A Mentor

Recently someone who I consider to be a mentor to me passed away. Dr. Ohsberg, a man who I met when I began in ministry at New Minas Baptist Church, had become a mentor to me in many ways. We shared a passion for equipping families to inspire children toward faith in God.

Dr. O was the lead of the supervised field ed committee, and through that means he began to offer encouragement to me as I spoke and led within the the ministry of our church. Each time I stood to speak I knew that I had his attention, even though his many years of experience dwarfed mine, and even though his knowledge and wisdom far exceeded my own, he offered kind words to me following my messages. He always said someone constructive in his encouragement, and he was quick to offer me further suggestions which would take my thoughts and expand them in new ways.

When I began in ministry at NMBC Dr. O started bringing me books. Every once in a while, more frequently as he and Wilma downsized their home to an apartment, he would bring a selection of books he believed would be helpful. They often were just what I needed at the time.

As I look back on my relationship with Dr. O, I realize that I had much to gain from his wisdom and experience and that I did not take the opportunity to gain it all. Though he was a mentor to me, out relationship was different than I now wish it was. What I wish now is that I had asked him to mentor me more formally, meeting regularly to learn and pray together. I now do not have that opportunity. In some ways, I feel as though I missed the full benefit of someone who God had placed in my path, mostly due to my own perceived busyness. I pray that I will not make this mistake again.

A Little Overwhelmed

I like going to buffets for lunch.  There are lot of different choices, and you can come back for more.  When I was younger I used to go to a buffet where there was a one plate option.  You were given a little larger plate and you could only go up once.  I remember choosing it once and being frustrated.  I filled it to the point that it overflowed onto the table, the floor and my lap.  I was frustrated because the food that I wanted didn't fit on the plate, because my pants got messy, and because by the time I got to the end of the food on my plate it was cold.  Frustrating

Lately I seem to have a similar feeling.  There are lots of good things in ministry that I'm a part of doing right now.  There are lots more that I am interested in starting.  The problem is that it seems that rather than having the option to fill my plate adequately several times I seem to have the one plate problem.  I have a limited amount of time, and more stuff on my plate then I seem to be able to carry; and just as I finish one project, some of the others are already starting to get cold and overdue.  Frustrating.

Quiet Places

This morning I woke up in a quiet place.  Normally I wake up and it isn't.  Last night Pam Dimock, Lindsay Fowler and I held a overnight event for our mission team.  Not all of it went as I had planning in my mind, but most.  It was a great night.  We spent some down time with the team, getting to know them.

After that I did a training session about making your faith story accessible to others by thinking about the difference between abstract [grace, mercy, faith, forgive] and concrete words.  We worked hard to find ways to explain or replace words in our stories which might take longer to explain and distract from what we wanted to share.  The concept comes to me from David Staal's books: Leading Your Child to Jesus and Leading Kids to Jesus.  Both I highly recomend.

This morning when I woke up it was quiet.  The students are all still asleep, and Pam & Tim's home is in the middle of nowhere [no offense].  Pam has one of the most beautiful private gardens I've ever seen.  So now, as I wait for them to awake, I have a rare few moments to myself in quiet as I sit on their deck.  Its not until you have quiet for a moment that I realize that you missed it; and in this moment of quiet, I know how much I need it.  My life has been so full lately that I have gone without times alone, I can feel them missing as I feel my stress level rise with each passing day.

Looking forward to vacation in a couple weeks, when times of quiet may become more frequent.

Every morning you'll hear me at it again. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar and watch for fire to descend. [Psalm 5:3 | The Message]

Tempations

Tonight at Solid Rock Youth we traveled to the Look Off.  Its about a 25 minutes trip from the door of the church, and it takes us to a place where we can stand on the top of our version of a mountain and look over the whole valley floor.  Each year we can literally hear students say - 'cool you can see my house from here!'

This is an annual - end of the spring - event for us.  We stand and look over the valley and reflect on God's goodness over the past year.  We celebrate milestones in the lives of our students and leaders, and we thank God for the summer to come.

Each year someone speaks from God's Word.  The last two years I was a participant, not a speaker.  This year, God laid on my heart a different message.  I really feel that God is developing me into a story teller, I'm trying, more from the infancy of this practice in my own life than from an real skill.  Today the story God told through me was of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.  Jesus was tempted to rely on his own ability to meet his needs rather than God's; he was tempted to choose a path of instant fame rather than subtle and deliberate kingdom building in the lives of unlikely individuals; and he was tempted to give up God's way entirely and be given the whole world as an immediate  gift for choosing to worship Satan instead.

As God revealed the story in me and prepared me to tell it, I saw so clearly how often I / we choose to give in to these temptations.  We do rely on our own ability to make bread instead of God's miraculous ability to cause us not to need it at all, we do choose a path of seeking fame and approval - often from fickle people whose approval doesn't really matter anyway, and we do seek to worship Satan - something that frightened me as I thought about it. We choose to worship Satan when we choose things which do not honor God to gain a piece of the world for ourselves.  When I am self centered, when I am self absorbed, when I put someone else down to raise myself up, when I choose to purchase things I do not need at the expense of money I could have given to someone who does, when I choose to discard things in a wasteful way, when I choose to damage the world through my wanton use of energy, fuel, and food resources... when I choose to do things which cause my focus to be shifted from seeking God's kingdom first to seeking my own desires first - that's when I give in to temptation number three - worshiping Satan - or more specifically, putting another god [myself] in the place of God himself.

Sometimes, I wonder if the stories God gives me to share are really for me and for other people to watch as I  God prunes me. As long as others benefit as well, I somehow don't feel as though I mind.

Family Weekend

The last few weekends have been so crazy that this weekend our focus was on our family.  On Saturday we had a slow day at home, something that I've not had for a long time, and then we invited some friends over for supper.  On Sunday afternoon we were to have had a church family picnic and it was too wet - honestly I wasn't sad that it was postponed - I was able to spend my time with my family.  On Sunday night we went to a playground nearby and had a great time!  I took lots of photos, and for the first time have some really good shots of some of us.  You can check the photos on Facebook: here.

While we were at the playground on Sunday night we received a call from Scott [Sharalyn's sister Deborah's husband] to let us know that their first baby had arrived!  We made plans on the spot to travel to Halifax on Monday [Caleb skipped school] and visit.  We met Ewan Alexander Montgomery and the older 3 of our children were able to hold him and have their picture taken.  Jordan [our youngest who turns 1 on June 12] was to aggressive to hold him, lol.

Not only were we able to visit the Montgomerys, we also were able to visit with my parents and my brother's family while we were in the city.  Mom and Dad were planning on coming to the valley to visit us before hading back to Ontario, so us being in the city was easier for them.  We had a great time going for lunch at Smitties and then to a park in the middle of Halifax.  Great photos.  It was good to visit as a whole family as we aren't able to do that more than once a year.  My parents usually visit once a year in the summer, so we only see them that often.  My brother and his wife Jo and their son Jericho have until this past week lived in an apartment which was way to small for us to visit with our clan.  They moved to a bigger space this past week so hopefully we'll do a better job of connecting than we have in the past.

I love family days / weekends.  So often our lives are so full that we are not able to spend the time that I wish that we could.  My favorite place in the world and my favorite people in the world are my family, I want to make the best of every moment we can share.