Does anyone really like their job?
Okay, so I have had one of those weeks...months, really...when I really question what I do for 50+ hours a week.
I am a teacher, and while I survive each day by making jokes and trying to have adult interaction interspersed throughout my day, I struggle from time to time. I have been really thinking about it, and I think I've figured out why teaching is unsettling for me at times.
1) I don't feel that the job I have is contributing to the kingdom of God. I teach Language Arts- interjections, independent clauses, punctuation, etc. I don't have that much opportunity to share my faith, though I try to be faithful. Maybe I am wrong about this- maybe I am making more difference than I think.
2) I don't make enough money to contribute to the kingdom of God monetarily. I work really hard, and I don't make enough money for the job I do. Yes, even with "summers off" and blah, blah, blah, I still don't make enough. Trust me. If I can't make a direct impact in the kingdom of God, I would like to at least be able to support it monetarily. My job doesn't allow for that.
Maybe the reason I am feeling this way because John Piper's
Don't Waste Your Life has been a part of my regular reading activities.
So, blame it on Piper, but really, why do I stress myself out every day at a job that doesn't impact God's kingdom and can't even indirectly support it?
Scrapbooking victories and church questions
This weekend, my mother and I went to a 25-hour scrapbooking "Camp Crop-a-Lot" up in Dawsonville.
I got 40 pages of pictures, paper, and stickers done. I am the wo-man. I won a prize at the end of it for my fab 40 and I also got my name picked in a drawing for free stuff...it was a fun weekend!
In other news, I sang in church this morning, Dr. Parker didn't really have any fun phrases to blog about, and I am in denial that I have to go back to work tomorrow. I am avoiding going to bed (hence the blogging at 10PM) so I don't have to wake up and face Monday. Sundays are so much more fun!
On a more serious note, Ben and I were discussing some about his thoughts on community today with our Sunday School teacher, David C. We were discussing the ideas behind visitation and inviting people back to church who have already visited. I completely agree that this is a great strategy for people who are looking for a church. They visit once, we get their info, we talk to them about what our church is and does, and they decide if it's the right fit.
I only have one problem with this. What are we doing to reach
the lost? Would the lost even be interested in what our church has to offer? Visitation on Tuesday nights is a place to start, yes, but won't the people who are looking for a church find one in the end anyway? Are we wasting our time? Not entirely, of course, but I don't believe this is the place our church is really being disobedient. Even though I don't go "visiting" on a certain night of the week, I make phone calls to people I see and try to reach out to those who have darkened the doors of our church.
But what about those who don't darken the door? I don't know if the churches at large in our country are even relevant to most people who don't know Jesus. 90%+ of our American population loves to sleep in on Sundays, go out to eat, hang with people, and they enjoy their life just the way it is. They probably feel no need to spend a couple of hours a week with people whose cultural perspective is so far from their own.
Is the way we do "church" really working for the Great commission? I am sad to say I don't know. I grew up going to church. I have always enjoyed it. There has never been a time where I didn't want to go to church. The institution and organization of our southern churches is ingrained in my personal history and culture.
But most people in this country are not like me! And if I put myself in their shoes, I don't know that I would feel any kind of desire to get up early on Sunday and go to a building with strange music and people I don't know. Even if a person invited me, I would still be overwhelmed with people I had never met and didn't have a real opportunity to get to know in a natural setting.
Of course, a church community is necessary to believers in many ways, and I am in NO way advocating the absence of a church altogether. But what would it look like if we designed a church community around being culturally relevant? Not watered down, not fudging on truth, but just in a more accessible and natural format? Would we meet on Sunday mornings? Would we meet in a building? It just seems so fabricated when I think about what our organized church has created. It doesn't seem like a natural fit into part of any un-churched person's life.
I have a friend that I work with who actually grew up in church, but no longer attends. He goes walking or hiking on Sundays, and he really enjoys it. I don't see a single thing wrong with that, and in some ways, I'd like to do that, too. What do we have to offer him that is relevant and needful in his life? I have invited him countless times, and he says in a guilty tone, "I really need to go, I know." But it's never that he really wants to. If he wanted to, he would.
Sometimes I wish God would just come down and design his own church from scratch. That would make our jobs easier, but that kind of defeats the purpose of seeking Him, doesn't it?
Plus, what He wants could change all the time. That's part of the problem- I don't think we change as quickly as He wants us to.
Parker-isms
My pastor of ten years,
Dr. David Parker, is constantly saying things in his sermons that both challenge me greatly and greatly crack me up.
Ben and I lovingly call these "Parker-isms." I attribute these strange phrases and Parker-created words to growing up in
Milan, GA, being a missionary in
Zambia, and having a long history as a pastor that sometimes needs a bit of spice.
I have decided to devote my blog, in part, to recording these phrases, full of both God-honoring truth and side-splitting humor.
Now that I have established this purpose, let me share this morning's highlights.
1) In introducing an incredible passage from
Colossians 3:12-17, Dr. Parker said, "This passage oozes with the spirit of God. If you squeeze them, you will get Holy Spirit juice."
2) In talking about theology passed down to him from his Aunt, he said, "A hard head makes for a soft hiney."
3) As he spoke of taking on the image of Christ and His holiness (
I Peter 1:13-16), he said, "Dip your basting brush in the holiness of Jesus, spread it all over you, and then when the heat of life rises, you will be a good turkey for God."
The last one was my personal favorite. And a great topic for a sermon at Thanksgiving, by the way: "How to be a Good Turkey for God."
At least he was honest!
The other day, President Bush was discussing his weekend biking trip with Lance Armstrong.
"Like a lot of baby boomers, my knees gave out," Bush explained to seven journalists who accompanied him on a two-hour ride Saturday. "And I believe that mountain biking is going to be an outlet for a lot of people my age. I'm 59, and people are going to realize you get as much aerobic exercise if not more on the mountain bike without being hobbled."
Bush said he prefers mountain biking to road biking, where riders often shave their legs and wear Lycra shorts. "There are certain things that age brings with it, and not wearing the formfitting Lycra short is one of them, if you know what I mean," Bush joked with the reporters.
(Taken from ABC News)
I had a good laugh for a couple of reasons. 1) I didn't know "hobbled" was a verb. Yet, President Bush makes a regular habit of creating new words. Should I be surprised? 2) "If you know what I mean" - that just opens up a whole can of worms!
Alex and the Pastor
Funny funny...sent to me by a coworker.
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One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the
foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with
names with small American flags mounted on either side of it.
The seven year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so
The pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly,
"Good morning Alex."
"Good morning Pastor," he replied, still focused on the plaque.
"Pastor, what is this?" asked Alex.
The pastor said, "Well, son, it's a memorial to all the young men and
women who died in the service."
Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque.
Finally, little Alex's voice, barely audible and trembling with fear,
asked, "Which service, the 9:45 or the 11:15?"
Dinner-time adventures
So don't you just love it when you are about to serve a yummy meal of shrimp Alfredo and your faucet explodes in your face (literally)?
Has this
ever happened to anyone else? Anyone???
Okay, so I am about to serve a lovely culinary presentation of shrimp, pasta, veggies, and sauce to my wonderful
husband and my fabulous friend
Emma when I suddenly have the sensation of water being sprayed all over me. In my shocked state, I managed to realize that it was the faucet spraying me and promptly turned it off.
You have to know that we got this
really cool faucet when we bought our house and you can actually grab the faucet itself, pull it out, and it double-functions as the sprayer.
Little did we know what a two-edged sword this faucet would be... (insert suspenseful music here)
Well, I guess somehow over the last year of living in our house and pulling the faucet/sprayer out over and over again, it managed to unscrew itself from the water line. So, the sprayer was in my hand with no water coming out, the water line was undone, so it of course dropped back into the sink, during the course of which it sprayed water both omni-directionally and with a great projectile force. I was soaked, our poor hardwood floors were splattered with water, and my poor dinner companions had soggy shrimp.
They were very gracious and complimentary in spite of the fiasco. I changed, we wiped up the water, screwed the faucet back on, and had a good, hearty laugh about the whole thing.
So if you see me checking my faucet/sprayer every five minutes when you come over to my house, now you will know why.
I'm a Survivor
So I survived my first week of this school year. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I really do teach 105 12-year olds every day and survive! And sometimes....
I like it.
My kids crack me up. Their sense of humor is...not present. When I try to make a joke in class, they all look at each other like, "Are we supposed to laugh now, or will she write us a citation if we giggle at her joke?" Then, when they are working on individual work, they laugh at the weirdest things. Now, some of the things they laugh at are funny. For example, a student of mine does a very uncanny impression of a bobble head. Even I have to stop and laugh at that. But when I am correcting a student for poor behavior and they start giggling along with their fellow group members, I have to draw the line...and hope that they grow out of this soon.
Ah, the joys of education...
Sunday woes
So my husband and I attended this very interesting session on Sunday School improvement. We were hoping this would be a chance to allow our opinions to be heard and to offer some much-needed suggestions for our church. We were asked to come to the church from 3-6 on a Sunday afternoon.
Why, you might ask, would we need such a long time frame? I asked the same question. Even though I knew what we would be doing, which was a relatively complex evaluation process on implications of different statements, I thought we would surely be done early.
And we would have been, had it not been facilitated (and I use that term loosely) by an expert (again, use that term loosely) on this process.
Being a teacher, I am constantly learning new ways to activate my 12-year old audience and keep them hooked for periods of time. While this makes me better at my job, it also causes me to be critical of those who perhaps don't have such training. Keep that in mind, and forgive me if I sound harsh. But shouldn't people who are facilitating and training large groups be able to do so efficiently?
Anyway. Maybe that was too much to ask. This very nice and God-loving individual spent the first
hour giving us instructions. Now, I am no genius, but that is just too long to spend giving directions to a bunch of mature, intelligent adults. He gave us roughly thirty minutes to do what he had spent an hour explaining. That doesn't seem to make sense to me, but oh well. We did it anyway, and did it pretty well under the circumstances, I must say. Then, he asked us to go back and evaluate what we did from a different perspective. Sounds easy, right? Well, it could have been clear if you were explaining it well (any teacher knows this). Unfortunately, we didn't have a good teacher facilitating us. So he spend the next 30 minutes giving us instructions we didn't need, not answering the questions we needed answered, and then gave us, you guessed it, 15 minutes to complete the assignment. When we had trouble (due to his lack of good direction) he stopped the group and gave us a guilt trip about not being able to see things from the right perspective. Our problem? I don't think so.
In short, I felt his purpose in being there was 1) to hear himself talk and preach and 2) to promote his strategy. The problem was, that was not the reason all 100 of us were in that room, and it was frustrating.
He's a nice guy who is probably really trying, but he needs some training on how to facilitate a large group instead of how to speak to a large group.
And that was my Sunday afternoon.
