This Saturday, it was my birthday and it was one of my best birthdays ever. I spent all day with naping, eating, and recieving emails, and most importat thing- mz fiance who is intern in Muskegon came to our house, and spent some time with me (and gave my amazing gifts) Today- on Sunday, Pastor didn’t forgot to mention my birthday during service and everybody was congratulating me. It was beautiful to see all those smiling faces and hear so many nice words. I also had my first sermon. To be absolutely honest, it was really hard to write a sermon for american audience. When I write sermon is Slovakia, I know what are people believes, hopes, theological background etc. Now I had only 3 weeks experience with the congregation. What I’ve learned? It’s desperately important to know people, who are you preaching to. I was trying to do my best with using thoughts which would sound familiar to American listeners, and also would teach them about Slovak Lutherans view on God.
Finding balance between caring about other people and judging them is very difficult. We want to make things better, but we hurt others. We judge them as sinners. We want to destroy everyone who seems to be a weed, just because we want to make the world better. We think that we understand God more than others. Last Friday, I led a Bible story in day camp. The story that we were talking about was the Apostle Paul’s first meeting with Jesus. Paul was absolutely sure that he was fighting for God and for his faith. He thought that he knew God and that he knew what was right. Sometimes we do things which seem to be good, and we do not see that we are stopping God’s mercy in someone’s life. And maybe some of us are victims of these Christian judges. When I decided to study theology, the leader of my youth group told me that I was not a Christian, and that she was praying for me, and begging God to have mercy on me. How clever is Jesus’ picture of wheat and weeds- it absolutely fits. When you judge someone, and play God, because you want or “want” to help that person with his sins, you always destroy wheat in their hearts. You step on God’s mercy and love, and destroy them. If you have ever been judged by Christians, you know how hard is to believe in a merciful God, when his servants are full of hate.
What I experienced this week?
- day camp
- leading Bible story in day camp
- taking care of preschool kids
- McDonald’s
- preparing food for church Felowship (can you tell a difference between baking soda and baking powder?)
- writing a sermon
- preching a sermon
My best from this week
Preparing food for church Felowship. After a service, my congregation has the habit of staying together for a while, talking to each other, drinking coffe and eating some snacks together. It’s called Felowship. I love idea of spending after-church-time together from very first moment of being here in this congregation. I’ve signed up for Felowship food because I wanted to became active part of congregation. I didn’t wanted to just take, but also give. I brought some Slovak snacks with me, so I’ve cutted them into small pieces, to let anyone taste them and I’ve prepared typical Slovak cake – Bublanina [translation: buble cake??] and also Jednohubky [ translation: one-bites; small salty snacks with ham and cheese]. It was realy hard warming to watch people trying new food and talking about it’s taste and look.
Recent Comments