Careful

I am in the process of moving. Well, the tail end of it now. I moved, with the help of my brother, all my furniture from OKC to Clinton. And in the midst of unpacking, yet again, I lost this thing. This roll of weather strip, the stuff that you put in the door to seal drafts and such. Two days again I was annoyed at myself because it seemed like I bought umpteen rolls of the stuff but today I was noticed a draft by the front door and now I cannot find a single roll of the stuff.

Today is the 3rd or 4th Sunday that I have not preached. And it feels so good. I also haven't been to church in 3 or 4 Sundays. I haven't read my Bible or the lectionary in that time. Granted I have been in the state of turmoil and chaos over moving, getting paid (or not getting paid) and trying to put together a board . I was starting to worry about my lack of church desire because if I remember correctly it took about 4 or 6 months at Drew before I started to miss it. It may have been a year. I don't think my reprieve will last that long. Eventually I will have to start visiting churches for fundraising stuff. But for now I am so happen about not having to do the whole sermon preperation.

I used to dread Sunday mornings. I would toss and turn all night on Saturdays and then almost refuse to get up to write the sermon on Sundays. That was another thing. I absolutely could not get myself to write my sermon before Sunday Morning. I would try to plan it on Mondays and then plan to finish writing it by Wenesday so I could do rewrites and so forth. But they never seemed to come til Sunday Mornings. I wasn't really like this in school. It may have been rewrites the night before but I would never wait till 2 hours before.

I think its the having to preach every Sunday that gets to me. I don't have enough recovery time between Sundays. It takes a lot out of me to preach. When I preach the way I want to, at the end its like everything in me is emptied out. But if I preach like that every Sunday, I would get burned out so, part the lack of disciple is self-defense. And it takes a lot of nerve to preach what does come on Sunday Mornings. Sometimes I would sit in my chair behind the pulpit and have to talk my self into preaching during Sunday Morning worship. It would be because I realised that my topic or an example in my sermon may hit a person a little more strongly than I am comfortable with. I decided to preach about death on Sunday but then during the worship part this young woman walked in with her family. She had lost her mother the week before and I didn't want to be insensitive to her pain. I had figured she would be with her family in a different town because of the funeral. But there she was and that death sermon wanted to be preached that day. That took a lot of convincing to get in the pulpit that day. Well, anyway this is a welcome break from all that worry for a little bit.

The title is a Guster song that I like. Now I have to go find that thing I lost.

Too many days @ the Beach

By the way, this is church and community center that I work at in Clinton, Oklahoma. I live in Clinton, now. Birthplace of Toby Keith. Its not all that bad, the people are friendly. They all do that two finger wave from the steering wheel when you pass them on the streets. If you have ever lived in the country, you know what that means. I kinda like it, though I do the whole hand wave back to them.

Well, VBS is done for one more year!!! Thank you Jesus. Our VBS lasts only three days but I swear. me and the two other teachers almost didn't make it past two days

This my teacher for the older elementry. ----->

I kept trying to tell him that maybe he wanted to teach the early elementry class because of these 4 boys. But he insisted. I peeked in on his class on the second day and it looked like a circus in there. There was bits of paper flying around and he looked stunned. I did warn him.

This is a couple of the early elementary class, my class. They really got into the beach theme. I think they kinda got shafted because i kept going to check on the other teachers to make sure they were still alive. I split the classes up this year. Last year I just had one big group and it was ok but splitting them up was better. They said they had fun though.

My mom was the other teacher. I have no pictures of her because she pretty much hid when it was time to for them to come back together as a group. She was probably curled up in a ball whimpering after each class. She had the preshoolers.

<----This is Sade, one of the clowns in my mom's class. She is three. I think she is so adorable but I am very glad she is not my kid. Last year at VBS she threw this hissy fit like you would not believe! At two, she had not quite grasped the concept of sharing and taking turns. She has improved greatly. I barely heard her crying this year.

This next one, is Kamarie. She is adorable too. Four years old. Her older brother and sister come to the church as well. As the third kid out of four, she has a baby brother, she is used to whining as a way of life. And its contagious, we all end up whining after an hour with her. ------------------>

The last one is Katie. She is so smart. She is four too and has an impressive way of speaking to people. I guess her family doesn't speak down to her. So she is more like a short adult. With a bit of a lisp. They are cute but I am glad its over.