This month might've been the busiest month of my young career. From about two weeks before Easter to this point, every week has seemed to elevated in its busyness. Funny how I said I was going to blog frequently this month, and that was my intention, but time just didn't quite allow it. I guess that's alright; it just means I've been spending more of my time doing actual things rather than sitting down at my computer and talking about what I'm doing.
Today was really the first day in 5 or 6 days where I got to actually sit down and breathe. Well, last night was, but I was too tired to really do anything. I got home from attending a night service, and basically passed out after winding down.
I'm going to be preaching, pretty much, 6 weeks in a row here. I've got 4 in a row at my own service, then two more times at 2 different services. Looking ahead, I'm going to be really busy heading into the Fall. I've booked my time off for the last week of July and the first week of August. But, looking at it now, I'm not sure if that's the best choice. I don't know, because it's right in the middle of a lot of busy things. The end of June and the beginning of July are 3 weddings. Following the weddings is summer camp. Then I've got some more planning to do before I take my two weeks; and when I come back, we've got our youth mission's trip to go on. After that is our Fall kick off.
I could keep going, but thinking about it just gets overwhelming.
Last week, I had the joy of attending a brief conference with John Piper. I was so glad that I got to get away a little bit from the church and listen to a wise man. Listening to John Piper preach on 1 Peter was so refreshing and so fulfilling for me. I think taking time out of a busy week to attend this conference was really worth it. I walked away super motivated and excited to study my Bible, and that's always a good day.
In church, things are going well too. We were able to confirm a partnership with AIA to begin a sports ministry with our church and community through soccer camps. We're only doing a one day clinic this summer to serve as a bit of a teaser for what camps could look like. So hopefully there's enough interest that we can do the full week next year.
Also, out of my incredible dissatisfaction of being out of shape, I managed to convince my senior pastor to let me start up soccer Sunday here beginning next week. I'm excited for that, but there is one major problem. It's almost impossible to find a soccer field in Vancouver! Like come on man! A lot of the fields I've found are all gravel and not grass. On the fields that have grass, there's rarely soccer nets. Add onto the fact that they're usually pretty busy with people playing on them. I really hope the field near my house is vacant when we play so we don't have to go somewhere else. I really want to be able to play on grass and not gravel, or have to travel 30 minutes just to find a grass field. I just really want to be able to play soccer and not be so grossly out of shape!
Alright, enough whining. My life in Vancouver is really starting to accelerate, and I'm beginning to establish myself a good foundation. There's still several things I'm hoping that can get set in to place that will make my life and time here better, but they're all things that take time to build, so I hope that with my involvement throughout, I can continue to get accustomed to things.
With how busy my schedule looks, I'm not sure what will have happened by the next time I blog. Hopefully, there is great news!
Monday, April 27, 2015
Friday, April 17, 2015
Passionista
I was faced with the difficulty of choosing between two topics for today's blogging, but I'll go with this one since it's fresher in my mind.
Passion.
Yeah, you know I'd have to get all artsy and do the one word paragraph to capture the moment in word and phrasing form. It's all about the visualization you know.
Anyways. The art of passion is something that confuses the heck out of me. I say this because when you have it, there's no stopping you. However, when it's gone, it often feels like there is no purpose. A lot of my first six-ish months as a pastor has been driven by passion. All of the things that have fired my engine in the past about the church, I now have the ability to put it to practice.
If you're my friend on Facebook or follow me on Instagram, you'll see that I just posted a picture today of an event eight years ago where my team won 1st place at a Northern Alberta competition. Sure, it's not about winning or losing (I'm competitive, so I'm always going to want to win), but seeing this picture in one of my old drives reminds me of the passion that we had as a team that allowed us to get that 1st place.
I remember the determination that all the kids had. I remember the drive that pushed every competitor to gain the extra step or extra inch. I remember the push to reach just a little further, even when our minds or bodies wanted differently.
Of course, I wasn't one of the people that actually competed, but I was a coach. Now that I think about it, there is some hilarious foreshadowing that can be seen in how what I did then as a coach is much of what I'm doing now as a pastor. The only perk now compared to then is that I get paid to do it.
What I'm getting at is that I'm amazed at what passion can do to people. It's hard to find the right amount because if you have too little, you're considered apathetic. If you have too much, you're seen as obsessive. I think, however, it's more about how you handle the passion and what you make use of it for.
My passion is the church, the local church. Always has been, and always will be. Let's say that, by the grace of God, I am able to lead a church that has shown tremendous growth in numbers and in spirituality, and I was asked how I did it. I would attribute all of it to God, of course, but I also know that the smarter person will also say that I still had to put work into getting it there. My "secret," then, would be passion. There really is no other explanation.
What I've seen in people, in how God has used me, is how passion can really bring people to learn and grow in so many ways. If I use the example of our AWANA 1st place finish, I don't think our team won because we were superior in any way. We may have gotten lucky in a few games, but I think that what I was able to stir in the kids was the passion and excitement. Because I was able to help the kids understand that it was important to give it our best, they were able to embody that. Maybe it was my passion and excitement that they embodied, or it was their own; but either way, we really wanted to do well and know that if we had won or not, we'd have given it all we had.
95% of what I've tried to accomplish in my first 6 months as a pastor is in trying to help my church understand the importance of having Jesus in our everyday lives. I think that this has been and will continue to be the most difficult challenge for me, one that will always remain constant no matter where I am. When in the case that I start to see people realize this, then you'll start to notice a change in the way they carry themselves. I've seen a few people from young to old approach me and tell me, "Hey Ps. Nathan, I want to do this for the church." You don't say that if you're not passionate.
It is then up to me to get on up and get beside them, and in support of them, say, "Yes! Let's do it; let's get excited about this together." Having this support means so much to people, and often I see the accomplishments exceed any expectation we could've ever dreamed of having.
It's sad when you see people have a fire for something and no one comes to carry the flame with them. It's a terrible sight to imagine someone wanting so badly to do something because they're on fire for God, trying to get others to be excited, and end up being devastated because no one got by their side.
The tragedy for me is that I'm not going to be able to do this with every single person that comes to me with their passion. So I know that I have to turn some people away simply because I can't handle all of it at one time. As much as I want to, I can't support more than a handful of people in a close relationship. What I need to do, then, is to try to find someone else who may share a similar desire or vision and allow the two to come together. So please understand that if I say no, it's not because I don't want to help, it's because I can't devote the time and energy that you need right now.
This topic is cheesy as... But this is the only thing that I've found which works for me. Methods and all that aside, to me, it only comes down to passion. Do anything you want, but if you don't have the passion and drive, it won't get you very far. Passion is contagious, it's empowering, it's conquering, and it's so much of what we need in the church.
Champion the idea of what you stand for, and watch.
Passion.
Yeah, you know I'd have to get all artsy and do the one word paragraph to capture the moment in word and phrasing form. It's all about the visualization you know.
Anyways. The art of passion is something that confuses the heck out of me. I say this because when you have it, there's no stopping you. However, when it's gone, it often feels like there is no purpose. A lot of my first six-ish months as a pastor has been driven by passion. All of the things that have fired my engine in the past about the church, I now have the ability to put it to practice.
If you're my friend on Facebook or follow me on Instagram, you'll see that I just posted a picture today of an event eight years ago where my team won 1st place at a Northern Alberta competition. Sure, it's not about winning or losing (I'm competitive, so I'm always going to want to win), but seeing this picture in one of my old drives reminds me of the passion that we had as a team that allowed us to get that 1st place.
I remember the determination that all the kids had. I remember the drive that pushed every competitor to gain the extra step or extra inch. I remember the push to reach just a little further, even when our minds or bodies wanted differently.
Of course, I wasn't one of the people that actually competed, but I was a coach. Now that I think about it, there is some hilarious foreshadowing that can be seen in how what I did then as a coach is much of what I'm doing now as a pastor. The only perk now compared to then is that I get paid to do it.
What I'm getting at is that I'm amazed at what passion can do to people. It's hard to find the right amount because if you have too little, you're considered apathetic. If you have too much, you're seen as obsessive. I think, however, it's more about how you handle the passion and what you make use of it for.
My passion is the church, the local church. Always has been, and always will be. Let's say that, by the grace of God, I am able to lead a church that has shown tremendous growth in numbers and in spirituality, and I was asked how I did it. I would attribute all of it to God, of course, but I also know that the smarter person will also say that I still had to put work into getting it there. My "secret," then, would be passion. There really is no other explanation.
What I've seen in people, in how God has used me, is how passion can really bring people to learn and grow in so many ways. If I use the example of our AWANA 1st place finish, I don't think our team won because we were superior in any way. We may have gotten lucky in a few games, but I think that what I was able to stir in the kids was the passion and excitement. Because I was able to help the kids understand that it was important to give it our best, they were able to embody that. Maybe it was my passion and excitement that they embodied, or it was their own; but either way, we really wanted to do well and know that if we had won or not, we'd have given it all we had.
95% of what I've tried to accomplish in my first 6 months as a pastor is in trying to help my church understand the importance of having Jesus in our everyday lives. I think that this has been and will continue to be the most difficult challenge for me, one that will always remain constant no matter where I am. When in the case that I start to see people realize this, then you'll start to notice a change in the way they carry themselves. I've seen a few people from young to old approach me and tell me, "Hey Ps. Nathan, I want to do this for the church." You don't say that if you're not passionate.
It is then up to me to get on up and get beside them, and in support of them, say, "Yes! Let's do it; let's get excited about this together." Having this support means so much to people, and often I see the accomplishments exceed any expectation we could've ever dreamed of having.
It's sad when you see people have a fire for something and no one comes to carry the flame with them. It's a terrible sight to imagine someone wanting so badly to do something because they're on fire for God, trying to get others to be excited, and end up being devastated because no one got by their side.
The tragedy for me is that I'm not going to be able to do this with every single person that comes to me with their passion. So I know that I have to turn some people away simply because I can't handle all of it at one time. As much as I want to, I can't support more than a handful of people in a close relationship. What I need to do, then, is to try to find someone else who may share a similar desire or vision and allow the two to come together. So please understand that if I say no, it's not because I don't want to help, it's because I can't devote the time and energy that you need right now.
This topic is cheesy as... But this is the only thing that I've found which works for me. Methods and all that aside, to me, it only comes down to passion. Do anything you want, but if you don't have the passion and drive, it won't get you very far. Passion is contagious, it's empowering, it's conquering, and it's so much of what we need in the church.
Champion the idea of what you stand for, and watch.
Friday, April 10, 2015
The Case of A Young Pastor
I think I'm going to be blogging rather frequently this month. Part of why I'll be doing so is because some of the things I've been thinking about and experiencing in my first 6 months of being a pastor are starting to refine themselves and giving me a decent outlook on them.
This particular subject has been on my mind prominently for about 3 or 4 weeks here. I'm slightly hesitant on posting about this too, because I think a lot of it will carry a negative tone, but I really don't mean for it to be that way. The state of being "young." When you talk about me being young, it can imply two things: young in age or young in experience. The two often go hand in hand, but don't necessarily have a directly tethered relationship with each other. For me, they both apply.
Since I recently moved to Vancouver, I'm obviously meeting more people than I normally would compared to if I was just at a church back home. I'm carving out my niche, and trying to develop a new sense of familiarity and new sense of routine. One sight that frightens me a little bit is that I have the rest of my life to do this. I have the entirety of my future to carve that new "normal" that will be my fallback. There are days where I'm super driven to do this, and others where I just hide in my house and staying away from the world (the life of an introvert, you know).
One thing that I'm not too sure if it impedes or helps my progress in developing this niche is when I encounter the "young pastor" comment being dropped in my conversations. Here's a couple examples of what I've heard over the last 6 months:
As a pastor who is single and in his mid-twenties, yes, there is no way I'll be able to relate to some of our older folks who have been through 10 times what I have, and have other issues that they face that I have no idea how to approach. But at the same time, I don't think it's fair to dismiss my position as a pastor to be able to support you. There tends to be a bit of a reluctance to open up to the fact that it's entirely possible that someone younger and less experienced is able to speak into your life. I'll be the first to admit that I have this sense of entitlement at times too. I know that it isn't the intention, but calling someone young almost automatically gives them a feeling of a "less than." I just said it, but I'll say it again: I know that isn't the intention, but that's the message that will be subliminally passed on. Wait until you see what they can do, and then you can speak about whether or not age and experience played a factor into it.
People will also default to calling me a youth pastor because I am not so far from the literal sense that I am a youth and a pastor. My calling was never specified as to what type of pastor I was to become, so I can live with this one. I don't think serving youth is my strong point because I'm actually not very good at knowing what it takes to connect to and reach out to the youth in our churches. So it takes extra effort for me to sort out what I need to implement in a youth ministry. To offer a small comparison, when it comes to the worship ministries, it's much easier and way more natural to me. I can get a much quicker grasp on how to mould and form a worship setting and structure so that it's more organized and open for growth. But when there are the closed minded people who strictly see me as a youth pastor because of my age, well...
What sparked me to write on this topic today was because I met someone earlier for a brief moment, but he never gave the slightest hint at ever attaching that "young pastor" label on me. We talked for a few minutes about me being new in Vancouver and all the other stuff, but I never, not even once, got a sense that what he said or how he interacted with me had a demeaning tone that sprouts from the thought of "this guy is really young to be a pastor!" You could say that I was treated like an adult. I appreciated that. Maybe he saw me as a pastor rather than a young pastor because his son began full-time ministry around my age too. Haha!
I also understand that if I want people to treat me like an adult, I need to behave like one. I mean, I guess I agree mostly with that statement, but people are also prone to becoming what others say of them. It takes a lot of strength to overcome all these stipulations that are laid on top of you and be able to basically shut the mouths of those who just continue to say the same things about you over and over. I've said many times that I'm still very childish and immature in many ways, so I know that there are areas in my life where I need to grow up. We need to understand that people grow and develop.
It's been rare to meet people and not have to hear the "young pastor" comment or tone of voice since beginning my journey through school and work. So when I do come across people who see me as any other person who's been called to ministry, I gain some relief. This is because I feel like I can act like a normal person around them and not have the tension of needing to involuntarily "look up" to them just because of my age and experience. So, thank you to those of you who treat me like any other person who's been called to ministry without needing to assert to the fact that I'm young.
I'll be the first person to admit that there are more days than not where I have no idea what I'm doing. But can anyone at any point in their lives truly say with full confidence that they know what they're doing? I'm always going to be asking people for advice and for help, it doesn't matter how old or how experienced I am - this I have confidence in.
It doesn't really matter how old or how young I am, my role as a pastor is to bring the Word of God and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is never going to change.
This particular subject has been on my mind prominently for about 3 or 4 weeks here. I'm slightly hesitant on posting about this too, because I think a lot of it will carry a negative tone, but I really don't mean for it to be that way. The state of being "young." When you talk about me being young, it can imply two things: young in age or young in experience. The two often go hand in hand, but don't necessarily have a directly tethered relationship with each other. For me, they both apply.
Since I recently moved to Vancouver, I'm obviously meeting more people than I normally would compared to if I was just at a church back home. I'm carving out my niche, and trying to develop a new sense of familiarity and new sense of routine. One sight that frightens me a little bit is that I have the rest of my life to do this. I have the entirety of my future to carve that new "normal" that will be my fallback. There are days where I'm super driven to do this, and others where I just hide in my house and staying away from the world (the life of an introvert, you know).
One thing that I'm not too sure if it impedes or helps my progress in developing this niche is when I encounter the "young pastor" comment being dropped in my conversations. Here's a couple examples of what I've heard over the last 6 months:
"Oh, I'm so glad that such a young person is devoting his life to serving God!"
"Wow, you're so young! Good for you to still be so strong in your faith."
"Hey pastor, just like Timothy, don't let people discourage you because you're young!"
"Oh wow, I wouldn't think that you'd have already finished seminary at a young age."The list goes on, but you get the point. I could comment on each of those remarks, but I withhold saying anything at the risk of offending the people who give them. However, I included the seminary comment here because it's a little amusing to me that I actually haven't graduated from seminary. People like to use seminary as synonymous to bible college, so I'll give that to them - it's alright.
As a pastor who is single and in his mid-twenties, yes, there is no way I'll be able to relate to some of our older folks who have been through 10 times what I have, and have other issues that they face that I have no idea how to approach. But at the same time, I don't think it's fair to dismiss my position as a pastor to be able to support you. There tends to be a bit of a reluctance to open up to the fact that it's entirely possible that someone younger and less experienced is able to speak into your life. I'll be the first to admit that I have this sense of entitlement at times too. I know that it isn't the intention, but calling someone young almost automatically gives them a feeling of a "less than." I just said it, but I'll say it again: I know that isn't the intention, but that's the message that will be subliminally passed on. Wait until you see what they can do, and then you can speak about whether or not age and experience played a factor into it.
People will also default to calling me a youth pastor because I am not so far from the literal sense that I am a youth and a pastor. My calling was never specified as to what type of pastor I was to become, so I can live with this one. I don't think serving youth is my strong point because I'm actually not very good at knowing what it takes to connect to and reach out to the youth in our churches. So it takes extra effort for me to sort out what I need to implement in a youth ministry. To offer a small comparison, when it comes to the worship ministries, it's much easier and way more natural to me. I can get a much quicker grasp on how to mould and form a worship setting and structure so that it's more organized and open for growth. But when there are the closed minded people who strictly see me as a youth pastor because of my age, well...
What sparked me to write on this topic today was because I met someone earlier for a brief moment, but he never gave the slightest hint at ever attaching that "young pastor" label on me. We talked for a few minutes about me being new in Vancouver and all the other stuff, but I never, not even once, got a sense that what he said or how he interacted with me had a demeaning tone that sprouts from the thought of "this guy is really young to be a pastor!" You could say that I was treated like an adult. I appreciated that. Maybe he saw me as a pastor rather than a young pastor because his son began full-time ministry around my age too. Haha!
I also understand that if I want people to treat me like an adult, I need to behave like one. I mean, I guess I agree mostly with that statement, but people are also prone to becoming what others say of them. It takes a lot of strength to overcome all these stipulations that are laid on top of you and be able to basically shut the mouths of those who just continue to say the same things about you over and over. I've said many times that I'm still very childish and immature in many ways, so I know that there are areas in my life where I need to grow up. We need to understand that people grow and develop.
It's been rare to meet people and not have to hear the "young pastor" comment or tone of voice since beginning my journey through school and work. So when I do come across people who see me as any other person who's been called to ministry, I gain some relief. This is because I feel like I can act like a normal person around them and not have the tension of needing to involuntarily "look up" to them just because of my age and experience. So, thank you to those of you who treat me like any other person who's been called to ministry without needing to assert to the fact that I'm young.
I'll be the first person to admit that there are more days than not where I have no idea what I'm doing. But can anyone at any point in their lives truly say with full confidence that they know what they're doing? I'm always going to be asking people for advice and for help, it doesn't matter how old or how experienced I am - this I have confidence in.
It doesn't really matter how old or how young I am, my role as a pastor is to bring the Word of God and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is never going to change.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Sermoning
Being the primary preacher for a church/congregation has been something I never thought I'd end up doing. Even throughout my days of studying at Ambrose, I never really saw myself as a much of a preacher. With the program, you're only obligated to preach twice over a four year span. The popular opinion, of course, is that twice is nowhere near the amount that it should be. There are ample opportunities for ministry students (and even non-ministry students) to preach at school or at other churches; but if you don't take on those chances, twice could be all you see. At times, being the bible school student carries with you the stereotype that you can preach: not true. I've heard many people try to preach, ... ah, nevermind. Anyways, not including my internship, I think I preached in some way or another a handful of times during my four years. Then, at my internship, I preached about once a month. So I am as new as it gets when it comes to being a preacher!
As you'd have expected, then coming into my job where I'm now asked to preach two or three times a month is a very big adjustment. I'm still not used to it, to be honest. Before this current state, I would probably have a month or two to prepare a sermon - it would be all I would need to do if I wasn't doing anything else. So I could go at it from any direction, read as many books as I need, and even re-write the thing a few times if I needed to. Nowadays, I have less than a week of actual time to prepare for each Sunday. I've been given tips from people that you should be preparing weeks in advance, especially if you're running a series. This is helpful, but I need to focus on the current week if I want to do well. So the only "in advanced" thing I really have is the general outlook for the coming weeks.
So I thought it'd be fun to give a rundown on what my week looks like when I have to preach, from the point of view of preaching preparation, of course.
Monday is a day off, so I do my best to stay away from church related work. Therefore, my work really begins on Tuesday! If I am preaching that week, my Tuesday will have a little more to do than the average Tuesday. I still use this first day to send out a lot of my emails and to get the admin stuff out of the way. That way, I can give people the entire week to respond while I go do other things.
What I am taught and encouraged to do whenever I preach is to pray endlessly. I really have to work on this part of the preparation. Everytime I come to doing work on my message, it needs to be bathed in prayer.
So, from Tuesday until, I'd say, mid-Thursday, all I'd really do is read, study, and meditate. If I already have the topic or passage I'm preaching on, I'll read that a million times in as many different versions as I can. I'll write down anything that sticks out, and jot down other passages that I may be reminded of so they can be used as supporting passages if need be.
Then, on the second half of Thursday and for much of Friday (occassionally even the Saturday), I'll take all of those notes that I've written down and try to organize them. The cool thing about these notes is that a lot of times they will categorize themselves into the points of the message that I need to preach. From that group, I try to find the main thing that is being driven across and I'll use that to form my points and illustrations.
On Saturday, this is where I will zoom out of all the notes and trim everything down so that I have less than two pages to use for my overall outline. Then I'll bring in the introduction and conclusion to the message. I will bold and highlight certain words or phrases that I need to emphasize, and put it all into a Word document to be printed out.
When my outline is finally complete, I will probably walk away from the thing as a whole until the time I go to bed. This is usually when I go to youth fellowship, so I get my mind off of my message completely for a couple hours. What this does, is that when I get back home and ready to go sleep, I'll be able to look at my message with some fresh eyes to see if everything flows and makes sense.
At last, I'll sit on my bed for half an hour or 45 minutes before I sleep just to envision myself preaching it on the Sunday morning. I'll mentally run through the message, from all the little details and all the transitions that I'll do. The big thing here is that I get a good visualization for how the message will go on the Sunday. This process makes me laugh at myself because I picture myself to be really exhuberant and energetic. But when the preaching happens, I'm my dorky self. I also know that many people like to stand in front of a mirror and rehearse, but that isn't my thing. I feel way too uncomfortable at doing that. I'm just not very good at staging something if it's not the actual thing.
What I didn't really mention about my preparation is that I feel a lot more stress throughout the week whenever I have to preach. There is a constant battle that I face each day that tries to pull me away from studying. There are weeks that I fight off well, and others where I succumb to the temptations and fail miserably. I think I've only been able to have a good night's sleep once, on the night before I preach.
Sorry for such a long post, but there's one or two more things I want to mention - I hope you don't mind! As a new preacher, I'm always wondering how I should preach so that people can respond to the Word in a positive way. What sort of illustrations will help make this relatable? Do I need to move around more? Do I need to be funny?
Darrell Johnson, a pastor in Vancouver, said, "the person most changed by preaching is the preacher." I would say that this is 100% true for myself. Becoming a preacher due to the nature of my job has really begun to change who I am. There are weeks where the message I preach speaks so strongly to me. These are usually the weeks where I am also preaching with more passion and more conviction. From that, the people see it and they respond better as well because they can see that I am affected by the message. After all, if I am not ministered to by the message first, how can I expect it to minister to others? This is a challenge that I very willingly take on. I love my job. LOL.
Wow, 15 degrees!
As you'd have expected, then coming into my job where I'm now asked to preach two or three times a month is a very big adjustment. I'm still not used to it, to be honest. Before this current state, I would probably have a month or two to prepare a sermon - it would be all I would need to do if I wasn't doing anything else. So I could go at it from any direction, read as many books as I need, and even re-write the thing a few times if I needed to. Nowadays, I have less than a week of actual time to prepare for each Sunday. I've been given tips from people that you should be preparing weeks in advance, especially if you're running a series. This is helpful, but I need to focus on the current week if I want to do well. So the only "in advanced" thing I really have is the general outlook for the coming weeks.
So I thought it'd be fun to give a rundown on what my week looks like when I have to preach, from the point of view of preaching preparation, of course.
Monday is a day off, so I do my best to stay away from church related work. Therefore, my work really begins on Tuesday! If I am preaching that week, my Tuesday will have a little more to do than the average Tuesday. I still use this first day to send out a lot of my emails and to get the admin stuff out of the way. That way, I can give people the entire week to respond while I go do other things.
What I am taught and encouraged to do whenever I preach is to pray endlessly. I really have to work on this part of the preparation. Everytime I come to doing work on my message, it needs to be bathed in prayer.
So, from Tuesday until, I'd say, mid-Thursday, all I'd really do is read, study, and meditate. If I already have the topic or passage I'm preaching on, I'll read that a million times in as many different versions as I can. I'll write down anything that sticks out, and jot down other passages that I may be reminded of so they can be used as supporting passages if need be.
Then, on the second half of Thursday and for much of Friday (occassionally even the Saturday), I'll take all of those notes that I've written down and try to organize them. The cool thing about these notes is that a lot of times they will categorize themselves into the points of the message that I need to preach. From that group, I try to find the main thing that is being driven across and I'll use that to form my points and illustrations.
On Saturday, this is where I will zoom out of all the notes and trim everything down so that I have less than two pages to use for my overall outline. Then I'll bring in the introduction and conclusion to the message. I will bold and highlight certain words or phrases that I need to emphasize, and put it all into a Word document to be printed out.
When my outline is finally complete, I will probably walk away from the thing as a whole until the time I go to bed. This is usually when I go to youth fellowship, so I get my mind off of my message completely for a couple hours. What this does, is that when I get back home and ready to go sleep, I'll be able to look at my message with some fresh eyes to see if everything flows and makes sense.
At last, I'll sit on my bed for half an hour or 45 minutes before I sleep just to envision myself preaching it on the Sunday morning. I'll mentally run through the message, from all the little details and all the transitions that I'll do. The big thing here is that I get a good visualization for how the message will go on the Sunday. This process makes me laugh at myself because I picture myself to be really exhuberant and energetic. But when the preaching happens, I'm my dorky self. I also know that many people like to stand in front of a mirror and rehearse, but that isn't my thing. I feel way too uncomfortable at doing that. I'm just not very good at staging something if it's not the actual thing.
What I didn't really mention about my preparation is that I feel a lot more stress throughout the week whenever I have to preach. There is a constant battle that I face each day that tries to pull me away from studying. There are weeks that I fight off well, and others where I succumb to the temptations and fail miserably. I think I've only been able to have a good night's sleep once, on the night before I preach.
Sorry for such a long post, but there's one or two more things I want to mention - I hope you don't mind! As a new preacher, I'm always wondering how I should preach so that people can respond to the Word in a positive way. What sort of illustrations will help make this relatable? Do I need to move around more? Do I need to be funny?
Darrell Johnson, a pastor in Vancouver, said, "the person most changed by preaching is the preacher." I would say that this is 100% true for myself. Becoming a preacher due to the nature of my job has really begun to change who I am. There are weeks where the message I preach speaks so strongly to me. These are usually the weeks where I am also preaching with more passion and more conviction. From that, the people see it and they respond better as well because they can see that I am affected by the message. After all, if I am not ministered to by the message first, how can I expect it to minister to others? This is a challenge that I very willingly take on. I love my job. LOL.
Wow, 15 degrees!
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Where Am I?
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been on a bit of a nostalgia trip, missing many of the things I grew up seeing or doing. It's really strange that every year around this time, I experience this feeling of wanting to go back to all the good memories I've had in my childhood. I can't really explain why, but something just triggers it; it's been a pattern every year in the Spring where I go crazy for a few weeks in this regard.
There is definitely a desire to go back home to visit Edmonton. Home, to me, is where most of your memories lie. Every once in a while, along with the nostalgic stuff I go through, I always ask myself, "how did I end up here" or "where am I?"
I think back to my elementary days, my junior high days, and my high school days. Between some incredible memories and accomplishments, and some of the most embarrassing moments, I lived an average life. I think back to the people I used to see everyday, and I do wonder where they are now. Pop open the Facebook, you only see so much - my wonder is, where are they really? I doubt it's mutual, but I would consider many of them to still be my friends. There have been people who have significantly shaped me, and I'd hope I did the same. I know that there have been friends that I've mistreated and probably never got to apologize, but most of that isn't really relevant anymore either. The funny thing, I find, is that the way I'd see these people now is probably the same way I would've seen them back then. So if there's any real changes to their character, it would probably surprise me if I encountered them somewhere. On the other hand, there are just some things that never change about people; and that's cool, because it makes them unique in that sense.
And then you get to the part where you tell these people that I'm now living in Vancouver, serving as a church pastor... I think I'd get some mixed reactions. Most of the people I hung out with knew I lived in a pretty devoted Christian family. The only thing is that you wouldn't really have expected me to become a pastor. Then again, I never expected me to be a pastor either. So, case closed, I guess. Then I wonder what my life would've been like if in the case that I knew I was going to become a pastor at a young age. That's pretty insane.
We get to this point in life, where most of my age group is finishing up school and starting their working careers. All of it is pretty surreal, to be honest. My ten year reunion for elementary would've been three years ago, which baffles my mind a little. I'm not that old on the bigger scale, but the next thing that would blow my mind is when I start to see these same people that I grew up with begin to start families. Man, oh man. There's been lots of engagement/marriage type stuff in the last few years, so give a few more years and babies could be on the way! Who would've thought that so-and-so, the same kid you would've climbed monkey bars with, would be a dad/mom.
Personally, I'm not all that concerned about myself. My posts in the last couple months probably say differently, but the hype has died down a little. January to mid-March was an insane flurry of drive and determination that made me scared of myself. It's safe to say I've evened out a little bit here in the last couple of weeks. The thoughts and desires of my heart are still there and still resonate, but I see the value in just being myself and carving my own way at the moment. I'd be the most excited person on earth if I got to start a family, but it doesn't mean I'm going to be first in line to get it done. Crazy. I just love contradicting myself, you know.
What it all boils down to, is that at this moment in time, I'm enjoying life. I'm glad to be here, and I'm feeling content. It could all change tomorrow, and I'll be back on my tirade, but as of tonight, I'm going to be okay with everything. I don't care so much about how I got here, but that I am here. And here is all that matters.
I'm way out of my mind and getting way ahead of myself here.
Goodnight.
There is definitely a desire to go back home to visit Edmonton. Home, to me, is where most of your memories lie. Every once in a while, along with the nostalgic stuff I go through, I always ask myself, "how did I end up here" or "where am I?"
I think back to my elementary days, my junior high days, and my high school days. Between some incredible memories and accomplishments, and some of the most embarrassing moments, I lived an average life. I think back to the people I used to see everyday, and I do wonder where they are now. Pop open the Facebook, you only see so much - my wonder is, where are they really? I doubt it's mutual, but I would consider many of them to still be my friends. There have been people who have significantly shaped me, and I'd hope I did the same. I know that there have been friends that I've mistreated and probably never got to apologize, but most of that isn't really relevant anymore either. The funny thing, I find, is that the way I'd see these people now is probably the same way I would've seen them back then. So if there's any real changes to their character, it would probably surprise me if I encountered them somewhere. On the other hand, there are just some things that never change about people; and that's cool, because it makes them unique in that sense.
And then you get to the part where you tell these people that I'm now living in Vancouver, serving as a church pastor... I think I'd get some mixed reactions. Most of the people I hung out with knew I lived in a pretty devoted Christian family. The only thing is that you wouldn't really have expected me to become a pastor. Then again, I never expected me to be a pastor either. So, case closed, I guess. Then I wonder what my life would've been like if in the case that I knew I was going to become a pastor at a young age. That's pretty insane.
We get to this point in life, where most of my age group is finishing up school and starting their working careers. All of it is pretty surreal, to be honest. My ten year reunion for elementary would've been three years ago, which baffles my mind a little. I'm not that old on the bigger scale, but the next thing that would blow my mind is when I start to see these same people that I grew up with begin to start families. Man, oh man. There's been lots of engagement/marriage type stuff in the last few years, so give a few more years and babies could be on the way! Who would've thought that so-and-so, the same kid you would've climbed monkey bars with, would be a dad/mom.
Personally, I'm not all that concerned about myself. My posts in the last couple months probably say differently, but the hype has died down a little. January to mid-March was an insane flurry of drive and determination that made me scared of myself. It's safe to say I've evened out a little bit here in the last couple of weeks. The thoughts and desires of my heart are still there and still resonate, but I see the value in just being myself and carving my own way at the moment. I'd be the most excited person on earth if I got to start a family, but it doesn't mean I'm going to be first in line to get it done. Crazy. I just love contradicting myself, you know.
What it all boils down to, is that at this moment in time, I'm enjoying life. I'm glad to be here, and I'm feeling content. It could all change tomorrow, and I'll be back on my tirade, but as of tonight, I'm going to be okay with everything. I don't care so much about how I got here, but that I am here. And here is all that matters.
I'm way out of my mind and getting way ahead of myself here.
Goodnight.
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