Sunday Sermon and Thoughts
Here's the sermon from Sunday.
A couple of thoughts from yesterday.
(1) It was cool in Bangkok Sunday. As a result the fact that the maintenance guy at Bangkok Christian had the air on full blast made it freezing in the auditorium. You'd think that would be simple to fix. Nothing in Bangkok is as simple as it sounds. We don't have a key to the room where the aircon controls are. So we looked for the maintenance guy. The gals who work for BKK Christian said he'd gone to market and they'd tell him when he returned. We called him. His phone was off. So we had to relay our request through three or four different people and at least two different languages with varying levels of proficiency to manage this one problem. Worship starts at 10am. At 10:02 the air was shut completely off, which by a miracle is what I wanted. But then I wanted it turned back on after about 10 minutes but on the lowest setting (it has three settings, there is no temperature adjustment... only low, medium and high, which refers to the number of fans that turn on. It took me 2 years before someone was able to explain that!!!). The aircon was never turned back on. So our morning service was cold for the first 10 minutes. Then stuffy for 10 minutes. Then stuffy and slightly hot for the next 40 minutes. AND more importantly, after the first minute was uncomfortably quiet (which I didn't anticipate). It made people with young children uncomfortable. It made me, as the preacher, uncomfortable. And it clearly made the congregation uncomfortable as people were extremely quiet.
It's amazing how one seemingly simple thing can end up being a huge distraction. Sorry about that rant but it's just the way it was. This is best thing about the Thai cultural value of... mai bpen rai (never mind)... is that with a wave of the hand and the utterance of a phrase all is okay again.
(2) Partly as a result of #1 above, this was one of those Sundays where the sermon in the evening was much better than the sermon in the morning. It was much easier to concentrate. AND more importantly, between services I thought of a much stronger illustration of my last point. Unfortunatey the sermon link above does not contain the revised illustration. It has to do with realizing that for me tithing has become an excuse to be greedy and selfish. I've made it into a cap on my generosity. If I give 10% I can feel good about myself without really considering if I can or should be more generous... which is NOT the intent of the tithe.
(3) We've started having visitors in the mornings again. Is this a sign of the economy picking up a little? Maybe, but the rumor is that the Red Shirts are going to make major protests again next week. Just in time for Christmas.
(4) Really thought the choir was strong Sunday... both in the morning and the evening. Okay - we don't really have a choir in the evening, but Marion and Mark were great song leaders.
(5) Malcolm's children's lesson was great in the morning too.
(6) So was the International Potluck that Nancy organized and managed.
(7) In the evening - it's amazing what a difference a poster can make. About three months ago, a poster we placed on the window of the manager's office in the lobby disappeared. About the same time, our attendance tailed off and declined some in the evenings. I didn't put two and two together until a few weeks ago. Then it took some time to remake the poster and get it to the Guesthouse. On Sunday we saw the importance. Not a great turnout of regulars, but a good turnout from the Guesthouse itself meant that our numbers were back to normal. All kinds of great stuff resulted from that.
Seven is a holy number, so I'm going to end it there.
A couple of thoughts from yesterday.
(1) It was cool in Bangkok Sunday. As a result the fact that the maintenance guy at Bangkok Christian had the air on full blast made it freezing in the auditorium. You'd think that would be simple to fix. Nothing in Bangkok is as simple as it sounds. We don't have a key to the room where the aircon controls are. So we looked for the maintenance guy. The gals who work for BKK Christian said he'd gone to market and they'd tell him when he returned. We called him. His phone was off. So we had to relay our request through three or four different people and at least two different languages with varying levels of proficiency to manage this one problem. Worship starts at 10am. At 10:02 the air was shut completely off, which by a miracle is what I wanted. But then I wanted it turned back on after about 10 minutes but on the lowest setting (it has three settings, there is no temperature adjustment... only low, medium and high, which refers to the number of fans that turn on. It took me 2 years before someone was able to explain that!!!). The aircon was never turned back on. So our morning service was cold for the first 10 minutes. Then stuffy for 10 minutes. Then stuffy and slightly hot for the next 40 minutes. AND more importantly, after the first minute was uncomfortably quiet (which I didn't anticipate). It made people with young children uncomfortable. It made me, as the preacher, uncomfortable. And it clearly made the congregation uncomfortable as people were extremely quiet.
It's amazing how one seemingly simple thing can end up being a huge distraction. Sorry about that rant but it's just the way it was. This is best thing about the Thai cultural value of... mai bpen rai (never mind)... is that with a wave of the hand and the utterance of a phrase all is okay again.
(2) Partly as a result of #1 above, this was one of those Sundays where the sermon in the evening was much better than the sermon in the morning. It was much easier to concentrate. AND more importantly, between services I thought of a much stronger illustration of my last point. Unfortunatey the sermon link above does not contain the revised illustration. It has to do with realizing that for me tithing has become an excuse to be greedy and selfish. I've made it into a cap on my generosity. If I give 10% I can feel good about myself without really considering if I can or should be more generous... which is NOT the intent of the tithe.
(3) We've started having visitors in the mornings again. Is this a sign of the economy picking up a little? Maybe, but the rumor is that the Red Shirts are going to make major protests again next week. Just in time for Christmas.
(4) Really thought the choir was strong Sunday... both in the morning and the evening. Okay - we don't really have a choir in the evening, but Marion and Mark were great song leaders.
(5) Malcolm's children's lesson was great in the morning too.
(6) So was the International Potluck that Nancy organized and managed.
(7) In the evening - it's amazing what a difference a poster can make. About three months ago, a poster we placed on the window of the manager's office in the lobby disappeared. About the same time, our attendance tailed off and declined some in the evenings. I didn't put two and two together until a few weeks ago. Then it took some time to remake the poster and get it to the Guesthouse. On Sunday we saw the importance. Not a great turnout of regulars, but a good turnout from the Guesthouse itself meant that our numbers were back to normal. All kinds of great stuff resulted from that.
Seven is a holy number, so I'm going to end it there.
