Tuesdays with Morris

Well, I just finished my final paper. I’ll probably send it out in the morning! I’m so stoked! I think I’ll have to celebrate!

Well, I’m officially back from school. However, school is not officially over. I have a 5-page paper to write on “what it means to be a United Methodist pastor.” Fun?!? It has to be turned in by Monday, August 7th. So, basically that means I need to send it our no later than Wednesday. This afternoon and tomorrow morning I’ll do my best to knock out the paper. Since I had so few re-writes during the week (especially compared to some of the others at the school), I feel fairly confident that I’ll be able to produce a satisfactory paper. But, I don’t want to be overly confident.

So, I guess things are back to normal…Well, as normal as they can be. Things at the church will most likely be pretty crazy for the next several weeks. Rusty and Becky are at Duke and sort of in limbo as to when procedures will take place and when they will be returning home. My heart goes out to them. But, I’m glad I’m here to help fill in some of the gaps at church. I felt pretty good about yesterday’s services. I was (and still am) totally exhausted from the week of school. So, I was dragging. But, I believe the people that needed to hear the message God laid on my heart heard the message.

I’m excited to get back into the routine of things. Of course, with school starting for Em in a couple of weeks…the routine is about to drastically change. It’s an exciting ride!

Almost done! Tomorrow morning and early afternoon and then I’m out of here. However, the work will not be over. Tonight, after worship (more on that to follow), Rev. Richard “Dave Chappelle” Dunbar laid down the smack. We were assigned a 5 page paper due on August 7th (that’s a week from Monday). It will be a tough paper to write on what it means to be a United Methodist paper. And, the paper carries about 80% of the weight on our recommendations. So, basically, I’ll have to get the paper written and sent out by Wednesday.

This evenings worship was great. Rev. Roland Moore was the pastor. He talked about waiting and what we do while we wait. He knows many of us are waiting to see what God’s going to do. He spoke of the dangers of trying to take things into our own hands while we wait. It was a good message.

After hearing all of the sermons in my small group I found something to be apparent. All of the current seminary students spoke down to the group in their sermons. It was a “I know every thing and this is what you should learn from me.” The non-seminary people spoke from the heart and with the people.

The sermons given in worship…outside of Rev. Dunbar and Rev. Moore’s I really didn’t care for any of them. Mostly it was because you could tell the speaker was thinking, “I’m a great preacher. Preach like me and you’ll be fine.”

Today’s module dealt with worship. Both presenters seemed to talk down towards the contemporary church and didn’t have much insight on the emergent movement. I really think they should have had a representative from a contemporary church here to talk about worship with a traditional person…instead of two traditional people that made over-generalizations and snide remarks about contemporary worship. We have to realize there can be powerful traditional and contemporary worship…just as there can be crappy traditional and contemporary worship. What they should have said is that blended worship is just plain crappy. But, they didn’t even touch that area with a 10 foot pole.

I’m so excited to just get home. I’m tired…I miss Emily…I can’t wait to see Sammy…I want to sleep in my old bed…I want a shower with a strong water flow (not this low-flow crap…remember that Seinfeld episode???). It’s going to be so good to be home. Hopefully I’ll rest well so I’m ready to preach on Sunday morning. I may talk about Snicker’s candy bars…they satisfy!

Well, I have all my paper work back! I’m totally finished with re-writes. I only had two small ones…one in Christian Education (simply a form issue, I had all the information she wanted, she just wanted me to put it into a grid), one in UM Beliefs (this one was hilarious…I had made a statement, which the instructor obviously read and wanted to know more about…the re-write was to explain the statement, which had he read the following paragraph he would have seen the explanation. So, I simply circled the paragraph and returned it. He laughed). I also finished my at school interview.

The course today was on pastoral care and it was well done. The instructor teaches at a university and that was extremely obvious…he knows how to teach. So, that was very refreshing! The evening worship was less than stellar. I’ve been struck by the traditional nature of all of our worship. You would think they would address contemporary worship at some point…but, given the nature of the instructors…I don’t think they have anyone with an expertise in the area.

I did get things stirred up a bit by sharing that many times I do study and sermon prep at the Heorot while enjoying a good pint and cheap food. The instructor thought it was great and kept making references to it throughout his presentation. Another instructor asked me where I was located because if I was close to Dayton he’d like to get together for a weekly pint and lectionary discussion. So, know I’m known as the “bar with cheap food” guy. But, it actually broke down some barriers for people.

I miss Emily and Sammy. Every time I talk to Em, I miss her more…And Sammy too because I always hear her in the background. A day and a half…that’s all I have left.

I still have the great desire for a good pint of Guinness and Two-Hearted from the Heorot! It’s been a freakin’ long week.

One of the things that irritates me the most is when a presenter gives you a stack of handouts and simply reads through them. If that’s your presentation…don’t give me the word-for-word handout…or simply give me the handout and time to read it for myself.

We’re currently going through Administration and Organization. It’s an important thing for pastors to be aware of, on top of, and working towards. However, it’s one of the most boring and tedious areas in the life of a pastor.

Another thing that irritates me is when people ask questions in a group setting that would be more appropriately addressed in a more personal setting. We spent more time going over very personalized questions that only applied to one person in the room than we did going over the provided material.

Late last night, Henry from Columbia (the country, not the city) bought every one pizza! What a treat. Of course, we all have our theories on Henry. One, he’s from Columbia. Two, he arrived with a big bag of his own “herbs.” Third, he ordered a ton of pizza in the middle of the night as we were all attempting to do our re-writes. Hmm…draw your own conclusions.

Re-writes…My favorite re-write so far is definitely the one where the instructor circled a statement I had written and asked “How is this accomplished?” Why do I like this re-write??? Because it proved he did not read the entire paper. If he had, he would have seen that in the following sentence, I spelled out how the issue was accomplished!

Well, I’m back to class…7 hours of Administration and Organization today! Yippee!