Worst.Sunday.Ever...But God,

Hi Alex how are you? Church was really difficult this morning. Music mix was real bad electric guitar way too loud and I couldn't fix it, then started sermon and two babies cried
D for the first ten minutes or so veryhard to concentrate. In mass you can let your baby cry all you want and it doesn't matter . Different culture.
Then the sermon seemed so disjointed and rambling I didn't feel much flow between poinrs just isolated thoughts strung together and then as I was concluding some guy wanted to know if he could interject and add his own thoughts. That kind of through me off
Then I cocluded and went and sat Down. Just absolutely dejected and apologizing to god for sucking so much and wasting everyones time. Then the worship team came up to do the second set and I am clicking through PowerPoint for them and just as I M saying to myself at least slides aren't giving me any problems then it turns out that a verse of how great is our God was missing so I had to put a blank slide up for that verse while most of the congregation mumbled along with Dan. Ant then right after that in the beginning of the next song the battery of my laptop died!!!! I tried to find the cord but it was nowhere to be found. Just the absolute worst Sunday ever.
But then people came up to me and said what an a
Amazing sermon it was. At first I thought it was just a sympathy pleatitude but after the fourth one I started to believe them that it was actually helpful for them. Said God really spke to them. One guy said he could was shaking through most of it and throughout the worship songs at the end!
I don't know if God translated my scattered thoughts mid air and caused them to make sense and be A blessing to the people or if I just have a really mature congregation that is able to gain nourishment and to benefit from any paltry sermon, or maybe my formulas about what ingredients must be necessary for a good sermon aren't actually as importAnt as ithought.
God was very good to our little church today definitely in spite of anything I was able to bring to them. Just wanted to shoot you a quick email telling you about it. It was a real encouragement to me so i wanted tosharw it with you. This took a reAl long time to type out, since it's on my phone (rachel has the laptop at church right now for worship practice) I might post this on my blog, since it took so stinking long to type I at least want my loyal readers to be able to benefit from my labour. Nic lazz and Conor berry are the only people that read it I think. Grat talking to you last night. Look forward to the next time! Soli Deo Gloria.

Sent from my iPhone

One day...

I was thinking today about some goals I'd like to achieve in the remaining months of this year, and one of them was to blog more regularly. I was thinking about Zoomtard and how it is the hit blog amongst young Irish evangelicals, and it's very well written and often pithy and witty, but some of the conclusions he draws I really have some reservations about, and I'd love to be another voice that is able to contribute to the thought life of that crowd... but then I thought of how much I suck at keeping self imposed deadlines.
I had a great chat with an acquaintance of mine last thursday about how we are totally able to perform well when there is a schedule to follow that other people are depending on you to complete, but when it's just extra curricular activities we rarely get around to doing them at all. And we agreed that it causes a lot of extra strain on our closest relationships because we are like that. So i'd like to grow out of it one day.

but speaking of deadlines, I have to have a sermon prepared to preach tomorrow morning and I would be a lot better off re-writing my outline than writing this blog.

I only ever write blogs when I am procrastinating...

...and today is no exception. I've got to get some notes hammered out for tomorrow morning, but instead I'm updating this thing.

I leave to go to the States next Thursday. I'm actually looking forward to it a bunch. My circle of friends is growing smaller and smaller, due to people moving away and also to my inability to keep in touch with people, but I still think it's going to be great to spend some time in Fallbrook. My family has been meaning more and more to me lately. On Christmas I phoned my mom 4 times I think. And I really am coming to respect my parents a lot in the past years. Having a three year old who is growing up without his grandma and grandpa around makes me think about them a lot. They really love Eoin so much and I am sorry that they don't get to see more of each other. So I'm looking forward to that.

I'm also looking forward to just going to church. I am definitely preaching one Sunday at CC Fallbrook, but apart from that I don't have anything else booked. Now, likely I'll end up preaching much more than once the whole time I'm there, but I know that for at least Easter Sunday and probably Palm Sunday I'm not going to be teaching, which means that I'll get to wake up, get dressed, get everyone ready and then just drive to church. I don't have to set up chairs or make sure the powerpoint is working right, don't have to coordinate anything with the worship team, don't have to make sure tea and coffee is set up, don't need to prepare the communion stuff, don't need to worry about the sermon... I'll just get to show up and attend church. I'll get to meet people and sing with people and enjoy sitting under the teaching of God's word. I very rarely get to just attend church and I'm really looking forward to it.

Rachel is gonna get one of her tattoos coloured in, and that's cool. I might get something done while I'm over there, I've got some ideas that I've been kicking around, but now that Clay has his gun I might just let him zap me.

I'm gonna buy some new shoes and eat tons of mexican food. I might even buy myself a pair of reading glasses. I'm gonna drink tons of cream soda and maybe even catch a hardcore show for old time's sake. But mostly I'm lookin forward to sittin on my parents front porch and watch eoin run around and play with the dogs and spending time with my family. The family that I was so ungrateful for for so many years. I'm looking forward to seeing them again.

Credo

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This Wednesday night I'm starting a series on the Apostle's Creed. I am really really looking forward to it, I don't think I've been this enthusiastic about a new series in a long time. Tomorrow morning I'm teaching 1st Corinthians 7, which is pretty complicated.
I've got some blog ideas written down in my journal. One of these days I'll type them out here.

This is a video I made, I'm going to show it before each study.

On this day in Irish history...

At 11.15 on December 5th 1921, the delegation led by Michael Collins decided to recommend the Treaty as proposed by the British to Dáil Éireann. They declared independence, so to speak.




(from Zoomtard blog)

I am Michael Scott.

I am Michael Scott.
Although I don't share all of his idiosyncrasies and flaws (Thank the good Lord) I do have one glaring similarity with him: I want everyone to like me.
I want everyone to be my friend.
And because of that my ability to lead is impaired.
Michael Scott has no friends or family so he looks to his employees to fill the void. I have family but no friends (at least in this country) and many times I look to the church to be my friend. Failing to make the distinction has cost me respect in their eyes and reduced my ability to effectively lead them.
Dear God give me mercy and help. Amen.