Several months ago I recognized that 30 minutes on a Sunday or Wednesday is not enough... I am not a wordy person. Even when I preach I tend to be brief... My first week here at Central my friend Erik asked me what I thought about preaching for the long haul... "I wonder how you will like being Central's youth pastor after preaching 52 weeks in a row," he asked? Let me just say that the bible is full! There is much to be said and as I learn I desire to share. Even though I don't use many words their is so much to be said and taught and lived out.
When I stepped into this role it could be said that there was, "a famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord(Amos 8:11)." The students hadn't had a full-time pastor in months. They did have a rotation of teachers coming in but it seemed that a def ear was given to these teachers because teaching was inconsistent and disjointed... I was one of those teachers.
So, as soon as I began my current role I was anxious to share so much... but, due to time I only have one time a week with the jr high and one time with the sr high. So, thanks to technology I am able to share more and even add a depth to what has been said during our services.
Another reason that I blog is that it sharpens me. Blogging keeps me thinking and writing clearly and biblicaly. It makes me more diligent in the scriptures and gives me more experience in expounding texts. So, I am thankful for all that I have learned in the previous months and anxious about what we learn together as we continue to search other books of the bible.
I am aware of the dangers of blogging. A recent article on Desiring God talked about the danger of blogging and desiring the praise of man. It is not unique to blogging but rather is a danger of any public limelight. It can happen in preaching, or writing, or whatever, but it is a very real and dangerous threat. Let me articulate that I do feel those cravings. I would love to have people reading and commenting and expressing to me how my writing has helped them grow spiritually... but God made this site obscure. Our URL, centralstudentsministry.blogspot.com, is long and awkward and even wrong(due to the fact that our ministry is called Central Student Ministries not Central Students Ministry) For the past 7 months I could tell you specifically which people were reading and no one was eager to tell me how great the blog was. (The readers are my family, friends, and a handful of students that I know. They get a lot from the writings but they know me well enough to know that I am just an ordinary guy that doesn't need my ego stroked)
Yet, I love to write and I feel the weight of these truths. So, blogging is my way of putting thoughts down on paper...digital paper.
Pray that God would continue to humble me... Pray that He would reveal Himself to me as I read and write. And pray for the students and individuals that find their way to this site that they would be impressed with God and not me. Pray that I would be gripped by truth and actually be presenting things clearly. Pray for yourself that you would not be impressed by men. Pray that you would be able to discern when someone is operating for their own glory. Pray that you would find teachers that would have the spirit of John the baptist and say, "He must become greater, I must become less." Pray that you would be like the Bereans in Acts 17 who would 'recieve the great message with eagerness and examine the scriptures to see if what [the teachers] say is true.'
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