Look at an angle from the bottom.
(I have no idea)
Did I mention how preachers feel about Christmas?
So I spent the morning with Simeon. We've never done that before and I found him a pretty interesting old guy whose greatest moment in life came when he got to hold a baby.
And a bunch of people wrote a song about him, a song with a weird title.
If Simeon were to sing a song, what would it sound like? 'cause having spent the morning with him I don't think it would sound anything like the ones I listened to. (check out Nunc Dimittis on iTunes.)
A commercial satellite snapped the first images of the first Chinese aircraft carrier. Having just assembled a utility trailer made in China I'm sure the ship poses no threat to maritime safety.
I hope they make it back to port before the bearings seize.
I have two QB's on my fantasy football league. Both of them have "post-concussive symptoms." This could be a problem for this weekend's matchup.
I have no recollection of why I chose Vagabond Thoughts for the title of my blog. Because I started out on a different blog hosting service I can't go back and look it up. Did it have something to do with the vagabond life we've lived? Since I graduated from college we've lived in five cities in three states. We've never lived in a house longer than six years and I've had six different positions (five as a pastor), not counting that three-month stint teaching remedial reading at a K-8 boys military-style boarding school. You don't want to know.
I had a conversation this week that made me think about those moves from one church to the next. Were they good decisions? Should we have stayed longer at the second, third or fourth churches? (I essentially got sort of fired from the first one.) In each case we took out time, prayed and talked through the decision thoroughly. We asked God for wisdom and tried to look at all the relevant factors.
I don't think we got it wrong in any of those moves but looking back I can more clearly see the value of long pastoral tenures. Lloyd Peterson was my pastor from my first time at church as an infant until I left for college. There's value in that constancy, stability. When a church gets a new pastor every four or five years it says something, especially to the children and youth growing up in that congregation. They lose out on the bond that can only develop over a decade or more having the same pastor.
If the guy's a doofus all bets are off. In that case the church should (graciously) send him packing. But being a pastor isn't a career path with rungs to be climbed. It's shepherding, and the sheep, old and young, need constancy and an example of faithful commitment.
If all that sounds like I regret our decisions, not true. I just see the other side of the coin better now that I'm (older and) wiser.
2 comments:
Vagabonds are wanderers. Could it be because of your frequent moving? Possibly. Or could it be because of your ADD and, therefore schizophrenic, er, I mean /wandering thoughts? Just as likely.
I disagree - I had a prof that noted the effective life of a pastor in the typical church was 7 to 8 years (I remember teh four boxes or pastor and church personalities). I think that rule is generally true. A church w/o a lifetime pastor prevents it from becoming Pastor X's church and creates a church culture that reflects the group as a whole. On the other side - it keeps the pastor from viewing the church as his instead of His.
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