Across the World, Across the Street

I know it is hardly an original theme, nor is it particularly a very inventive theme, but this is what I have chosen for our Missions month.

Missions is to ALL the World.

Mat 28:18  And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Mat 28:19  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Mat 28:20  Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

 It says teach ALL NATIONS.
Also:

Act 1:8  But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Here it mentions four different aspects to be witnesses in: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

Well looking at what each of these things are, we see that Jerusalem is the city they were in, Judea was the "State" they were in, and Samaria was the nearest neighbour - leaving only "the uttermost part of the earth", which pretty obviously means everything else aside from those three first mentioned. In other words, the statement covers everything from where you live, to where you will never get to, and everything in between.

As a generalisation though, Christians seem to have forgotten about the first three mentioned areas.
"The uttermost parts" is (relatively speaking) the popular part, while the "our city" part is just too hard.

Then you have some who ignore the "uttermost part" and concentrate only their own little area.

This is just as bad, because there are four areas mentioned in Acts 1:8 and all four are considered by the Lord to be part of the Great Commission.

That is why our theme is "Across the World, Across the Street" - because it is vital that we are each and every one involved in sharing the Gospel with the people that we meet, the people that we work with, the people that we live near, the people near that good church on the other side of our city, or the one in the next city, or the one on the other side of our country, or the one on the other side of the world.

The Gospel isn't fulfilled because I speak to one person.
The Gospel isn't fulfilled because I give money so that a missionary can speak to one person.
The Gospel isn't fulfilled because the Pastor preaches in our church.

The Gospel is not about any one of these things alone - it is ALL OF THEM - teach ALL NATIONS, including our own.

As we have this month at our church where we consider the missions and missionaries that we know about, we have some decisions to make:

• Will add another missionary for financial support? (I think we should)
• Who would be the best to add for financial support? (There are so many who could use it!)
• What can our church do "Across our Street"?
• What can you do personally across your own street?

The Great Commission is to all nations - in our city, in our region, in our state, in our nation, AND to the uttermost part of the earth.
And it needs the help, the prayers, the effort, the commitment, and yes - the money - of each and every one of us.
But it must come from hearts that love the Lord.

2Co_9:7  Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

God does want you to give, but He wants you to give because you love Him and because you love His service.
If you don't want to give your time to go across the street, then that is your choice.
If you don't want to give your energy to doing things that honour the Lord and spread His Gospel, then that is your choice.
If you don't want to give any money to help to finance missionaries to do the Lord's work, then that is your choice.
And you are free to make that choice.

God only really wants people serving Him who actually love Him, not people who are serving Him because they feel like they have to.

Willing hearts, Cheerfully giving.

So that the Gospel may be heard "Across the World, and Across the Street"

Pastor's working conditions?????

I know not many people read this so I should be relatively safe having a little vent - I think.......

Now, I do not treat being a Pastor as a job. It is nothing so trivial as that.

However, I recently spoke to a few people at church about sorting out some sort of "employment agreement" for the position.

There are reasons why I think this is a good idea:

1. It protects the church from a future Pastor who is doing something wrong by giving them some solid guidelines for dismissal.
2. It protects a future Pastor from being dismissed for "personality clashes" or trivial matters.
3. It lets everyone know exactly where they stand in relation to the Pastor in a business sense.

To be honest, my concern is largely for the next man who comes here, if the Lord tarries. If things are set in place, then he will be fully aware of what his position is and how the church is going to look after him.

After all, even if I stay here for the rest of my life - which is my intention unless the Lord clearly directs me otherwise - I will eventually die and someone else will take over. Assuming of course that the Lord doesn't return for His saints before that time - which He may well do.

So I want to prepare for the next guy. I have already had to put up with full time work, part time work, living on almost nothing, pressure from people who have decided not to like me, a church that couldn't help my family, and some people who don't want to help my family.

So I proposed to a few that we need to work up some sort of document to cover the "business" part of the position.

And the response I got from a few was surprising to me.

There was one comment that a Pastor doesn't need holidays, and after all if he wants to go to the fellowship meetings he just takes the time off anyway, so that is his holidays.

This surprised me because I wonder if people would consider going to a business conference and taking their family along constituted a "family holiday". And that is aside from the fact that when I go to the fellowship meetings I usually end up preaching at a church or two over there, and often a message at the meetings themselves, and I still have to prepare fro the Sunday that I return for - so if anything a week at the fellowship meetings is MORE WORK for me, not less.

That got me to thinking: Why shouldn't a Pastor have annual leave and long service leave just like any other worker?

Now don't get me wrong - no Christian should take off being a Christian.
But the work of the ministry is a full time plus job.
And it is a constant "on the horizon" job.
Aside from the Pastoral care that arises without notice at any time of the day or night, there is the constant, ever approaching Sunday pressure.
Sunday doesn't stop just because I have a family crisis to deal with or a hospital visit comes up, or some administrative issue arises.
Sunday is always coming.
And for each and every Sunday I have Adult Sunday School and two messages to prepare for.
And if go to the fellowship meetings, I still have to get them ready for when I return.
If I take my family away for an overnight trip (but who has the money for that?) I still have to prepare for Sunday.
I went into hospital for an operation and I missed one Sunday - but after being in bed recovering for a full week, I got up the next Sunday and led the singing and preached twice - one week off. And of course I still had to prepare while I was flat on my back recovering.
Even Jesus went apart at times to rest:
Mat_14:23  And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.

I wonder why it is that people think that a Pastor doesn't need a rest from all the pressure?

Or why it is that people don't think his family doesn't need a family holiday?

Or if they think it would be of benefit for him to take three months off after 15 years of solid preaching and Pastoring to simply sit under the preaching of the Word for himself for a short while.

Don't they think it would benefit them to have him refreshed?

I don't know if I could stand to be away from my church and my people and my pulpit for three months. I don't know if I could even do that.

But it might be nice if people considered that I might need a rest or that my family could do with a proper holiday once in a while.

I don't want to be lazy, and I don't want to appear to be lazy or selfish, but this is something that I have been thinking about. 

I may very well find some trouble out of this if it is seen and talked about - maybe I need the protection of some sort of employment agreement so that I don't get into too much trouble.....

:lol: 

I did Ok-ish last year.....

Hi all - back again.

But to be honest, probably not to do very much.

I just don't seem to be able to settle into this on a regular basis.
Life gets in the way, and I am simply not dedicated enough to this to put the effort in.

You know what it is like: work, kids sport, getting kids to and from work, trying to fit in time for family things, youth group, kids club, church, study.......

Lately I seem to do nothing but drive and do admin stuff. I study in there too, but even that seems like I have other stuff to study for - booklets and pamphlets, reading things that people want me to review.

And I end up trying to fit in study for the actual preaching where I can squeeze it in.
It is not my intention to do it, but it is so hard to keep things in their place - they just always seem to wiggle their way into my prep time.

Life doesn't always follow my daily plan.
How inconsiderate of life that is too........

How much do we need our phones!!!!!

No, that's not a question. It is a statement.

My phone went in for repairs recently and I was given a loan phone for the duration.

This caused me problems..... no, it caused me inconvenience, for a couple of reasons.
First, it was a different brand, so it did things different. It scrolled up and down instead of across. It has "people" instead of "contacts".
It answers differently.
It even unlocks differently.

The biggest problem though is that it didn't recognize the contacts on my sim, nor anything on the sd card at all - and the internal memory was pitiful. I could only load one - yes one - app; so I had to choose carefully.

But I have my phone back now, and everything is back and the world is wonderful.

And that got me thinking - what did we do before we had such phones?

And how petty has life become when a changed phone can affect your life so much?

What is really important?

Certainly not whether you have the right phone. .......

Says me posting this from my newly repaired, and like new phone........

I was trying to see what this blogging stuff was all about....

Many, Many, MANY moons ago I decided to see what this blogging thing was all about, what was involved, and whether or not money could be earned from these things.

I personally was not interested, but someone I knew was looking for additional income, and a traditional job was not really acceptable.

So I said I would check it out.

At first I found it quite fun.

Then, I found it to be a little inconvenient.

Then I found it to be very inconvenient - time constraints, pooter problems, other things that were more important.

And to be perfectly honest, I was getting no following.
And no response was a little bit discouraging.

Not one person on the internet was finding what I had to say in the least bit interesting.

Now, that is not really a big deal until you realise that there are people who host photos of bunnies with pancakes on their head who have a HUGE following.
There was a guy who video'd a double rainbow who became world famous.
There are any number of silly, stupid, and insignificant things that people do or collect and display in the internet...... and my thoughts rank below them.......

How am I supposed to feel about that?

Good thing then that most of the time I don't take myself very seriously.......

Anyway, I am blogging again - a bit here, and a bit there, but doing it.

I will say though, that as far earning some extra cash goes, this has been a huge flop - my friend lost interest almost as soon as I put up my first post, so........

But I just remembered that I can check my "earnings" (giggle - earnings: Yeah Right..... ;) )

Well over the whole time, I have had really low view rates - because I am not as interesting as a bunny wearing a pancake hat - and in fact my total earnings have been 1c.
Yep one singular solitary cent.

I think what we can learn from that is that even with this sort of thing, one has to work a lot harder than I have bothered to if you want to make a living out of it.

Well, there's another 3 - 7 views over the next 12 days or until whenever I get to put something else up here.

Later folks....

Skelli.

Not feeling great, not feeling bad......

Well, I've been not really well for about two weeks now - just a bit of a cold-flu thing, and nothing bad enough to make me feel sick.
But enough to make me feel not really well.
Low on energy, slightly gluggy feeling in the back of my throat which causes a bit of a cough, but when I cough it doesn't clear.
It is not enough to make me feel unwell, but I am just not on top of things.
Everything is an effort, everything asks for more energy than I seem to have.

And it is not enough to justify staying home from work, but it is hard to concentrate and keep my mind on the job.

The annoying thing about it is that I wish I would just get sick, or get better - but this half and half thing is just frustrating.

And I now realise that I am using this word "Frustrating" an awful lot lately.
And I have only just added two and two together and come up with four on this.
I am feeling frustrated with this silly half sick feeling, and that means that I am getting frustrated with all sorts of side issues - after all, you can't get angry at being unwell. And that means that I am taking out that frustration on other things.
I try not to, but......

Well at least I am glad I have a wife who loves me, and kids who put up with me.

I thank God for them.

Just 'cause I'm a dumb bloke, doesn't mean I don't see what people are up to......

Being a Pastor is hard sometimes.

You have to bite your tongue quite often, because you see people doing things that are not right, but if you step in too early, people won't understand why you have acted.
But then there are people who think that you should have acted sooner.

There are times when I have watched someone come in as a visitor, and then as they stay a while they wheedle their way into the friendship of some people, and then just quietly work away at them - dropping a word here, a hint there, questioning something that was preached, or something that was done.

Over the years I have both acted too swiftly and also too slowly.

One man came along for some weeks, and was friendly, but I was aware of something - not quite sure what at the time - but something that made me keep my eye on him.
After a couple of weeks, I saw him talking to people quietly in the corner, but only ever one on one.
It came to the point that he wanted me to baptise someone I had never met. We talked, and I said I would not.
The private talks with people increased. I was approached by one of the ladies in that church and told he was saying that I was preaching wrong stuff.
Eventually I told him that if he was not happy with my preaching, he should find another place to go.
He didn't want to find another place.
I told him that I wanted him to find another place.
He yelled at me, called me a few names, and left, never to be seen again.
This all happened over a few weeks - maybe 8 or 9.
Some people wondered why I had asked him to leave, but I acted with reasonable speed there, and when he blew up at me, everyone realised what he was.

Another time we had a lady coming along - when they started coming, everyone was really excited - we had not had any visitors for a long time, and they were desperate for anything.
But I was again wary.
She was enthusiastic, and happy - an effervescent type - and she seemed to be OK.
In spite of my concerns, she made her way into the friendships of many at church.
She was a visitor - but not a member - fr over 12 months, during which time she questioned a few things, but never really caused any trouble.
Until it came to the time when we do the Lord's supper. She was not invited to participate, and this offended her.
She became more an more belligerent, until one afternoon, before the evening service, she began questioning my wife. The questioning turned to attacking.
My wife handled herself well, but I did not step in quickly enough.
I should have stepped in way earlier that afternoon.
But it was suggested that she may be happier somewhere else.

There was another lady, a long time member of one church we were at, who was a continual root of bitterness in that church. Nothing was ever good enough, there was always something to complain about - and her favourite phrase was "Speaking the truth in love" - which she never did.
She thought that by saying that phrase, that meant that she could be as mean as she liked and people had to accept it "because she was only speaking the truth in love".
She even accused one of my kids of having a "holier than thou" attitude because he always tried to do the right thing.
She ended up accusing me, my wife, and my kids, of all sorts of things, which were just plainly untrue.
She said I was a poor leader - which by the way I agree with, just not for the reasons she put forth.

She eventually left because I wouldn't lose my temper at her - I spent much time with my wife, and in prayer, so that we would be able to humble ourselves and not get angry at her. This frustrated her so much that she left.

I guess the thing is that there always seems to be people who want to criticise the Pastor and his wife and children. The Pastor and his wife and kids always seem to be under attack.

But people think I don't see this happening because I rarely let it show.

I do a lot of watching and listening, and very little reacting.

I have to be this way - if I reacted every time I heard someone - or about someone - talking critically of me or my family, I would do nothing but react.

But I see people talking and looking sideways at me to see where I am and if I might be close enough to hear.
I get reports - often innocently - from others who casually mention something either unthinkingly, or simply unaware of what is going on - but I pick up on what this person says, and what that person says, and what the other person says, and when you add them together you get a picture.
I see the looks on people's faces when I am preaching - sometimes it is all I can do not to laugh.

There are so many clues to what people are up to that they don't want me to know about.
And then there are those who keep stuff top secret and then get offended when I don't know about it.....

I seem to get things wrong more than right, that's for sure, but I do see a lot, and I weigh up the pros and cons of action, and when to and when not to.

But one thing I have learned - no matter what I do, there will be someone who thinks I did it wrong, and they tend to be more vocal than those who think I got it right.