So I asked Ken the other day if he felt like a pastor yet. He said yes, echoing what I’m feeling and sensing.

We’re approaching people and situations differently than we did even a few weeks ago. People are approaching us differently, too. Even longtime friends treat us a bit differently. There’s a sense of responsibility settling in that we knew would exist but we weren’t really sure what it would be like.

Last night we encountered a situation with a family that’s way, way out of our league. We both felt our dependence on God, believe me! I’m thinking, though, we need to approach everything that way.

More on this later – I’m pondering as I clean!

Feb 112008
 

I never realized how hard it would be to write a Statement of Faith for our church. I’d written one before, for ExWitch – and I remember that we chewed on it for a while before we got it where we wanted – but IMHO it’s far easier to write a simple statement of faith that is deliberately inclusive of all Christians (and thereby very minimalist), than it is to spell it all out in exacting fashion.

My first attempt was to go minimalist. I found a church website once that listed their entire Statement of Faith in about a paragraph. I was tempted to go with that, but it left too many things unanswered.

My next attempt wound up being about 15 pages long, where I tried to answer every conceivable question anyone might have about what we preach at FRF. I left it alone for about a week. Then I went back and tried to read it, and lost the will to get beyond the second page or so. I realized that a good part of my reasoning was to avoid situations like we encountered at LCAG, where a new family started coming to church. They had been in a UPC church before and spoke up – often harshly and during the sermon – if any mention of the Trinity or baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was made. After some weeks of attempting to explain things to them, the pastor eventually asked them to leave. It was difficult for everyone involved, and I’d like to avoid that here.

Now I’m on my third attempt – to land gently somewhere in between a paragraph and 15 pages.

Anyone got advice?

Feb 112008
 

I didn’t end up preaching last week because I really felt awful. I *think* I had the flu, even though I never exactly manifested normal flu symptoms. I ached from head to toe, especially in my neck and back, ran a fever, and had barely noticeable respiratory symptoms. In fact, I’ve still got those even tho the aches and fever have gone.

So, I’m back on tap for this week. I’m going to be preaching about the armor of God. From there in subsequent weeks I plan to touch on prayer, intimacy with the Lord, and spiritual warfare.

So today, I’m focusing on three things:

#1 – time with the Lord, really seeking Him and enjoying His presence

#2 – sermon prep

#3 – housework. As usual, the house got trashed over the weekend. I was also given two HUGE bags of clothes, many of which will fit me, and those that don’t should fit Mother Louise. Thank you, Linda! So I’m sorting through them right now. I’ll have a few to try on later because I can’t tell from eyeballing if they’ll fit or not.

Oh, and #4 – I’m going to take the demand-a-dog out. She’s howling and begging. Though I think what she wants is actually a WALK, as opposed to a wee… we took her and Daisy on a long walk Saturday afternoon, which included a nice dip in the river (Daisy wisely abstained). Now she thinks we should do that three times a day :D

 

We’re picking up Mother Louise and going to Pastor Jack’s Bible study tonight. It’s really more of a house church than a Bible study. We’re learning a lot about the Word, of course, and also about practical pastoring.

Tomorrow I need to write a review of Bottom Dollar. I’m liking it better than Aldi!!

 

We’ve got house church tonight (what better way to spend a birthday?) and it’s my turn to preach. One of the things I really like about house church/small church is that it’s easy to tailor a message to the needs of the congregation. Last week, several people shared that they’re really struggling in certain areas, but haven’t been able to really withstand what they knew was spiritual attack. So this week we’re going to talk about spiritual warfare. We’re going to start with the “armor of God” passage in Ephesians 6, and dissect that passage, relating it to other bits of Scripture and also relating it to practical daily usage.

I’ll blog tomorrow about how it went! :D

Kay Sharpe


I'm a laid-down lover of Jesus Christ. I write about my King and His Kingdom, the Bible, revival, healing, prophecy, faith, and more... plus I throw in recipes, tips, news and politics items, reviews, and all sorts of random things just for fun. Until recently, I was known as "Kathi"... but my name is now Kay. It's a good, God thing... :) The opinions expressed in this blog are mine and mine only - not necessarily shared by my husband, our church, my employers, or anyone else.

© 2011 I Am Healed! Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha

Switch to our mobile site