BST's Blog

I am about to head into our staff meeting. There is much to accomplish today. We're beginning our "Retreat to the Creek" tomorrow night. It begins our summer series on Wednesday nights.

Blogs. Interesting things, these blogs. I find it a daily challenge to pour out the thoughts in my head in a way that will be beneficial while still staying as raw and honest as possible. As in any ministry, there are things that can consume our ministerial lives that just aren't appropriate to share on a public blog. Much of my last 5 months has been like that. Just wanted to throw that out. Some people expect one thing out of blogs and others maybe something completely different. I guess my goal in the beginning and now is to write about thoughts and questions, encounters and events in a way that will bring a human element to a ministry that can be pretty public at times. Some days I do ok at this, other days not so much. I guess that's the cool thing about blogs--they are a spilling out of thoughts. I don't want to try and manipulate the thoughts I pour out here. I hope each of you who read this will continue to bear with me as I journey.

My wife, Sheryl, isn't feeling well today. If you have a moment to pray for her, please do. She does a great job at being my partner in leading our family. I am thankful for all she does, but more so for who she is.

I am reading a book I picked up at the yard sale over the weekend. It's called In the Name of Jesus and is by one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen. I'd like to share this quote with you today because the truth of this seems to ring through my bones. Nouwen wrote this after leaving Harvard to work at L'Arche, a community for the mentally disabled. Much of the status he had enjoyed up to that point in the public world of ministry was found to be lacking in helping to minister to this new family. This is one of those paragraphs I need to cut out and tape to my mirror where I can read it every morning.

"I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God's love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God's word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and have chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life."