Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Bad Golf
This past Sunday was one of those days when everything seem to click at Central. Well, except for my initial impression and it was due to me. My good friend who is teaching the “College Class” asked me to sub for him and I forgot. By the grace of God I happen to walk by the College Class and poke my head in to say “hello.” One of our “A.I.M. (Adventures In Missions) Girls” who is from Australia said to me, “Ce-ce, (the cute name she calls me if you think “Ce-ce” is a cute way to say “Cecil”) aren’t you teaching our class? I had to give her a “holy” “rut-row.” I had forgotten but being the professional educator that I am, I was able to wing it with the help of Paul and his Letter to the Ephesians.
My next task was to pick up a group of folks from Guatemala who have been visiting our church. One of our members who speaks Spanish rode with me which made me feel a little more at ease at making our guests feel at home. They were all very gracious for the bus ride back to Central.
Back at Central, the Lord continues to bless us with a wealth of visitors and mostly young families with kiddos. You know your church is alive when you can hear those crying, screaming babies. Our preacher, Don, likes to say that when a baby is crying during his sermon what they are doing is expressing their frustration at not being able to “amen” his sermon. Sounds like one of those preacher stories to me.
Our singing sounded especially good today. The folks that we’re giving a mic to, are really (did I mention my son is one of them) helping with our acapella service and as we all know, when an acapella service is good, it’s really good and when it’s bad, well, you know.
Time to digress – As I said in an earlier blog, I currently reading a book by Sarah Sumner entitled, “Men and Women In The Church.” She makes an interesting statement on page 97. She writes, “It’s true that more should be done to bring men back into church but I disagree sharply with Podles’s (Leon Podles – “The Church Impotent”) conclusion that men who are at church attend it because they want to be boys. The men in my class were men, not boys. They hated being less knowledgeable than their wives about the Bible. It irritated them to feel incompetent at church. I believe that’s why most men would rather play golf than go to church. Most men who are bad golfers would rather play bad golf than go to church.”
Her statement struck me between the eyes not that the fact that I’m a bad golfer has anything to do with it. I wonder if I’ve been in “church” so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a new Christian, especially a man who is a new Christian. Or to go a step farther, a man who hasn’t been discipled, baptized into Christ, and trying to live a transformed life. I wonder how we as “church leaders” address this problem of men, who are viewed by the world as leaders but who are intimated by their lack of Biblical knowledge or as Sumner indicates, may be intimidated by the fact that they have a wife who is farther along in her spiritual walk.
Just some food for thought my fellow bloggers. Have a happy Monday.
My next task was to pick up a group of folks from Guatemala who have been visiting our church. One of our members who speaks Spanish rode with me which made me feel a little more at ease at making our guests feel at home. They were all very gracious for the bus ride back to Central.
Back at Central, the Lord continues to bless us with a wealth of visitors and mostly young families with kiddos. You know your church is alive when you can hear those crying, screaming babies. Our preacher, Don, likes to say that when a baby is crying during his sermon what they are doing is expressing their frustration at not being able to “amen” his sermon. Sounds like one of those preacher stories to me.
Our singing sounded especially good today. The folks that we’re giving a mic to, are really (did I mention my son is one of them) helping with our acapella service and as we all know, when an acapella service is good, it’s really good and when it’s bad, well, you know.
Time to digress – As I said in an earlier blog, I currently reading a book by Sarah Sumner entitled, “Men and Women In The Church.” She makes an interesting statement on page 97. She writes, “It’s true that more should be done to bring men back into church but I disagree sharply with Podles’s (Leon Podles – “The Church Impotent”) conclusion that men who are at church attend it because they want to be boys. The men in my class were men, not boys. They hated being less knowledgeable than their wives about the Bible. It irritated them to feel incompetent at church. I believe that’s why most men would rather play golf than go to church. Most men who are bad golfers would rather play bad golf than go to church.”
Her statement struck me between the eyes not that the fact that I’m a bad golfer has anything to do with it. I wonder if I’ve been in “church” so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a new Christian, especially a man who is a new Christian. Or to go a step farther, a man who hasn’t been discipled, baptized into Christ, and trying to live a transformed life. I wonder how we as “church leaders” address this problem of men, who are viewed by the world as leaders but who are intimated by their lack of Biblical knowledge or as Sumner indicates, may be intimidated by the fact that they have a wife who is farther along in her spiritual walk.
Just some food for thought my fellow bloggers. Have a happy Monday.
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From one bad golfer to another, I think you're right. Men hate to look incompetent, but would rather look incompetent doing something they understand than doing something where they are not only incompetent, but ignorant as well.
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