Undercover Pastor

Wow! It’s been quite a month.

Time was when churches used to slow down for the summer, but at Trinity in West Sacramento, it seems to be just the opposite. On June 11th, we had our second annual Kids’ Fun Day, where neighborhood kids come out to eat free hot dogs and sno cones, jump in bounce houses, play games, listen to music, and – hopefully – sign up for our week=long Vacation Bible School (VBS).

Because we want people to remember that they’ve signed up for Vacation Bible School, we hold it just a bit more than a week later. That’s a bit of a one-two punch for the volunteers and staff, but the payoff is amazing.

We had 40 kids at VBS this year and a great team of volunteer leaders. It was a wonderful week. We hold it in the evenings from 6 – 8 to accommodate two-income families and working volunteers, and that has worked very well for us, though it makes for some long days.

The woman in the front left of the picture is Sue Goodwin. She’s an elementary school teacher who is one of the elders at Trinity, and is tremendously gifted for children’s ministry. Sue helped the kids learn the theme of each day and handled their questions – even waaaay off-topic ones – artfully.

Then the kids sang in church this past Sunday. Many of the VBS kids came to Sunday worship, and the singing was wonderful. What a blessing.

Remind me of this if you see me blogging about the challenges of transforming a church. This month has really been great, and we’ve had a ton of participation from the congregation. I know they got a lot out of it to.

Now to rest a bit and catch up on the home maintenance that’s been piling up. Talk to you soon!

This is a busy time at Trinity church. We have the big summer events coming up soon (Kids’ Fun Day is this Saturday and Vacation Bible School starts in two weeks). I also led prayer and gave the blessing last Monday at a local Memorial Day observance, we had our annual church board retreat on Saturday, and I started teaching a new member class started yesterday. That along with the usual responsibilities of being a pastor made it a bit of a high pressure time. You get the picture.

So I was struggling a bit with my sermon on Saturday night… (My preaching professor says that struggling is a mark of a good preacher, but I’m not sure I buy it ). Actually, let me back up a few steps. I recently purchased a used Palm hand-held organizer from another pastor who was upgrading, and I had taken it with me to Donner Lake where the retreat was held. Eleanor had put it in the car’s glove box for safe keeping, and when we arrived at home, I took it and my cell phone charger out to move them to my truck. At that moment, our dog, Myra, took off across the street. I went after her and when I returned, our son Johnny was running off too. After carrying him into the house, I finished unloading the car and went to get busy on the work I had to do before church the next morning.

So back to working on the sermon. I was going to take a nap and then keep working so I went to get my new Palm organizer to set the alarm. It wasn’t in its usual spot. I looked all over before I hypothesized that I might have put it down when the dog and my son ran off. But after a detailed search of the car and surrounding area outside with a flashlight, I couldn’t find it. I must have spent about two hours trying to find it before exhaustion overcame me. Somebody must have grabbed it while it was out there! I was feeling anxious because we don’t have a ton of disposable income to throw around and this organizer was already a bit of a luxury. Now I would have to re-buy it or go back to the old one I had that couldn’t do everything I wanted to do. I was stressed.

As I was praying about it, I realized that God could handle this. Either I’d find it, I’d find the money to buy a new one, or I would learn that I didn’t really need it. I knew this in my head… getting it to my heart is always a bit tougher.

So I fell asleep and when I got up, I was able to complete the sermon. I felt OK. God had been faithful to me, helping me through this crunch time.

When I went to get into my truck to head for church, I looked into the bed for one last time and there it was. A wave of peace came over me, and I realized that I never needed to be concerned about this in the first place. It was like God was teaching me a lesson about trust.

God’s still working on me – it gets a little clearer and a little more real every time God comes through for me.