Okay I'm a little behind blogging... 2 weekends worth in 1

Sorry I'm behind folks.... please forgive me.

On the 11th I went to Lincoln to attend a workshop on Suicide Prevention.  This program was aimed at members of the Clergy and was very informative.  There were about 20 of us at the workshop.  It would have been great if more Clergy would have made the time to attend, in the city of Lincoln alone there should have been 5 times that number in attendance.  Many of the attendees were actually from one congregation, so it was even more under attended than the numbers would indicate.  

The program they were promoting is called "QPR" for question, persuade & refer. One of the things they told us was that many suicides are actually senior citizens who are weary of life or who are afraid of being a burden to their families.  This is just as awful as the loss of teens, and I have to wonder if the number of senior suicides remain under reported due to stigma and not wanting to upset the family.  I saw today an article online that stated that more people are dying right now in the USA from suicide than from automobile accidents.  Just tragic...

On Friday and Saturday of last week (Sept 14 & 15) we had our monthly ELM training.  The classes this month and in October are over Pastoral Care.  It's a subject that one can barely begin to scratch the surface of in the short amount of time that we have available.  Our instructor Russ Seger has been a Pastor, College Professor and Therapist.  His specialty is grief and he has had a very interesting career.  For a number of years he was a part of the FEMA crew and was rushed into situations where great tragedy had occurred.  One of his stories had to do with the Oklahoma City bombing, what a horrific event to be called to assist with.

It was a great class and I'm looking forward to the October class and learning more from Russ.  He is a very likable man and an effective teacher.

I've agreed to do pulpit fill for my friend Howard Blecha who is the Pastor for the Humboldt Christian Church in Humboldt Nebraska.  I will be filling in for Howard on both Oct 21st and Oct 28th.  It's great to have two Sundays in a row and I'm still working on what I want to preach on for those two Sundays.  I'll also be doing the Children's Story both weeks and I'm as always happy to have a chance to share with the young ones.  I still believe that many times even the adults get more out of the Children's Story than the full sermon.  Howard is a great man and I'm excited to go down south and spend some time with his flock.

Humboldt Christian Church, Humboldt, NE

On Sunday we all loaded up and went to Nebraska City for the Apple Jack Festival.  Creath was home from school and it was great to have a family outing with all four of us.  I had hoped to attend church down there however I was unable to convince the rest of the brood that we should wake up extremely early in order to be in Nebraska City in time for church.

Nebraska City is just a zoo during the Festival and both Gail and I agreed that it was our last time going to Nebraska City for the actual Festival.  For the last couple of years we've gone down on a weekend after the Festival.  Perhaps next weekend we'll swing over to Nebraska City on our way back from Hastings.  We definitely still need to work on our apple fix for 2012.  LOL

During this past week I was contacted by the Associate Executive Minister for the Minnesota & Iowa American Baptist.  She asked me if I would like to have my name placed on the rolls over there for possible pulpit opportunities and I told her absolutely. (the State Office here in Nebraska had forwarded my information to them) So I'm excited about this as well but I do not know exactly which churches or how many over there are currently searching, it may be a long time if ever before I will hear anything more from them.

This weekend we had our monthly Men's breakfast at Church and as always it was a great meal and a great time of fellowship and sharing.  

Today Gail and I attended the worship service at Benson Baptist.  Pastor Paul Marine gave a great sermon.  He has a very good delivery and I found the sermon genuinely edifying as well as enjoyable.  The order and content of Benson's service is almost exactly like our worship services at Sunset Hills.  They have a large worship team with a large number of musicians and singers upfront.  My only critique might be that they actually have too many folks upfront, during much of the service the Altar was completely blocked.  But then again participation is a wonderful thing and we shouldn't get uptight about the consequences of having to include more people in any worship team.  Praise God!

Benson Baptist Church, Omaha, NE

After church Gail and I went for a drive through some of the neighborhoods in the Benson area admiring some of the older homes in the area. This afternoon I've spent working on my assignments for the October ELM Class and I'm nearly done with the first assignment.  For dinner tonight we decided to go out and try a fast food mexican restaurant nearby.  It's called "Lina's" and it is definitely low brow, the meal came on a styrofoam plate and the utensils provided were plastic.  But, it was cheap and actually very good.  As we were standing in line to order we had folks speaking spanish ahead of us and a group speaking russian behind us.  I felt very international... LOL, even though I was in what should be best considered a dive.  I'll definitely go back again sometime however as the food was good and it was very inexpensive.

Next Sunday we will be going to Hastings to attend the installation service for my friend Dustin Bower.  Dustin is a classmate from ELM and he has accepted a call to serve as Pastor at the Disciples of Christ Church in Hastings.  I'm very proud of Dustin he is a great Christian and I will look forward to watching and hopefully assisting this fine young man as he goes through his career as a Minister for Christ.  Congratulations to you Dustin!  As I stated earlier perhaps Gail and I will make a side trip over to Nebraska City on our way back and visit the orchards.

This week I'm going to change up my workouts.  I've decided to switch to a heavy/light routine with working every body part twice a week and working out on set dates each week.  I'll elaborate on this more in another post, that is all for tonight.

Well I hope you all have a great week and remember to be "A Blessing to Somebody TODAY".

In his Grace and Glory,
Roy