Sister Anne

Greetings to you all in the name of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.  The time from yesterday's blog until now has been absolutely delightful and full of blessings from the Lord.  Even now writing this as I sit and listen to some new classical music I found that I absolutely love, I just feel like God could not bless me more than He already has.  Yesterday I worked the bar tending gig, which turned out to be an awesome job.  All we did was stand there and open beer bottles or pour wine as they went though the line.  It was completely open bar, so there were also no tips.  However, we did get free food and a few free beers while we worked, and then after work they let each of us take some of the beer and a bottle of wine home with us.  They also gave us ALL the leftover food, which I can not explain how much there was.  We filled the back of the gator, and took it our dorm and just put it all in the lounge for all the guys to eat.  I felt like Santa on Christmas delivering that much food to a bunch of poor graduate students.  It was a wonderful gift, and I appreciated the beer and wine as well.  Heck, the food, beer, and wine would have been enough incentive for me to work the afternoon, let alone all of that plus my pay check.  They do treat us very well, and I have probably the coolest boss ever.  Then, remember how I told you I am slowing losing my memory, well I completely forgot about the Grand Torino event.  However, I did get an important letter wrote, as well as a paper.  So my time was probably better spent.
This morning I woke up to Hannemann knocking on my door.  I forgot chapel was earlier than normal, and I am glad he came and woke me up because I definitely wanted to go.  I showered quick and walked in just a little late.  The pastor preaching had an amazing sermon, but it was an interactive sermon.  I'll explain in a second, but I ended up up front at the alter with him and some guys.  His sermon was all about how the Pharisees and Chief Priest had disciples that would train under them, and then eventually become teachers themselves with their own following.  Jesus was a different type of teacher with a different type of disciples.  Instead of His disciples becoming a teacher themselves with their own following, they were always Jesus's teachers teaching everyone to follow Jesus not them.  His main point that he did an awesome job of, was that even though we are pastors and servants or followers of Jesus, we can not let ourselves get so busy telling others of Jesus that we forget to follow him ourselves.  It was a great point with some great dry pastor humor, but really drove home the point we must set aside time to be followers of Jesus ourselves before we can lead others to Him.  He demonstrated this by asking two guys to follow him.  He then told them each to grab one person to come with.  He then showed how even as you invite new people, you do not say follow me, but rather follow Him with me.  He did this a few more times until one of the guys asked me to follow him with them.  He lead us all up to the alter and had us in front of the congregation under the giant hanging cross, and pointed up and basically yelled FOLLOW HIM!.  He ended it by explaining that until the very end of time when Jesus comes back, we must follow Him.  Only when we are reclined next to Abraham and all other members of the Church Triumphant can we relax and stop following Him.  Because then, and only then are we in the comfort and safety of being home in Heaven.  It was an awesome sermon and I am so glad I did not miss it.
However, I did have to chuckle as I realized I was one of the guys who was brought to the front of the church and used as an example of following Jesus, when I was late because I almost sleep through chapel.  One of those times you just look up, and say, "I hear Your hints dear Lord."  Also one quick side note, about pastors' dry humor.  As I was working the registration desk yesterday, the girl who was working it with me and I realized that there is a requirement to being a pastor.  Not only must a pastor have an incredibly dorky, corny dry sense of humor, but he must also laugh at all of his own dumb jokes.  Seriously, I think it's part of our formation, that they drain us of our actual sense of humor, and fill us full of lame jokes that we actually think are funny.
Then after chapel I went to Dr. Meyer's presentation on "You're All Wet!"  It was a seminar about preaching to your baptized congregation and was actually really good.  Once again, the more I get to know Dr. Meyer, the more I realize he is an awesome man.  I can't wait to have class with him my fourth year.  Then lunch, some homework in my room, and then the big anticipated module of Nursing Home Ministry.  The four of us guys who are doing the module together all talked on the way there and realized we were all a little nervous.  We went around in the car and each said a prayer of comfort and peace.  Then when we got there, we talked with Rev. Roger a little, before he walked us down the hall and randomly found people he knew would be good ones to talk to and dropped us off individually.  I was third in order, and got to meet a wonderful lady.  Her name was Sister Anne, and she was a Catholic nun of sixty years.  We had such a pleasant visit for almost the entire hour.  She asked me about everything from my family and schooling to why I chose the ministry and how I liked the seminary.  She told me all kinds of cool stories about her life as a nun and about her life at Sherbrook Village Nursing Home.  She let me know our visit time was up when she asked me if I prayed.  I obviously answered yes, and she said she would let me close our talk with prayer.  I prayed for both of us, and she thanked me for the "beautiful" prayer.  She told me I would make a great pastor.  I felt lucky that we actually had more to talk about when I let her know half of my extended family is Catholic and my Great Aunt is actually a nun.  She was a wonderful lady to talk to and she set the bar for this module pretty high.  However, I thank the Lord I got to talk and pray with her, and just spend time with her.  Praise be to Him it went well.
I also bought my first clerical shirt today.  It was free thanks to a coupon from the Lady's Guild of the Seminary.  I tried it on and was impressed with how old I looked in it.  Now I never look good in anything I wear, so the clerical was no different but it did send a chill down my back to see myself actually looking like a pastor.  It kind of scared me a little to think of being out in the church all on my own, no longer able to say I'm only a seminary student, I can't answer that question.  So I put it in the back of my closet and will leave it there until I graduate.  I know quite a few first years who are already wearing them to their field work church.  If that is want they want to do, I guess more power to them.  I simply do not believe in it.  A lot of that comes from Grandpa who I know does not approve of students wearing them, but I do feel even if he was ok with it, I would still be against it.  I mean first year medical students don't get to walk around the hospitals in white coats.  Why?  Because they ARE NOT doctors.  Training to be a doctor or a pastor does not make you a doctor or a pastor.  So I do not judge or comment on the guys who do wear them, and I do know some field work pastors actually do require them to be worn.  Thank goodness my pastor does not require me to wear mine.  I just think we are going to be wearing those shirts the rest of our lives.  What is the hurry to start wearing them now?  I will not wear one unless forced to until I am a called and ordained pastor.  If others want to, good for them, but I feel like they are sending the wrong signal.  However, again like I said, this is just my personal feelings and to each their own.  Now you could say Kevin, you dress in golf shoes, polo, and glove every time you go golfing but you are not a golfer so what's the difference.  I will say you are right I do dress like a golfer even though I can not claim to be one ;), but my golfing ability has no direct effect on the eternal placement of anyone's soul.  Unless of course I hit somebody with my golf ball and send them to their eternal resting place!  Sorry, see there is that pastor's corny sense of humor, I do apologize.
My thought for the day comes from Dr. Meyer's presentation.  He was talking about how so often pastors' sermons are either directed at the unbeliever, even though his congregation is full of baptized people, or else they are so over done or written in such a literally fashion that they rush right over the tops of the members heads.  He admitted that when he goes to church and listens to the sermon he listens for the WIIM.  This stands for What's In It for Me?  He wants some personal direction or meaning from the sermon.  He noted that most adults pay attention to children's sermon's and then drift off in their own mind during the real sermon.  We as pastor's need to preach to the baptized, but make it clear and applicable to them.  I really enjoyed this, because I think a lot of times new seminarians try to write these fancy elaborate sermons to show how smart they are.  That's fine, we have been going to school twenty one years or longer by the time we get out in the preaching world, we want to show we learned something.  However, all the sermons I have written have been fairly simple to grasp the concept, just trying to put a new spin or emphasis on the text.  I loved Dr. Meyer's quote, "I tell my homiletic's class they need to write children sermons on steroids."  I really like this, not because I think parishioners are stupid, but because the Gospel really is simple enough for children to grasp, so why do we try to make it so difficult for adults to understand.  The quote he used that I really want to talk about when you read the text and start preparing your sermon the first step is discovery.  Discovery is hitting on the right things to say.  He did mention this is the hardest part of preparing a sermon.  Because each text could be taken several different directions for a sermon, with different focuses, but can you as a pastor find the discovery?  Can you find the right things to talk about that your congregation needs to hear at that particular time.  I am so excited to start homiletic's class.  I do realize most my sermons will probably be torn to shreds by the professors, but I am still excited to start writing sermons and figure out how to write GOOD ones.  So that is my thought for the day, if you go to church every Sunday and find yourself not paying attention to the sermon or just can't completely understand what the pastor is trying to preach on, tell him to work on his discovery.  Ok, so maybe don't just tell him that, but I do encourage you to go talk to him and tell him the sermons are over your head.  You go to church to hear the word and grow in your faith.  The pastor should not judge you and I would hope he would be only grateful to sit down with you and help you grow in your faith, if you tell him you aren't getting anything out of his sermons.  When a math teacher gives his class a presentation, if you didn't understand it do you just sit back and remain confused, or do you go ask him to explain it a different way?  I encourage you to never just sit back and be confused about your faith.  Please go talk to that pastor and ask him to reexplain it and help you get it.  I sincerely hope my parishioners will do that for me someday.  And even if you do understand what he was preaching on, remember as Dr. Rossow preached in chapel today, never let your life get to busy to follow Jesus.  Only when we are in the comfort of Heaven can we relax, but until then, look to the cross, look to the empty tomb, and follow Him.  In our Easter Joy we daily celebrate, in our daily celebration we remember our mission here on earth.
Dear Heavenly Father, 
I thank you so much for such a wonderful past couple days completely full of Your blessings.  I definitely do not deserve all that You give me.  I especially thank you for letting my experience with Sister Anne go so well, and ask that as I continue this each week, they may all go as well as today.  We come together in Your name, thanking You, praising You, and asking You to continue to bless each of us as You already do.  Let the rest of the week go as well as the first half has.  Lord You Gospel is simple, but Your Word is not always exactly clear.  Be with us as we study Your Word, strengthen our faith and never let us forget the power of prayer.  For truly if You are for us, who can be against us?  Lord in Your most Holy Precious name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray and praise.  Amen.