I'm thinking of negotiating a restart, what do you reckon to my chances. At least it might mean I could add the little bit to the first essay to knock the mark up from 69% to 70% (I know, I know, modesty is my only fault!)
I'd decided, almost reluctantly, to go back on the Plan in March or April - give myself time to readjust to the idea. Hmm.... never mess with God, that's what I need to learn. A phone call comes from our Superintendant minister - he's lost his voice and can I take the service for him? UGH! One week's notice of doing it... a themed service that's fourth in a series of five (something I've never done before). And as if that weren't difficult enough, the choir rehearse on Wednesdays so could I have the rough draft of my order of service done by Tuesday evening? AGH! I have never before chosen the hymns and organised the readings BEFORE having at least a vague outline of the sermon roughed out. To add a bit of spice to the challenge, there would be a choir, and also it was a church with powerpoint (rare amongst methodist churches in our little backwater of an Island) which I had never used in the church context before. My first instinct was, naturally, to pretend I wasn't computer literate at all.... not quite sure how I ended up using it for three different parts of the service!
Good job God had plans for me this morning, I think. How could the rubbish I was cobbling together at the eleventh hour last night (literally) have morphed into the sermon I found myself preaching today? Trouble is, it sounds a bit "goody-two-shoes", when people compliment you on the service, to say "I couldn't have done it without God" no matter how true it is.
So the ice is broken. Three services lined up now in March and April. Am I nervous?
You bet!