The end of a busy week.

I am taking a break from work now. Hopefully anyway, there are a few loose ends to tie up from the weekend and more things to get done are popping up all the time but I will do my best to stay away from the church and other work related areas for a day or so anyway.
I prepared the message for church today and I think went really well. I was actually rather calm about the whole thing, and because I tried to make it as conversational as possible (as opposed to delivering the doctrinal dissertation that can sometimes crop up during the preliminary preparation times) I was not too worried about making sure I got all the big words out right.
I was visiting my brother Dave tonight who is in the middle of preparing a big paper on blessings and curses and prosperity and such for a seminary Old Testament class. It was pretty intense. Sometimes I really feel inadequate in a Pastor role because I do not have a lot of book learning so if I were to ever write a paper like that I would probably embarrass myself. I do not even know what APA format means. I feel like if I am going to be interpreting scripture and helping people to see and hear God I should really have a more refined knowledge of His book. But at the same time I know that God has lead me into this ministry for a reason, and that he is going to use my talents, personality quirks, and different experiences to speak his word effectively. I can get hung up on formal titles and the want for impressive papers on the wall but God usually uses heart knowledge, humble words, and a willing spirit, just as effectively whether the vessel has book learning or not. I guess I just have to trust in His plan and forget my pride.
The rest of the service was awesome. The choir came in with the Sunday school waving the palm branches and singing, it was pretty cool. The kids were definitely more concerned about whacking each other and swinging the palms as violently as possible than with making sure they were singing the right song, which definitely helped us from taking ourselves too seriously, but it was still a very powerful time of worship. My favorite part was that I was sitting beside a two year old who is very enamored with his new ability to make his voice heard whether he is actually speaking words or not, and he was very enthusiastic about "singing" along. I probably made as much sense as he did since I was laughing more than I was singing but between to the two of us we definitely made a joyful noise to the Lord.
Palm Sunday starts off my three most favorite services of the year with Good Friday and Easter Sunday to follow. I just love the range of emotion and brutal honesty that always seems to come from these services. I think a lot of the year we try and make sure we "have things right" but this time of year we are brought face to face with why we have church at all.
I think tomorrow I will go and try to find some fun trails to wander around in. Apparently there is something like Saskatoon Island (a cool park with lots of trails through the bush, for all those non-GP residents) somewhere around here, though I think the average Ponoka resident has a different idea of what "bush" is than I do, even if Saskatoon Island is not exactly extreme bush to begin with.
Oh yeah! Battle of the bands went awesome. God really did some cool stuff. Friday was a bit of a crazy stress ball. But we got all the volunteers to pull it off nicely and with as little gong show as possible. Tons of kids showed up, we sold just about every last ticket. The Battle bands were really amazing it was hard to pick a winner. Steriotrap (the headline band) was awesome, even if they did not show up until half an hour before the event only adding to the pre-game stress attack. All in all it was way beyond a successful event God is awesome!
Take it easy guys.
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