Sunday, May 04, 2008
Holy Spirit Taught Sunday School Lesson
1. Friday – can’t sleep. Finally went to bed around 2:15am.
2. Saturday – Can’t concentrate and that goes without saying. I had an idea in my mind for my Sunday School lesson but I couldn’t put it together. O.K., before you guys (and gals) bust my chops, I know I should have had most if not the entire lesson done by Saturday. There, feel better now? Oh, did I mention that it took me three tries to electronically fill out the FASA Form for Steven?
3. Sunday – 6am – The Lord sends me my lesson and having gone to bed the night before, I’m rested and ready to write, prepare, and print.
Sidebar – Greg (http://gregengland.com/) once told me of Terry Rush of Tulsa fame, having an unusual technique when it came to his sermon prep. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here Greg but if I remember correctly, on a visit to Long Beach, Terry told Greg that he had gone a year with allowing the Lord to send him his weekly sermon. He told Greg that sometimes the Lord sent his sermon to him early in the week and sometimes it came on Sunday morning.
Let me confess here, I am (I think) a somewhat laid back guy but this is one area where I am quite anal! I need notes, I need prep time, and I need time to make the lesson mine, or so I thought.
At 8:15am, I was ready to print my lesson. That’s when I encountered my first problem. My lovely Epson Printer, which is out of “cyan” ink, would not allow me to print a “black ink” only copy. I said some very bad things about the good folks at Epson since our old HP Printer had a setting that would allow you to use other ink in the case you ran out of one color.
After the bad thoughts and words for Epson, I thought I had a solution. I’ll take the document on my desktop, email it to my yahoo email, open and save it to my son’s laptop, and use the laptop in Sunday School.
Problem, my desktop has Word 07 while son’s laptop has Word 03! Yep, you guessed it; son’s laptop would not open the attachments from my desktop.
“May-day, May-day, may-day!” “We have a problem Houston!” “Tora, tora, tora!” Yes, in a word, I was in deep ka-ka and you don’t know how this messed with my anal side! My wife had to listen to my tirade as I bemoaned the fact that I would have to teach the class without notes.
But you know what, that class may of ended up being one of the best classes I’ve ever taught, at least according to wife. All I know is that I started talking, teaching, and more points kept coming. Maybe there is something to be said for allowing the Spirit to work within us because family, it wasn’t me! I need my notes!
So, when you see that Mac Commercial with the old guy representing “PC,” just remember me. In fact, someone came up to me after my lesson and asked if I was using Alta Vista. No, no "Alta Vista" here but as the line from the movie, "Airplane," goes, "I picked a bad day to quit sniffing glue!"
Have a good week family.
Before I read the final thoughts on your blog, I was thinking you probably taught your best class ever! I preached through Luke for 2-1/2 years relying on God to give me what He wanted me to say and it was an awesome time in my ministry life. Often I did not know what I was going to say until that morning and more than once, I did not know what I was going to say as I walked to the stage area to preach, but God always provided!
I had a similar experience this morning (Sunday) as well. We went to a bluegrass gospel concert at our church last night and I was going to go over my class notes (I'd taught this material many times) after the concert. We got a call to go to San Diego to pick up a newborn baby ... no problem, the call came at 8:30. We finally got the release from the hospital about 9:30. Got to the hospital a little before 11pm only to discover they didn't have the baby! Actually, they did but under the mother's name, which we didn't have. Long story short, we did get the baby into our care, but didn't get home until 1am. No time for studying so I "winged" it this morning and we had a blast in my note-less class! The preacher commented to me after class (he was in another class), "You guys were having way too much fun over there this morning!"
I think we should start a trend based on our "note-less" experiences. What do say guys, Randy, Brady, Steve, Puck, Keith, Preacherman - this coming week, no notes! There, the gauntlet has been laid down. Tear up those notes!
Maybe I'm just too a/r but I think the Holy Spirit actually shows up on Monday morning to help me prepare what I'm going to say, and that what I have prepared ahead of time is just as much "from my heart" as something that pops in my head on the spur of the moment. (And yes, I teach most of my classes without notes, and let the class follow the flow of the discussion, but sermons are a different animal.)
Besides, Saturday night specials would give me ulcers.
I have an Epson printer, too, and obviously have the same problem. When I'm not poor anymore, I'm gonna buy a different kind that will let you select the printer color, since now I know there are such animules! I thought they were all like that.
Glad you had a good class. Relax.
You, too, John! :)
John - Yes, I hope we're not communicating that somehow if one does prepare for classes / sermons that are "Holy Spirit challenged." Certainly the opposite is true for to devote time and study to a sermon or lesson in this crazy world that we live in, takes being guided by the Holy Spirit. Good point.
Judy - Yes, I knew my brother Greg was (as the kids would say) "playing us." He wouldn't be the Greg that we all know and love.
I know that if I haven't done all the above, I am not ready. Maybe it's just me fighting against my lazy nature. And I am lazy, deep down in my heart.
But, to different folks, different styles. Try them all. But do, do, do be well prepared.
I listened to a guy last Saturday for an hour, a guy who probably thought he was being led by the Spirit, but I kept thinking,"The Spirit certainly is repeating Himself today."
I really enjoyed all of the comments, too.
Hope you're having a good week since!
Cheers & Blessings to you all today!
Dee
: 11:58 AM Dee - Thanks Dee.
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