A Pastor Who Tells People About God

I must have really needed that nap this morning! After I'd brought the kids to school -- both went, we've been giving Sarah eye drops all weekend and made sure she used her inhaler when she needed it -- I got home, put my feet up, covered up, and closed my eyes. I'd already reset my cell phone alarm to wake me at nine ... then nine-thirty ... then ten. (I have to be to work for my weekday job by ten-thirty.) Fortunately, lunch I already had ready and I was good to go!

This morning I had the paper route and we've added one, so now there's 49 people to deliver to on weekdays and 51 on weekends ... at four in the morning. Strange thing, I've been feeling more energetic on days I deliver the paper than when I don't. Even though my son Jeffrey says I sleep all the time; I know he doesn't mean it as snark (he'd better not) but when I'm the one who works Saturdays and got us the paper route in the first place, I'd better get a little more respect.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. Now that term commemorating Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and named for the palm leaves people spread in front of Him as He rode in on the back of a donkey I had never heard used in church before the last decade. Bethany Lutheran where I am now is the seventh church I've been a member of in my lifetime, and the churches I grew up in and attended in my twenties referred to Easter (or Resurrection Sunday) but not Palm Sunday.

Yesterday was our Palm Sunday cantata which Martha being in the church choir was part of. Several people in choir are SO associated with the speaking parts of Jesus, Peter, and Judas that it's hard to imagine anyone else doing them! Especially the young man who reads Jesus' lines; I can't imagine Matt shouting! And for a change ... the choir didn't take over, or at least I don't feel like they took over saying "look what we can do" but instead gave. glory. to God.

It's something we really need in church these days. Our youth group served a brunch of egg and sausage muffins, fruit cocktail, juice and coffee and in Sunday school I had twelve second-graders for the final lesson on the walk to Emmaus, where Jesus after He rose from the dead appeared to two of His disciples without them knowing who He was; then He had a meal with them and dawn broke over the disciples (re: Jesus revealed Himself) before He disappeared!

The kids who read the play did a great job with that as well as with the puppets; on occasion the kids who read the parts forget to have the puppets "stand" on stage with their feet and move their mouths with their hands when they're speaking ... but the second graders excelled! Even the ones who don't read as well, I love it when they give their best shot and not be mocking (a fifth grader did this a few weeks ago in a faux Italian accent). And it pays, and will pay I believe.

The person who read for Jesus gave me a hug after class. Boy was that the icing on the cake ... and speaking of cake, after Martha got home from church I found out that her uncle Mark and aunt Stella were surprising her mom Sharon by coming up for a surprise birthday party. So a small -- fourteen people -- family gathering where we shared a Dairy Queen Blizzard birthday cake was in the offing and everybody got to settle down and catch up with the fourth Die Hard movie in the background.

Martha, Sarah, Jeffrey, and I went home and got on our bikes and rode to the nearest park across the bridge from our house. It really did not take me long to get used to riding again -- I haven't done so in many years! The kids and Martha and I all climbed up on the play set for a bit but then we played "magic" again and I ended up on the ground the most where I had to tag them on the slides or monkey bars (should have seen Sarah coaching Jeffrey on them!) because I caught people ...

... with their feet just above the ground! Weasels. Back to Sunday school for a minute, Martha's oldest sister Malesa told me yesterday than in his (other) second grade Sunday school class Jeffrey was the only person who knew what a missionary was. I believe I got his wording right based on what both Malesa and her son Mathew told me in today's title, even if pastors get miles too much credit for it. No offense intended, but ANYBODY can tell people about God.

We just have to do it, David