Field Notes #9: The Victory Is in the Preparation

Things are starting to get busy around here! And I like it.

What's going on right now:

I'm preaching on Sunday. Egads! Sermon prep, and making musical selections that will fit. I'm doing a bit fat no-no and trying to preach on 3 different texts. Fortunately, the Old Testament and Epistle readings for this coming Sunday are pretty similar, so it's not like I'm trying to do exegetical acrobatics. Of course, it's Promotion Sunday, which means we're celebrating graduates and kids moving from elementary to middle and middle to high school. I doubt that'll find its way into the sermon, but we'll see. Oh, AND it's communion Sunday! Which makes my heart smile. I was hoping to pick a choral anthem anyway, and here's the perfect opportunity. And I think I'm gonna try and do some creative stuff--the GBOD website had a neat semi-dramatic reading thing that ties the OT and NT texts and is cool, and I'm contemplating using a clip from The Bible Experience as the Scripture lesson. I don't wanna scare people off, though...

I've decided to teach a class. Psalms, here we come! This is the header for the bulletin insert I just drafted to advertise my class. I like that font (Matura MT - Script Capitals), haven't used it before. Anywho, I'm excited about this, even though I know it's basically me giving myself more work and it's doubtful there will be a very large crowd. I may shoot an email over to the interns at Salem UMC to see if any of their folks might be interested. Anyway, the four parts are gonna be as follows: (1) Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible; (2) Psalms: The Songbook of the Bible; (3) Psalms: The Poetry of the Bible; and (4) Psalms: Prayers of Vengeance. I will be using lots of Bonhoeffer and Brueggemann, naturally. It's gonna be awesome!!

I'm part of planning a new worship service. One of the HCUMC college students who's home for the summer has expressed interest in starting a small alternative worship service aimed towards youth and young adults. He and his girlfriend (who lives in Huntersville, nearby) are both very talented and passionate and have a heart for authentic worship. The idea is for it to be a more contemporary (but not rock band-like) service in an intimate setting. We're looking at every other Sunday evening. We're still figuring out how that will work with youth group (hopefully in conjunction), how often to do it, and what to call it. Has giving things cool Biblical Greek names gone out of style? :)

We're moving into the parsonage this week. We actually need a name for that too. It used to be the parsonage but has been renovated into mostly offices and meeting/conference/Sunday School room, though it still has the master suite (AKA my crib once it gets its occupancy certificate). It's a wonderful space and looks great. Thursday night we're moving and cleaning and whatnot, so maybe by next week I'll finally live in the same place as all my junk. Plus the living room there could be a good place for this new service to meet.

And then there's youth group (we meet on Sunday and will hopefully start doing something during the week as well), meetings, LeaAnne going out of town next week (which means Val and I have to do the powerpoint and bulletin and everything), folks in and out of the hospital, etc. etc. etc.!

And that's not even my personal life! This weekend, I'm taking a short beach trip (apparently the only kind of beach trip I take), to see Gary's band Climb Jacob's Ladder play in Wilmington. Er, and sing with them, too. And I suddenly have 2 shows of my own the following weekend--I'm playing the Davidson Farmer's Market on Saturday morning and I'm back at Maddi's Southern Bistro that night. PLUS, Gary's leaving the country next week--he's going to El Salvador on the 10th! Crazy!

I also really need to learn to get up in the mornings. Debbie's got sweet blinds on these windows so it stays dark in my room, which is a blessing and a curse. Tomorrow I am determined to get up with my alarm. When I finally did get up this morning, I went first to The Coffeehouse at Denver to work. I may do that again tomorrow, or go back to Dilworth Coffee at Denver.