I have followed the blogs of a couple of missionaries associated with our church denomination for several months now. Their examples are such an encouragement for me to be more missional/evangelistic here in the states. But I don’t think anyone in the states can make a post like this:
It seems that there is always so much happening. What do I write about. Do I write about the team that just arrived yesterday? For Pastor Danny Meyer, it is 10 years that he has been coming here with teams. Or do I write about the new believer’s retreat and the brother that was healed from epilepsy?
- Or how about the church being packed out to standing room only?
- What about seeing a generation of leaders being raised up?
- How about a recent trip, driving my truck off a bridge in the dark?
- Shooting an alligator with a spear gun while spear fishing?
- The monkeys in our backyard?
- Riding my motorcycle to a small community where so many people were at the home church that they stood outside the doors and windows?
That’s from Bud Simon’s blog just yesterday. He and his family (wife + 3 kids + 1 on the way) are missionaries with the Xingu Mission, which sits on the Xingu River, (a tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil). The stories he tells are both totally humbling and completely inspiring. I highly recommend following along.
Bud is also an accomplished photographer. He’s even had his works featured by Kodak; you’ll find several examples on the sidebar in his blog. Just the beauty of the area there is enough to make you want to head to Brazil!
And as LeVar always said “…you don’t have to take my word for it!”
I’m sitting at Panera and am just about to head to the office.
I’ve finished putting together the schedule for the band, I’ve started scheduling our next worship retreat, and overall… I feel a lot more in control than I did last week. I don’t have the setlist organized as far in advance as I would like, but one step at a time.
In other life news, I just finished reading The Barbarian Way, by Erwin McManus. I had seen it listed on some blogs elsewhere, but hadn’t taken the time to read it for myself. I highly encourage you to check it out! I’ll post some of my favorite quotes from it when I’m back at home. There are too many to remember them all without the book in front of me.
Now it’s off to work for a long day of lending, calling and selling.
I do this to myself almost every week.
I wait until a couple of hours before a deadline before I work to get things done. Take tonight for example: (warning — other worship leaders will gasp in horror at this, so continue reading at your own risk) It’s 2:30am on Saturday night/Sunday morning, and I’m just finishing organizing the setlist—for the 10:45 service! Sad to say, there have been several times when the setlist for worship comes together the evening before or even the morning of leading worship… as in “Let’s throw together the setlist, I gotta lead worship in an hour!”
Not good.
Don’t get me wrong, the band does a heck of a job, and it always ends up sounding very good. I chalk it up to Holy Spirit intervention… but I don’t think I would call it procrastination. I didn’t prepare this way last summer or in the years before that. I was on top of my A game. This is more or less just a lack of focus. And, it’s frustrating to me, because I set goals like planning ahead a few weeks, but lately I just can’t get it together. Add to the craziness of life my class schedule and trying to be a good husband… at least I get the schedule out on time (most of the time).
I blame my impending fatherhood for my lack of focus. And I also ran out of coffee last week and haven’t had time to go buy some more. Whatever… these are just excuses.
