Miscellaneous Musings on Monday

Vacations

We just got back from a wonderful vacation at Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.  There is a great little ski village set up right on the ski slopes.  Andy and the kids could put on their ski boots and carry their skis about 100 yds up to the lift.  I however stayed behind and read, watched TV, shopped and had a pedicure.  I’m not much of a skier. 

But sometimes I wonder if vacations are worth it.  All the work to get there!  And now that we are home we are playing catch up.  The girls missed 3 days of online classes so they had to hustle to get caught up.  And I’m still in vacation mode, having trouble getting motivated…so I blog.  J

Blogging

Speaking of blogging…I’ve been trying to decide if I want to continue.  I don’t want to waste precious time.  But I’ve been thinking that it is helpful to see what I’ve been reading written out.  I see that I’ve been reading too much fluff this year and it is motivating me to read some more serious stuff.  I also think having a blog to keep up with will help me think deeper thoughts…since I will need to say something here from time to time.  So, for now, I will continue to blog.

Daylight Savings Time

And now for some deep thoughts…I feel jet lagged from the time change.  Someone must come up with a name for this malady.  At any rate it sure is nice seeing the sun out later in the evening. 

Preparing for Resurrection Sunday (which I suppose is called Lent)

I’m reading The Incomparable Christ by J. Oswald Sanders along with the Revive Our Heart broadcast.  They are going through 1 chapter a week up to Resurrection Sunday.  Won’t you join us!

Ministry Beyond Your Front Door

Revive Our Hearts’ blog has an entry that talks about ministering to others despite having a family.  I think she has a point.  I really have no other ministry besides my family for now.  And I do want my children to have a service mindset and a concern for the lost.  At the same time, if I neglect my children and their education because of ministry then I’ve failed in my most important calling.  Something to think more about and wrestle with.

Church

I’ve been thinking lately about the church and worship and what it should all look like and what has become of the modern or post-modern church.  Here are some interesting thoughts from Carl Trueman from the Reformation 21 blog. 

“Finally, I worry that a movement built on megachurches, megaconferences, and megaleaders, does the church a disservice in one very important way that is often missed amid all the pizzazz and excitement: it creates the idea that church life is always going to be big, loud, and exhilarating and thus gives church members and ministerial candidates unrealistic expectations of the normal Christian life.  In the real world, many, perhaps most,  of us worship and work in churches of 100 people or less; life is not loud and exciting; big things do not happen every Sunday;  budgets are incredibly tight and barely provide enough for a pastor’s modest salary; each Lord’s Day we go through the same routines of worship services, of hearing the gospel proclaimed, of taking the Lord’s Supper, of teaching Sunday School; perhaps several times a year we do leaflet drops in the neighbourhood with very few results; at Christmas time we carol sing in the high street and hand out invitations to church and maybe two or three people actually come along as a result; but no matter — we keep going, giving, and praying as we can; we try to be faithful in the little entrusted to us.  It’s boring, it’s routine, and it’s the same, year in, year out.   Therefore, in a world where excitement, celebrity, and cultural power are the ideal, it is tempting amidst the circumstances of ordinary church life to forget that this, the routine of the ordinary, the boring, the plodding, is actually the norm for church life and has been so throughout most places for most of the history of the church; that mega-whatevers are the exception, not the rule; and that the church has survived throughout the ages not just – or even primarily – because of the high profile firework displays of the great and the good, but because of the day to day faithfulness of the mundane, anonymous, non-descript  people who constitute most of the church, and who do the grunt work and the tedious jobs that need to be done.   History does not generally record their names; but the likelihood is that you worship in a church which owes everything, humanly speaking, to such people.”