The end of another week. An eventful one as you'll no doubt have noticed from my last entry.
Today splits into two parts, pre-sermon and post-sermon. Today was my first time leading the adult ministry time for our Sunday meeting and I did a sort of cross between a group bible study and a sermon. That was a new thing for me. I led more bible studies than I can be bothered to count at uni but I never delivered a talk of any length.
I only realised on Wednesday night that this was the week that I'd been down on the rota to lead the adults section of our Sunday service. I half volunteered and was half pressurised into it when we put the rota together in our ministry team. I had thought of perhaps finding a recorded sermon to play as I have a few around but for some reason I sort of wanted to try and do something myself.
I was undecided having looked through the recordings I had available (most of which are part of series anyway). When thinking about what I could talk about I was equally unsure, perhaps something related to the book I'm reading at the moment (The Pleasures of God - John Piper) but what in particular and what was it's relevance to my audience?
It was only on Thursday evening in our staff meeting that I suddenly had an idea. Several people had made comments about the week's events and in particular used phrases such as 'fiery darts' or 'arrows of discouragement' which brought to mind Ephesians 6:16: "In all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one" (ESV- from memory).
On thinking about this more I realised this did in fact tie in with the book I was reading and some of the theme's I'm currently inspired by. Why is the shield of faith an effective defence against discouragement and attack? Because of the nature of the God in whom our faith is placed.
When our faith is placed in a God is passionate for his own glory, sovereign and in control of all things, and perfect in goodness, both in his character and towards his people, then even the worst of attacks can be rebuffed with the knowledge that God is good, in complete control and is at work for his glory. Sorry that was a long sentence but the three characteristics there were the main points of my talk, backed up with a lot of bible references (probably too many but there were plenty of people there to read them out for me).
This being my first time delivering such a talk I was a little apprehensive which made the first part of my day a little tiring and nerve wracking and was a great relief to have finished afterwards. I think the theology was a bit heavy for some and I felt sorry for the non-anglophones but we had some good discussion and I was particularly encouraged talking to Chris afterwards who was very interested in some of the thoughts I presented. He's someone who enjoys thinking about this sort of stuff.
Lunch was great today. I ate far too much. Four helpings of noodle-auf-lauf (pasta bake) and four helpings of chocolate sponge and chocolate custard. My siesta was a little uncomfortable as my stomach was trying to cope with the volume of food now being digested. It was a little shorter than I would have liked too as it was cut short for a birthday celebration for one of the yr7 girls but she liked the card I had made which made up for it.
I played 2 on 2 football in the sports hall afterwards which hopefully lessened the negative effects of my gluttony at lunch time. Aunty Tracey and I took on Ben and Philip (yr11 & yr8) and beat them 22 - 16 after nearly an hour's play. We were all then exhausted and I retired for a hot shower in our neighbours house as they're away for the weekend and have a water heater (showers are always cold in our house).
Now it's 9pm and Adam should get back from the dorm soon. We'll watch a movie as is usual on Sunday night in our house (the start of our day off really). Hopefully some of the girls will join us tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment