Lazy Day Sunday.. church, reading, coffee & cooking

Well this Sunday I decided to take it pretty easy.  Gail and I got up early and went to St. Paul's Lutheran Church for their 8:15 am service.  I enjoyed the service and the sermon today.  It was Communion Sunday at St. Paul this week, interestingly enough the last time we attended a service at St. Paul's it was also Communion Sunday.  Last time I found their Communion Celebration to be very interesting in that they incorporated into the ritual a healing  ceremony.  As we came forward before receiving the elements the Pastor crossed our foreheads with a dab of oil.  I found this ritual to be very edifying as you felt the sense that you were cleansed prior to joining with the blood and the body of Christ, truly a remarkable symbolic act.  The Pastor stressed that the act of healing is not equal to curing.  Sadly we often want to negate that distinction, healing is spiritual and curing is physical.

Once we got home I had a short cup of coffee and then Madeline and I headed off to attend service at Sunset Hills.  It has been several weeks since we've been to church at Sunset Hills and everyone was excited to see us.  Gail decided to stay home and work on her 'bags'.  She has set up a store online and is getting ready to start marketing her creations soon so she wanted to spend all day (and she has) working on them.

The difference between the two services was of course distinct (from traditional high church Lutheran to good old low church Baptist) and the difference in the preaching styles of the two Pastors is considerable.  I continue to make mental notes while watching and listening to sermons as to what I feel works and what I feel does not work.  Thus far my clearest and most crucial observations are to watch the number of illustrations in a sermon and to watch, watch, watch the length of your sermon.  Of course sermon length is an obvious concern; but even though every Pastor should be more than aware of this, so very many violate the rule of thumb of 15 to 20 minutes.

This afternoon I have been reading the book "The True Meaning of the Last Supper" by Donald R. Steelberg.  I bought this book for the Kindle awhile back and started it but then had to break away and read several other books for my ELM classes.  Well last night I decided to pull it back up and start again from the beginning.  The author is a retired Mennonite Pastor who was raised in the Evangelical Free Church.  I mentioned this book back in my November 20th post and I'm ashamed that it's taken me this long to get back to it and I'm hoping actually to finish it yet tonight.

The True Meaning of Communion

This evening I skipped the gym and stayed home.  Too stinking cold out there... LOL, and since I'm starting a new program this week I thought giving my joints an extra day of rest before jumping in wasn't the worst idea I've ever had.  So tomorrow it starts anew with a serious focus on diet and a different training philosophy than I've ever used before.  I'm adopting a full blown bodybuilding routine for 2013 in an effort to see if I can put some mass on this 53 year old body.

Since Gail has been busy 'creating' today and tonight, I made turkey chili for supper.  I know it's hard for many of my friends to believe that I ever cook, LOL... but I have learned to make chili since I very much like venison chili and Gail refuses to cook venison.  The turkey chili was good but just doesn't measure up to either beef or venison chili.

Well enough for tonight, I'm going to go back to reading to see if I can't finish this book yet tonight.

May you all be blessed!

In His Grace & Love,
Roy

Since I haven't posted a photo of a rural church for a bit here you go.  This looks like a very cute little church, sad to say though I don't know where it's located.