Sometimes I Write

The prayer had just ended and the room was dimly lit by the candles nearby. “Go when you’re ready”. A few people rose to their feet to make their way to the communion tables. Billy and Russell began the gentle picking and strumming on their guitars. Rather than merely hearing my cue coming, I felt it. I opened my mouth to sing and felt my heart opening to the words that came out. With my emotions rising and a steady voice, I began to sing to my Lord…

I give my heart to you Lord,
I give my soul to you Lord,
I give my mind and I give my all to you oh Lord.

I give my hands to you Lord,
I give my strength to you Lord,
I give my life and I give my all to you oh Lord.

For you alone are worthy of all I am,
For you have given me it all
and the least I can do is give it back to you.

It was my praise. It was my worship. It was my freeing from the bondage of “the rules of worship”. Not every note came out perfectly, but every one of them was beautiful. Musically speaking it was suited for my range though I had worried it would be too low for me. I may have even missed an entrance by a few beats. The positive of being the one leading the song is that everyone else follows you and sometimes that covers up the mistakes. But none of this mattered. I was singing to my God and offering Him the best I had to give Him. Shay’s harmonies and the people in our fellowship singing along with us kept me focused. I felt the tears way down deep inside me beginning to swell up into my chest. The Holy Spirit within was pleased and interceding for me with the Father. The connection was made and I was moved. So were others. What a privilege to usher people into the throne room. What a joy to worship with friends and strangers and to use my gifts to help them move closer to God.

I’ve been singing with the worship team for a month now and I’m still struggling to completely let go of my fears and my previous church baggage. Some days I have come to that place where it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks and I know the Father has spoken to my heart. I wish that were the case all the time and I didn’t waste my energy with less important opinions. If I’m coming before the throne and asking my Father what He thinks of me, I need to accept His answer. Sometimes I just need to come to tell Him what I think of Him, or leave my offering of praise. The first Sunday I sang, Tim and I lead the song “Offerings”(Third Day). It had the same effect on me, except my nerves got in the way of the confidence God had told me to have and I held back. I didn’t give it my all – I won’t easily make that mistake again.

Magnificent Holy Father, I stand in awe of all I see.
Of all the things you have created, still you choose to think of me.
Who am I that you should suffer your very life to set me free?
The only thing that I can offer is the life you gave to me.

This is my offering dear Lord, This is my offering to you God.
And I give you my life, for it’s all I have to give, because you gave your life for me.

I stand before you at this altar, so many have given you more.
I may not have much I can offer yet what I have is truly yours.

That’s what He wants – us – our lives as a living sacrifice. He wants us to give our all. Are you?

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I talked to my friend Chris today and he told me he had been interviewed by a local paper about his blog. How awesome is that? He promised to send me a link, but I’m impatient, nosy, and proud of my friend, so I looked it up myself on the www. Here is the article in full. I changed the format a bit to fit here since it’s one of those pesky “for registered users only” sites and a pain in the bum to link to. I’m sure he’d love to hear any comments you may have, and you have to read the words to the song written in his honor. Too funny! (Poor Chris!) So, Way to go Chris! The five of us that read your blog are so proud of you! 😉


Pastors share thoughts on blogs
By Ann Work/Times Record News
July 17, 2006

“I am just a simple man living in a small west Texas town, trying to figure out life like everyone else … I pray that God will take me more into His presence daily and that by doing so, He can make me more like Him.”
– entry by Chris Robey, youth minister, Wilbarger Street Church of Christ, Vernon, found at chrisrobey.blogspot.com

When youth minister Chris Robey started “blogging” last year, he wrote about theological questions that were bothering him. He set up his Weblog, or blog, at chrisrobey.blogspot.com. He wrote in spurts, sometimes once a month, sometimes more. He used cyberspace to get discussions going with other youth ministers in his journal-like entries. “Generally, I have something to say, some kind of point to it,” Robey said. Robey is one of several local pastors who blog to communicate with other pastors, church members and church youth.

About 75,000 new blogs are started every day, according to Megan Greenwell in a July 9 Washington Post article. Some are started by computer-savvy ministers. While some see the forum as a way to reach out in an increasingly technology-oriented society, other Wichita Falls pastors are saying “no” to the trend.

For Greg Stanford, youth minister at Tenth and Broad Church of Christ in Wichita Falls, blogging started out as a way to let people get to know him. He wanted to open himself up a little bit, to share what made him tick. “It was just keeping in touch,” he said. “What it’s become is a place to put the thoughts that I don’t get to share with people all the time,” he said. He keeps two blogs, one at myspace.com and another on blogger.com. He writes a couple times a month. On his myspace account, Stanford serves in a role that is part youth minister and part guardian of his church’s teens, who also blog there. At the popular cyberspace teen hang-out, “I remind them that people do read what they type. They need to represent who they are and what they believe.” He’s blogged enough with church members that it’s not uncommon for members of his congregation to speak to him about it at church. “They’ll say, ‘I learned something about you today.’ “

In Vernon, Robey has used his blog to open up about some of his frustrations and fears. In one entry, he tells the story of a Mexico trip with his youth group when he hit a pedestrian with his car. He barely grazed the man but scared the rattled pedestrian enough to unleash a string of curse words from the victim. Three van-loads of church members saw the whole thing and wrote a song about it. “Let’s pray that I don’t give anyone a reason to write a song about me this year,” he wrote as he explained the stress he feels before taking 50 church members on a ministry trip out of the country.

In a March posting, Robey told of a recent trip to Pascagoula, Miss., with a Midwestern State University college group to do hurricane clean-up – and used the entry to do a little preaching:
“I forgot how much fun it is to sleep on the floor with a bunch of teen-agers. I plead with you. Go to http://www.123jesus.com and find out what you can do. We all have so much, but people in our own borders have nothing because of a six-hour storm …. Cancel your Six-Flags trips. Sacrifice your vacation time. Challenge yourself to live out Matthew 25:35 … Jesus means business when he says these things.”

Other pastors say blogging doesn’t fit their style or their ministry. Some simply don’t have the time. “Most of the guys who do those must have a good staff that allows them to sit and do that,” said George B. Davis, pastor of New Harvest Church. He doesn’t have the time, he said.
He noticed many blogs center on debate, not truth. He doesn’t want to debate merely for debate’s sake. “My efforts are spent studying and drawing people into the church environment to reveal truth to them in a systematic way,” Davis said.

First Baptist Church Pastor Robert Jeffress said he didn’t have time to blog and would question any attempt by one of his associate pastors to blog regularly. “If he was blogging, I’d wonder how he has the time to do it,” he said. Writing a blog may be a cathartic experience for some and he wouldn’t discourage it, he said. “In my own ministry I think people are more interested in hearing what God’s Word says about a subject than to read my musings,” Jeffress said.

Lukus Counterman, pastor at Messiah Baptist Church in Wichita Falls, follows other ministers’ blogs but doesn’t have one of his own. A blog to church members could be helpful for ministry, he said, but he’s still wrestling with its dangers. “Once you post it on the World Wide Web, it’s worldwide. You can’t effectively make retraction statements.” Some blog sites are merely “brain dumps,” he said. “It’s not coherent, thought-through or concise. The other deal is it’s decontextualized. People come in, they don’t know you, they don’t know your ministry, they don’t know your previous blogs.” He’s noticed that many bloggers are bitter, frustrated people who just want to criticize. “That’s not part of the culture I want to be in,” he said.

Other bloggers, like Robey, have warmed up to blogging over time and enjoy the forum to share what God is teaching them.

“I am not a very good blogger. Sometimes I wonder why I have one. I usually don’t have many profound things to say. I don’t live a particularly interesting life. I don’t skydive. Yet there are times that I am glad that I have a blog. The whole blog mechanism is good for distributing information to the five (and growing!) people who peruse the limited pages of this blog. I hope that if nothing else, this entry will create some interest in what I believe to be one of the places (the Pascagoula mission trip) that God is truly working in this world.”
– Chris Robey, March 27, 2006, blog

Education reporter Ann Work can be reached at (940)763-7538 or by e-mail at work (at)TimesRecordNews.com.

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I think I coasted into the gas station tonight on fumes alone. $52.60 later, with three kids eating popsicles, we headed home. It was such a strange day. The whole family slept until 9 am! That’s unheard of at our house. That gave us exactly 30 minutes to get dressed, dress all the kids, feed them breakfast, grab a banana and some juice and run out the door so we wouldn’t be late for our Chiropractor appointment and Benny wouldn’t be late for work. It stinks that I usually work well under pressure. Came home from Dr. Zack’s a little befuddled. I don’t know what’s going on with me (other than my monthly inconvenience) that is messing my back and neck up, but I’ve needed more adjusting this week than I have in a long time. He asked if I was under a lot of stress…I almost laughed. “Not any more than usual” I said.

I got a bug up my bum to rearrange the livingroom today…I’m sure Dr. Zack would love to hear that! Since I couldn’t make the kids nap 3 1/2 hours after waking up for the day, we ate lunch and then went swimming. Evidently our manager thinks I’m an idiot parent. It was cloudy and we were expecting some rain late in the day. He comes out just as we’re getting in the pool, points to the sky and says, “If you see lightning, you need to get out of the pool”. REALLY??? That man needs more to do… Max has turned into a fish. The kid was fearlessly doing flips off the side of the pool. He was also using a pool noodle to do pretend high jumps into the water. Zoe is content to slowly make her way around the edge of the pool where there is a small ledge she can walk on while periodically saying, “Look Mommy! I can get my hair wet!” Woo Hoo! She’s learning. Petey is getting bolder by the day. I need to get that kid in swimming lessons. We had a good time and as usual they were mad at me when I told them it was time to leave.

Naptime was wonderful. They slept and I watched ALIAS reruns. Ahhhh mindless entertainment. I love our DVR! Then we headed to the bowling alley to hang out with the street kids and our Dry Bones team. We have two groups in this week. Two of the kids from Canton used to go to our church in Buena Vista, Kelly and Evan Fike. Kelly isn’t a kid anymore, but a college student at ACU. I knew her when she was 8. That makes me feel a bit old.

Speaking of being old (haha)…only 8 more shopping days for all of you who haven’t purchased my birthday gift yet. So don’t fret – there’s still time…

Leaving the bowling alley I realized I should have gotten gas about 2 days ago…oops. So that’s where the gas stop came in, with Max worrying the whole way there that everytime I slowed down we were running out of gas. (Whose kid is that anyway?) I paid $2.83/gal. I can’t complain – driving is a privilege us rich Americans get to have, so we get to pay for it as well. We got home, got into pajamas and watched a Veggie Tales DVD. That was my day. Aren’t you jealous of all the excitement? hehehe

Other details not mentioned above: 3 loads of laundry, phone conversation with my brother, 2 loads of dishes, vacuuming, and while the kids were napping – a long uninterrupted shower – also a luxury. We have a peeping Pete instead of a peeping Tom!

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Benny goes back to work tomorrow after a much needed week off. Summer has been crazy busy for him. We spent the week as a family and I stayed off the computer as much as possible except to check my email.

I actually did write a post last week. I was in a pissy mood and it was about people not returning shopping carts to the corral and leaving them in the only available parking space. It was very sarcastic and probably wasn’t very nice and when I tried to post it, it wouldn’t post. I went to bed mad at Blogger. The next morning I woke up and knew in my heart that it wasn’t supposed to be posted…call it Divine Intervention then…whatever.

Anywho, I’ll be back in a few days…as soon as I can dig my way out from under Mt. Washmore!

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Preferred type: ESFJ
(who you prefer to be)

(who you are attracted to)

Take Jung Explorer Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

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