I think I figured out that I really prefer David Shannon over our old minister. David is very personable. His sermons have feeling and honesty. For example, our old minister, when focusing on the subject on abortion, would center his sermons around the horrors of abortion without showing much compassion for the hard decisions that some face. By contrast David realized that there are some in the audience who might have had abortions in their past. He didn’t focus on condemning them, but urging them to make things right.
I’ll be one of 3 teachers who will be teaching the 5th and 6th graders at church on Wednesday nights. I am excited about it, but I feel as though it might be overkill having 3 teachers in there. Last year they got by with just 2 teachers. I feel as though I might have strongarmed my way in there by implying that I’d rather teach that age or nothing at all, which isn’t entirely true. I was going to wait and see where I was needed and then consider what was available. I know that it is difficult to find Sunday school teachers and usually try to help out when I can.
Phil loaned me his negatives of pictures from camp. I’m getting 3 copies of all of them. 1 set for myself; 1 set to distribute to friends at church; 1 set for the photo album in the church library. They’re probably many pictures of people who I didn’t know that well at camp. But they still are pictures. Having a digital camera means I don’t fill up my albums as quickly as I did before. Instead my hard drive is filling up.
I’ve got poison ivy from my hiking trip last Saturday. It’s right around my feet where the line of my shoe was. I guess the leaves bled through my socks. I remember walking through some green stuff. The outbreak is only spotty. I’ve been getting by without any medicine.
I’ve discovered the song “Send Me on My Way” by Rusted Root. Great song. One of the few songs makes the pan flute sound great!

My dad says he is thinking about going on a mission trip to El Salvador. He had his passport photo made recently. My gripe is at church they never let the congregation know about upcoming Central American mission trips. They always wait until the last minute and don’t give much advanced notice. If they really wanted to have new people along on the mission trips, they would keep us informed of it. The only problem is that I think they are perfectly happy having the same clique going year after year.
Every preacher has dedicated fans. Unfortunately once the preacher moves away, so does the fan’s committment for church attendance. I’ve seen it happen more than once. It’s unfortunate that people tend to follow men.
I did spend some time tonight trying to convince a friend of mine to go on MJ’s church retreat. But they would not even consider it because they don’t know anyone going. It is frustrating trying to bring people together in a sense of Christian harmony, when they won’t even consider it. I am through trying to bring visitors to retreats.

Am I writing this weblog for myself or for you? Sometimes I can’t tell.
I probably won’t be teaching 4th graders at Sunday school at church once they change classes in a few weeks. We already have a lady teaching in my old slot. They don’t usually like to have men and women teaching Sunday school classes at the same time. Usually it is 2 men or 2 women, but hardly ever mixed, unless the couple is married. So now I’m on standby to teach 5th and 6th graders on Wednesday nights. But who knows if I’ll get it. Probably what will happen is that I’ll be teaching, but not the grade that I first requested. We definitely need teachers….having a difficult time filling positions.
I’d much rather teach on Wednesday nights. There are not very many interesting adult classes to go to on Wednesday nights. I’d much rather use my time wisely and try to help at the same time.
Steve Hale is back with us at church for a Gospel Meeting this week. Steve was our old preacher from about 1987-1998….a very long tenure for preachers these days. Mostly preachers stay for about 7 years….am I right? Interestingly enough I never sat down and had a conversation with Steve. I guess in my own mind I considered him difficult to approach. I wasn’t sure if I could even joke around with him.

The trip to Barren River Lake State Park would have been better if more kids from church had gone. We only had 4 kids, even though 15 signed up. I don’t know why more people didn’t show up. Maybe they woke up, saw it was overcast and decided not to go. It rained when we first got up there, but after about 45 minutes it dried up. We hiked; the kids rode horses (at $12 each, this was too expensive for me). I had a good time, although I felt it could have been much better. Better planning, better weather, better timing….
I should have called some friends from Scottsville to make it more interesting. I didn’t know many of the people who went very well. I did get to know them better, but some of them are on a different wavelength than I am.
The official name for this place is “Barren River Lake State Park.” Is it a river or lake? More of a lake which once was a river. It should have been called Barren Lake just to make it easier on everyone.