Janae eating her sucker and fishing.
I got one daddy!
After catching her fish, Janae didn't want to even touch the pole! So I took this picture with her standing about 5 feet away. It makes it look like a monster perch!
This entry is for my sister who has been on me to write on my blog. After all, in her thinking a blog is meant to be updated from time to time. So this one is for you sis! ;-)
Actually the past 48 hours I have been attending the Bishop's retreat that my Annual Conference has every year for pastors like me to get some continuing education credit. I always dread coming to these things because of all the work it means I leave behind, but I am always glad I came once I am here.
This year's topic is on preaching and our presenter has been William Bobby McClain who is the Mary Elizabeth Joyce Professor of Preaching at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. I have enjoyed this conference because Professor McClain has taken us back to the basics of preaching – not unlike what Vince Lombardi did with the Green Bay Packers after a humiliating defeat by the Chicago Bears when Lombardi held up a football and said to the team, "Gentlemen, this is a football." It has been good to feel like a seminary student again in preaching class.
I have also enjoyed this conference because Professor McClain is from the Black Church tradition. In fact, he is the last elder actively serving in the United Methodist Church that was ordained through the Central Conference of the Methodist Church.
For those who aren't familiar with American Methodist history, in 1939 the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church South and the Protestant Methodist Church joined together to form the Methodist Church. As part of the agreement for merger, the Methodist Episcopal Church South inisted that black preachers and black congregations not be apart of white annual conferences. Therefore, the majority white denomination placed all the black congregations into one conference that encompassed most of the nation known as the Central Conference.
In 1968, when the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethen merged to from today's United Methodist Church, the Central Conference was eliminated and the black churches were incorporated into the annual conference in which they were geographically located.
Anyway, being from the Black Church tradition, Professor McClain has introduced us to some great gospel hymns and spirituals. I am sad to admit how ignorant I have been about some of the music found within the United Methodist Hymnal. But after this retreat I have a new favorite hymn. It's number 522 in the UMH and it's titled, "Leave It There." Maybe sometime in the future I will write a hymn story, but for now you can find the words here.
And the singing has been awesome as well! Now I don't know what it's like when pastors from other denominations gather, but my experience has been that when pastors in the United Methodist Church gather, the singing is tremendous! I guess it's in our blood, because we Methodist love to sing.
And another great surprise at this retreat has been the number of pastors who brought musical instruments. We have violin/fiddle, guitar, piano, and banjo. In other words, we have had in impromptu bluegrass band. So the music and singing as well as the instruction have made this a great retreat.
Sorry it has been awhile since I posted anything, but I actually started working on this entry about 3 weeks ago! It's just taken me a while to find the time to finish it.
So in January, I started leading a Bible study on the life of David. Now I have read these stories before, but only in a casual way. So it really has been rewarding to take a closer look at the Life of King David. Since Saul the first king of Israel plays such an important part in David's story, it only seemed right to start by taking a quick look at him.
And what we see is that Saul started out as a good king. After his anointing as king in 1 Samuel 10, we read about Saul's first challenge to his authority and subsequent victory. In 1 Samuel 11, Nahash the Ammonite lays seige to Jabesh Gilead. When Saul hears of this, he rallies his army and defeats the Ammonites.
Now two things stand out to me about this event. The first is what Saul was doing when he received the word of the attack on Jabesh Gilead. 1 Samuel 11:5 tells us that Saul was returning home with his oxen after working in his field. Wow! The King of Israel doing the work of a common laborer. At this point Saul was still grounded with his people.
The second is Saul's response in victory. 1 Samuel 11:12-15 some of the people wanted to kill those who had opposed Saul in becoming king. And with his popularity due to his military victory, Saul could have easily ordered this. Instead, Saul told them, "No one shall be put to death today, for this day the LORD has rescued Israel." And then Samuel taking Saul's lead, leads the people in the worship of the LORD.
But what a drastic comparision can be made between the Saul of chapter 11 and chapter 15.
Of course by chapter 15, we already know things are not going to end well for Saul. In 1 Samuel 13, his impatients in waitning on Samuel and preforming a sacrifice on his own has already led to the foretelling that the kingdom will not remain with his family. And in 1 Samuel 14 we see that Saul is not a man who can keep an oath before God (even though if he had, it would have meant the death of Jonathan).
However I believe the greatest break from God occurs in 1 Samuel 15. Here we see that Saul is given strick instructions on how to fight the Amalekites, but doesn't follow them. Instead, he spares the king's life and he takes plunder in livestock.
But notice that when Samuel hears of what Saul has done, where is Saul to be found? Verse 12 says that Saul has gone to Carmel to set up a monument (do we dare say idol?) to himself because of his victory! Where is the man that insisted of giving God the credit for victory in chapter 13?
And then to make his rebellion against God complete, he lies twice about why he allowed livestock to be taken. First in verse 21 he says the best were kept in order to sacrafice them to God. To which Samuel gives the famous line, "to obey is better than sacrafice." The second lie occurs in verse 24 when he says he allowed his men to take the animals as plunder because he was afraid of them. Saul, a man who stood literally a head and shoulders above everyone else in Israel, is more afriad of his own men than he is of God? Now you see why I call this the second lie.
So is it any wonder that in the next chapter, God has Samuel select the sheperd boy David as a new anointed one. It will be another 40 years before Saul's rebellion against God leads to his own suicide in 1 Samuel 31 and David takes the throne, but the seperation is complete here in chapter 15.
The story of Saul is the story of a man who started off right with the Lord, but allowed the power of his position to lead him astray.
