Thoughts from a Sunday afternoon
There has been lots of drama today, but so far church stuff has gone well.
This morning when I checked email I learned that a friend of mine was asked to resign from his church. Always sad - especially to learn about it on Sunday morning. I know that most of my readers are not pastors - so there is something you should know about the life of a pastor - we hear these stories a lot. I've never known more people to be "pushed" out of their jobs. Competent people. Good people. People who made major sacrifices to accept the call to be a pastor. In my opinion (based on lots of reading and discussions with pastors from lots of different denominations from all over the world) conflict between pastors and congregations is getting more and more acute. It's a sad state of affairs really. Don't know what to do about it. I'm grateful for the support I get from my church. So that was the first piece of drama.
Then about 6:30am our houseguest realized that she picked up the wrong bag at the airport. The bag she had looked like hers. In fact it was the same bag. But the stuff inside did NOT belong to her. Fortunately, Thai Airways was on top of things and successfully located her bag. She left for the airport shortly after morning worship. I hope and trust that all bags were reunited with rightful owners.
10 minutes later we all piled into the car to go to church. Bags in trunk? Check. Kids in carseats? Check. Car turned on and running? Uh-oh. Battery is dead. Everybody and everything out of the car. Let's catch a taxi.
We arrive. Our outreach partner, Mercy House, is scheduled to arrive before 9am because they are leading a time of sharing from 9 - 9:45. They arrive about 9:20. They had car trouble. Apparently their airconditioning broke. In Thailand that's not a luxury. It's a necessity.
Then 20 minutes into the worship service we loose power. I have to say I sometimes feel like Satan is intentionally trying to make us crazy. But the great thing is that God is still worshipped. We still had a great morning service. We are still going to have a great Evening Worship. God was/will be praised. We did/will learn more about Jesus. We did/will love Jesus and as a result did/will love others.
This morning when I checked email I learned that a friend of mine was asked to resign from his church. Always sad - especially to learn about it on Sunday morning. I know that most of my readers are not pastors - so there is something you should know about the life of a pastor - we hear these stories a lot. I've never known more people to be "pushed" out of their jobs. Competent people. Good people. People who made major sacrifices to accept the call to be a pastor. In my opinion (based on lots of reading and discussions with pastors from lots of different denominations from all over the world) conflict between pastors and congregations is getting more and more acute. It's a sad state of affairs really. Don't know what to do about it. I'm grateful for the support I get from my church. So that was the first piece of drama.
Then about 6:30am our houseguest realized that she picked up the wrong bag at the airport. The bag she had looked like hers. In fact it was the same bag. But the stuff inside did NOT belong to her. Fortunately, Thai Airways was on top of things and successfully located her bag. She left for the airport shortly after morning worship. I hope and trust that all bags were reunited with rightful owners.
10 minutes later we all piled into the car to go to church. Bags in trunk? Check. Kids in carseats? Check. Car turned on and running? Uh-oh. Battery is dead. Everybody and everything out of the car. Let's catch a taxi.
We arrive. Our outreach partner, Mercy House, is scheduled to arrive before 9am because they are leading a time of sharing from 9 - 9:45. They arrive about 9:20. They had car trouble. Apparently their airconditioning broke. In Thailand that's not a luxury. It's a necessity.
Then 20 minutes into the worship service we loose power. I have to say I sometimes feel like Satan is intentionally trying to make us crazy. But the great thing is that God is still worshipped. We still had a great morning service. We are still going to have a great Evening Worship. God was/will be praised. We did/will learn more about Jesus. We did/will love Jesus and as a result did/will love others.
