Another week in my life: Day 6

Do some sermon prep for preaching at Chardsmead Baptist Church, Bridport, Dorset. Old sermons need to be taken out of the freezer and warmed up a bit before being preached again. I plan to speak on John 10 and 1 Peter 1. Finally finished John Frame's The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, reading the last few appendices. The one on The New Reformed Epistemology especially interesting. Don't know if it's worth doing a review on the blog after all I've said about the book in the Diary. I'll have to see. Read some more of The Divine Spiration of Scripture by McGowan. From some reviews I got the impression that there was nothing good about this book, but the author has some worthwhile things to say in the first three chapters. From what he's said so far, I don't agree with his position in inerrancy. But I hope to do a review when I'm done, so I won't comment any further. Received a phone call from someone who enjoyed my article in Evangelical Times, which was encouraging (see Day 4's entry for details).

After lunch, visit elderly and virtually housebound church member. Soon after I arrive another friend from church pops in, so we have a good time of fellowship, putting the world to rights. I read Psalm 34 and we all prayed around.

I've been doing these posts as I go along rather than write up the diary at the end of the day. Recently, a pastor friend (who spends far too much time on committees!) asked me how I find the time to blog. I posted something on this a while back here. Abraham Piper (son of John "the happy hedonist" Piper) recently argued that all pastors should have a blog here. That's a frightening thought. When I attended the LTS end of years service I was surprised by the number of people who said that they read this stuff. I don't know if it's doing any good, but I enjoy writing and blogging helps me to think things though.

About now (3.50pm) I would usually be preparing for our "Penknap Kid's Club" for approx 5-11 year-olds. The meeting is from 6.00-7.15pm. On average around 14 children attend on a regular basis. I lead the singing (including doing the actions "Wide, wide is the ocean...."). Another member of the team organises various games. We give the children a drink and biscuit and then I do the story (we're doing the life of David at the moment). Following a quiz based on the story we have a craft session led by another member of the team. The children seem to enjoy coming and it is good to have to opportunity to share Bible stories with them. But tonight child evangelists Richard and Joy Blunt & family will be running the club for us, so all we'll have to do is turn up and help out as needed.

Kid's Club went well. A few of our regulars were away, but those who turned up enjoyed themselves. The Blunts are a great team. Very lively and gospel centred. They kept the children engaged from beginning to end. We'll have to use them again. Afterwards I drop Sarah, Jonathan & Rebecca at North Bradley Baptist Chapel for an older children's meeting (11+). It's a joint affair and Sarah is one of the leaders. Every now and again the 'Good New Club' comes over to us at Penknap, which is nice. Last time we had a 'High School Musical' evening. Ben Midgely the NBBC pastor and I had a karaoke sing off and I let him win.

With everybody out apart from Oliver the hamster (who is feeling a lot better, thanks for your concern), I have a quite hour to myself. I this write up and then listen to Viva La Vida, Coldplay's new album, which is really great. I hope to post a review on the blog soon, so watch this space. Well, that's enough jottings for today. Saturday is my day off and we're going on a mystery trip organised by the church sec at Ebenezer Baptist. Should be fun.

* The picture accompanying each diary entry is usually relevant to the day's activities. But I haven't been to outer space today, I just like the image used above. Just in case you were wondering...

Another week in my life: Day 5

Alarm goes off at 6.30. Shower then time of personal prayer and meditation before breakfast. Family worship before children go off to school. Read Psalm 140 and prayed. Start work in the study. After prayer read begin to prepare for Sunday's ministry. I'll be preaching at Chardsmead Baptist Church, Bridport, Dorset. I've known the church for years and I'm looking forward to renewing fellowship. When preaching away I tend to use some golden oldies from the "Exiled Preacher Global Ministries Archive".

I used to hand write my sermons with a fountain pen, but my handwriting would become illegible as I rushed to get my ideas on paper. This caused a bit of a problem when looking over my notes prior to preaching. I often found myself wondering, 'What was I trying to say?' It isn't so bad now as I type my sermons on the PC. My first attempts at sermonising in Word were none too successful. I couldn't type very fast and found myself getting overly interested in how the text looked on the screen - fonts, bold, italics etc. I don't know how I did it, but once I managed to get the text into one long vertical line down the page. I hadn't discovered the joys of edit/undo = "ctrl + z", and had to redo the lot. So, I gave up on word processing my sermons and returned to my trusty fountain pen and A4 ruled paper. Until that is I ran out of ruled A4 and was too indolent to walk up the shop and buy some. I thought this might be a good time to have another go at doing sermons in Word. I'm a little more proficient at word processing these days, so the transition wasn't too bad. It's easier to do re-writes and now I can read my without the "illegibility issue" causing problems.

Having prayerfully decided which sermons to use, I e-mail my Bible readings and hymns to the church sec at Chardsmead and then read a little more of The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God by John Frame. I'm on to the appendices now. The one on Maxims for Theologians and Apologists gives a helpful summary of the contents of the book and is full of nuggets of good advice like:

13. Do think of theology as "the application of the Word of God by persons to all areas of life"

27. Do seek holiness as a means to theological maturity. Realise that some theological disputes cannot be resolved until one or all parties achieves greater spiritual maturity.

40. Do not regard your theological system as superior in any way (materially or formally) to Scripture itself. make your emotional attachments and attitudes consistent with this resolution.

54. Do not demand that theology be impersonal or academic.

63. Do not make long lists of maxims because it is difficult for intellectually challenged readers to take them all in. [I made that one up].

I like to have more than one book on the go. I finished Spurgeon's Lectures to my students the other day and I've nearly finished Frame. So, I take The Divine Spiration of Scripture by A. T. B. McGowan (Apollos, 2007) from my "to read" shelf. There has been a lot of controversy over this book, largely because McGowan takes issue with biblical inerrancy. In his introduction, McGrath writes, "one might reasonably expect something of a firestorm directed against any challenge to its [inerrancy] continued usage" (p. 14). He was right. The book has provoked a slew of hostile reviews. I suspect that I'll disagree with what he says. But I want to give him a fair hearing, and I'm only two chapters in. I'll resist the urge to comment until I've read the whole thing.

I was supposed to be attending a lunchtime meeting of local ministers to arrange school assemblies in the area. I arrived at the venue, but no one else was there and I couldn't get hold of anyone to find out what's going on. Strange. I'm the only one not in the ecumenical grouping, Churches Together and begin to think that's it's all a grand conspiracy to freeze me out. But there's probably a better explanation. Have lunch at home and then visit a church member who has been unwell for some weeks. Good time of fellowship and nice cup of tea! Thursday is shopping day in our family, not my favourite pastime, but its got to be done. If "Exiled Preacher Global Ministries" really takes off I'll be able to get someone to do that kind of thing for me so I can concentrate on important things like blogging and mowing the lawn. But I doubt that will ever happen and I would look silly with a permatan, shiny suit and hair transplant. I'll just have to settle for being what Geoff Thomas defined as a "TULIP" = Totally Unappreciated Low Income Pastor.

I'm reading Tolkein's The Hobbit to the children as a bed time story. We've just finished chapter 10. Watch Question Time, a BBC political discussion programme. Evening devotions. Bed