November 30, 2010

11-30-10 Tuesday, 6:52 am Springfield, 29 degrees and very windy.

I am looking forward to this week. The schedule last week of closing the church office for Thursday and Friday provided a good break from routine. Sunday was the first day of Advent, and we are now into this season. The next three weeks will be filled with awe and celebration combined with ordinariness, pain, and loss. I am reading The Minister as Shepherd by Charles Jefferson. This is a collection of messages he delivered in 1912, and for me it is a great balance to what I have been reading on pastoral leadership and change.

Daniel 7:1-28
This is the chapter of Daniel’s great vision of the four beasts, representing world powers. This vision, its brief explanation he gets during the vision, and scenes from the book of Revelation give us glimpses into the end of time. I studied Daniel and the Revelation in a course at a local church in 1979, and I am continually fascinated by the visions. Many writers have tried to explain them, and I find most of these to be merely speculative. There is a spiritual reality that is profitable to ponder, and at the same time believers must accept the mystery of that which is unknowable for now.

I John1:1-10
The apostle describes the one who is the Word of Life, who was with the Father, and then revealed to us. Verse 6 states: “So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.” Zechariah and Elizabeth were holy and blameless before God. I am leading a faith community called Wesley to be like this couple, and to heed the words of John, for “if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin.” (verse 7)

On this last day of November, guide me as your servant among many who are seeking to usher in your kingdom. Through the regular work of worship planning, leadership development, supervision and being supervised, may this day in my life be lived fully for eternity.