Apprentice

Aspire One, originally uploaded by Apprentice Blog.

My aspire one. I read from this when I preach. It’s small enough to be hidden on the lectern or pulpit and the screen is bright enough for me to read clearly from. I have a special page format that allows me to convert my sermons to PDF and read them full-screen, kind of like an teleprompter. Do you have any little tools you use to preach?

I’ve been asked to preach at my old church in Cahir for a rather sad occasion. Because of health issues the Board of Mission worker, Peter, and his wife Christine will be leaving Cahir and going back to the North. Peter and Christine are a vital part of the church in Cahir and they will be sorely missed. They were like parents to me. Peter took me to a coffee shop for a chat when we first met, before I came to Cahir Presbyterian Church. I first attended CPC when I was about two months old in my faith and I left to go on this mission to Greystones when I was about 3 years old. Peter and Christine helped me to learn how to walk as Christian, always encouraging and supporting me in ministry. It’ll be tough to choose the Scripture to preach on (if anyone has any suggestions I’d be grateful), never mind actually preaching.

I’ve had the privilege of preaching at Dun Laoghaire Presbyterian Church’s “Saturday @ 5″ service. It’s on Saturdays… at 5 pm… and after the sermon they break for tea and coffee and then come back for a Q&A session with the preacher, which I think is a great idea and I really enjoyed it. Then on Sunday I got to preach the same sermon at Greystones Presbyterian Church (my placement). The reading for the sermon is Luke 15:1-2, 11-32 and you can hear the sermon online here: Two Lost Sons. In case you’re wondering after listening to the sermon, the website I mentioned is Wordle.net.

This week I also had the great experience of attending the Irish Preachers Conference, which was held in Dun Laoghaire. The conference was attended by preachers from all over Ireland (and a surprising amount of Australians!) and was a mix of seminar and workshops. I had a great time and was really challenged, encouraged and helped in my ministry by the conference.

Short post again but it’s better than nothing. I’ve been sick since St. Stephen’s Day and aparently 12% of the country knows how I feel. I’m on the mend now but have had to take a few extra days off work. I’m also a bit fed up of wheezes and chest infections, which is what all of my colds and flus seem to turn into lately. Worst of all, I miss my Sarah!

Anyway, happy 2009! New years resolutions this year:

I will be starting the new Bible-in-a-year reading plan I got with my ESV Study Bible (PDF file here). I also plan on going through the Heidelberg Catechism, which is written in a very devotional style and rather nicely arranged into 52 sections called Lord’s Day 1, Lord’s Day 2, and so on; so I can cover a short section every Sunday. Also I find one of my biggest, most persistent and most disgusting sins is my own pride so I’m going to combat this by asking more questions of people. My normal practice when I don’t know something is to go away and quietly research it until I have found my answer, this is a good thing but if you’re like me and that is often all you do it can create the illusion of self-sufficiency and that does nothing for cultivating humility, which is something I badly need. So I plan on being honest and upfront about my ignorance and humbly asking for help and information.

It’s been ages, I know and I don’t hope to catch you up on everything here; I’ll have to stick to the basics or this will end up a dry list of activities.

I am doing very well, I am happy and I enjoy my work even if it can be a bit stressful at times. I constantly find myself in over my head but God is the one working here in Greystones. God does His own work, not me, and it is good to see Him at work. I feel blessed to have this opportunity and to have God work through me.

Financially I’m not doing great, technically I’m in the red. I am getting by though, kind people are inviting me over for food and I am very greatful, especially since the alternative is often a bowl of cornflakes. Theoretically I should have enough money to get by every month but things always seem to crop up, like sickness (medicine is expensive),  my shoes wearing out (I saved money by buying super-glue to stick them back together again instead of buying a new pair), or Christmas. I’ve mentioned to a well known “serial-delegater” in the congregation that if she needs any holes dug or ditches cleared, etc. then to let me know, I could use the pocket money. Maybe something will come of that.

My personal life is going great! That’s all the detail you’re getting right now, Internet, but yeah it’s really really great!

I’m going to try to get back to some form of regular blogging here, journalling of some sort is helpful.

Don’t expect anything before 2009 though! Happy Christmas!

People, I am doing good. Life is fantastic! God is good! But I am so busy lately so a longer post will just have to wait.

Yes, I’m still alive. Yes, I still plan on keeping this blog going.

I think I’m depressed again. I’ve been going through some hard stuff since June, which I won’t go into too much detail about now.

Back in Greystones, during Encounter I was stitting in a room (the Red Room as it was known) which we had decided to take over to watch a film. It was just me and a friend there waiting for the other guys to show up so we could watch the film. The monitor across from me was hooked up to the Hyltons’ laptop (the Hyltons are the leaders of World Harvest Mission’s MAP programme in Ireland, who will sadly be leaving us this year because of immigration issues). The screensaver on the laptop was running, cycling through picture after picture of past Encounters and other friends. There were so many pictures, some of them had people I know and love in them, some of them were even from my Encounter team last year, some of them were just full of smiling faces that I’ve never met. So many faces.

While I was watching this slideshow I kept thinking how hard the Hylton’s job is. Every year they meet new people, love them, cry with them, help them grow and every year they say goodbye to those people. Those people go on with their lives, the Hyltons go on with theirs and while I’m sure they keep in touch I know many of those people will never meet with them again in this world. So many goodbyes, it was so sad.

It’s not just the Hyltons though is it? My life will look like that too. I am called by my Lord to a life of loving people, but the way this present world works means that those loved ones cannot all be kept within the reach of my arms as my heart so wants them to be. Love means saying goodbye. A thousand goodbyes and a thousand hellos. The love and joy I feel from genuine relationships with people far outweighs the hurt of having to say goodbye but when you find yourself having to say those words it can be hard to remember that. I will try to remember that love is always worth the hurt. It was worth it for Him.

I am saying goodbyes and it hurts. I know that we will keep in touch and our friendships will endure and we have been united in the family of God and that is an eternal thing. But still, it hurts. And so I haven’t been blogging much.

I didn’t stick around to watch that film.

On the Friday night, our last night in Greystones before splitting up into our teams, Joel Hylton made the perfect toast:

“To people I want to spend eternity with.”

Amen brother. Cheers!

It’s reflection time so I decided to blog a little. I’ve been at Encounter now since Sunday. Encounter is a fantastic experience but it does tend to shake you up (in a good way). My naturally introverted ways are really standing out while I get used to all these strangers who I’ll soon come to love as brothers and sisters. Crowds freak me out initially and I tend to wander off on my own a lot.  The irony is that I really love people, I like spending time with them, I love a good chat and having a laugh. So at the moment there’s a tension between my love for people and my need to be alone sometimes until I get used to the crowd, so I end up being lonely.

I’ve been wondering why it is that crowds freak me out so much. I can’t blame it all on me being introverted, all that really means is that I need to recharge by being alone every so often. I think it’s that crowds are often people who don’t know me well so I feel a pressure to construct a good image of myself for them – I’m afraid that I might come across as less than perfect and only human. I end up coming off as aloof and cold. Some people that I love very much started out thinking that I didn’t like them at all because of the way I acted when we first met, just because I was trying desperately not to make any mistakes and didn’t know how to act.

For the friends that can still remember the first time we met just please think back to how I was – very quiet, not wanting to intrude in any way. Everything about me said “don’t mind me, you won’t even know I’m here” (even when you invited me as a guest).  If we ate or drank together in that first meeting think back to what I had – something bland and tidy, nothing too complicated, nothing I could make a mess of. Do you remember the plain chicken sandwiches, the bottles of water? Yeah, I was trying to be careful, to not make a mess.

Introversion is not a sin, but living as though I am neither loved by God or by my brothers and sisters in this wonderful family is and I repent of that. I will dare to risk making an ass out of myself in loving other people and enjoying them and in loving God and enjoying Him.

I’m keeping the running up while I’m here. One of the mentors here has a couple of marathons under his belt and we went for a run on Monday. It felt like about 3 miles but I’m not sure because I didn’t take my Nike + stuff since I felt that would be a bit anti-social for my first run with company. Part of the run was on the beach here at Greystones and that was really hard, the sand is so soft and running over it was pretty hard on my legs. I’ve decided to abandon numbering my running days while I’m here at Greystones because I won’t be blogging that often and it could get very un-natural trying to refer to Day X and Day Y.

Weird day running wise. Weird but good. I hadn’t run since Monday and since then I’ve done a lot of travelling. Also, today I was considering not running either because I was going to give blood. Later in the day I found out that the mobile blood transfusion clinic had moved on from Clonmel so running was back on. I was still feeling pretty tired and could have easily nodded off but I decided to go for a run and try out my new shoes (Nike Pegasus + 2007) and Nike +. I was really expecting a bad run – new shoes, eating rubbish because I wasn’t expecting to run, feeling dehydrated and tired after travelling, not having run since Monday – but it was my best run yet. I ran the usual 5K (and a bit) and did it in 32:29, which I know is still in the slow beginners category but it’s a big improvement for me. The new shoes feel fine and Nike + seems pretty nifty but I do need to calibrate it a bit because it said my run was 5.74K.

I head off the Greystones for Encounter on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to it but I am nervous about leading this year, I was expecting that though, so it’s ok. Lots of packing to do.

Great news! I’ve been accepted for the SWIM programme! Exactly which church I’ll be serving at still has to be worked out yet. I mentioned that MCC would be my first choice in the interview and I really hope that’s where they send me. Keep praying.

No running today. I’m thinking of either focusing on weights or stretching. It’s funny, considering how much more flexible I used to be when I did karate, you’d think I’d do a lot of stretching before each run but I’ve only been doing the minimum amount. I think I’d benefit from spending more time stretching before each run as well as having maybe a day or two each week for stretching.