Book Review
Gutsy Faith - Jeff Edmonson
this book is a quick read and very hard to put down. The book has an easy to follow conversational tone. Jeff covers a number of topics where it would be very easy to start preaching to the reader and he does a very good job of keeping the tone friendly.
There are 3 main pieces of this book that I thought truly make it stick out in my mind for a book in this genre.
1. Scripture
2. Updated Language
3. Questions
1. Scripture - Each chapter of this book starts with a selection of scripture to help set the tone of the chapter.
2. Updated Language - This is related to the first point, as each chapter begins most of them are started with the scripture that was referenced. Jeff has taken the time to interpret the story into more of a modern prose form. He does a great job of painting the scene so it is a very vivid image in your mind.
3. Questions - Each chapter is ended in some questions to consider through there is not adequate room to write in your answers you can jot down some trigger ideas in the space provided.
The questions also help to present the material in a way that would be great to host a book study and have some really good discussions.
All in all I would recommend this book to those who are solid in their faith but looking for ideas to expand their spirituality, I would also recommend this book to new believers as a way to expand their faith.
Reunion
I don't know how you guys are feeling but I am not well. I got back from reunion a little while ago, a place where I should be able to minister and be ministered to, and I heard some great sermons and had a couple of really good conversations, and yet I feel more burnt out about my own congregation than I did before I went. It just seems like there is a ton of planning going on but no doing. Does that make sense? I get the feeling that people say they want things to happen but (a) either they are too afraid to do them or (b) they don't really want to do them they just say that they do. I am afraid that if I stay too long I will start to fall into that (b) category.
I don't really see myself as someone who is afraid of change but I do see myself as somewhat of a lazy person, I will be the first to admit it, those of you who went to school with me will know that I am the king of the procrastinators I didn't finish one of my pre-reqs until the class that it was for was a week away from completion. So I think that I could fall easily into the void of just doing nothing and becoming complacent, that scares me. What should I do? Seriously, if you don't feel like posting you know how to get a hold of me.
Aaron
Sunday, Gone
Today came and went and I didn't ask my questions, instead I did my tame talk so as not to ruffle any feathers. I think I should run some of those questions by my Pastor but the unfortunate part is that they will have some cut and dry answer for them but it isn't as easy as that, I want them to think about it to mull it over to pray about it to wrestle with it like I am. Maybe they already have. P says the congregation isn't ready to do that. I agree with her, but that doesn't make my questions go away. I guess that is life right. A bunch of unanswered questions.
Up Front
I am scheduled to give the communion message, on Sunday but I don't know if I am in the proper mindset to do that. I have been doing a ton of reading lately as you might know if you can find me on
myspace and I have a bunch of questions that I thought it might be interesting to do a talk all based on questions. So I started writing some of them out and it got to a point where I was reading them to myself and I felt that this isn't appropriate at this time. This will scare too many people, and as I said we are having a confirmation on Sunday as well so probably not a good idea to scare a new member with some questions that really don't have any good answers at least not for our congregation. Oh well, so back to the drawing board for that one.
Model
Well I found a site that is along the lines of what I would like this to become. It is
Open Source Theology. I really the like play on words there with the tech and the church, in that it takes a group of people to truly find the meaning behind things, not just church or not just technology but all things.
Let me know what you think of it. I actually found it through
blogger's search.
Back at It again
Wow has this month flown by. I remember thinking at the beginning of the month hey I have a sermon coming up. Now it is this next Sunday. I am so totally not ready for it. This next Sunday is Pentecost, so that is always cool. However it is the first Sunday of the month so that means that it is communion Sunday, so that makes my time shorter so I am down to 15 Min now. On top of communion there is also a conformation (second part of 2 part baptism) going on in the same service, so now I am down to like 7 min depending on who does the confirmation, I may be down to about 5 :) oh well what can you do right. I have always been a man of few words so I will do my best in trying to consolidate my thoughts into a 5 min talk, and hope that the congregation will follow what I am saying.
Well, I guess that didn't go as planned
I had hoped to put more stuff up here recently but as it turns out, my blogs are the first thing to go when I get busy so I do apologize about that. This is something that I want to grow and develop, maybe into a full on web-site someday so, other members keep that in mind. If you have suggestions for things to cover or to get more idea rolling out of here post them either in the comments or on the site itself. For those of you who aren't publishers for the blog but have some ideas you would like to see talked about or posted here then shoot me an e-mail and we will talk about it. You can reach me at aaron(dot)beebe(at)gmail(dot)com. Replace the stuff in the () with what it should be. This is just to stop spam. Let me know what we need to do here to keep people coming back.
