5 Weeks - Settling In

After 3 days of driving I rolled into town here on April 11th, which would be 5 weeks ago yesterday. I can't believe over a month has flown by already! At first there were basic things to do like... Getting the bed set up so I could sleep, figuring out where the towels were, buying some basic groceries and starting to unpack boxes.





And other basic things like learning my address, getting my DSL to work, changing over my cell phone number to be local, and starting to learn my way around. I've gotten to begin adapting to being in a small city of 10,000 or so after having only lived in large cities and metropolitan areas my entire life.

In the midst of this I began my ministry among the folks at my new parish. This included needing to make a few small changes to the order of service to help it run smoother and follow rubrics, as well as going from preaching about 1 Sunday per month (sometimes more, and often mid-week services), to preaching pretty much every week. See "The Scream," Edvard Munch 1893.



One week I thought, good grief they are going to think I've lost my mind. One week I'm using magnetized hematite rocks in the pulpit, another week I'm using the example of the game of hide and seek, and the following week while I preached mostly about having our ministry grounded in prayer, the example of my family trying to order a pizza the last time I was home worked its way in as I talked about Jesus' prayer "that they all would be one." But they don't seem to think I'm crazy at all. They seem quite happy and relieved that they are able to understand and follow my sermons. My preaching seems to be more down to earth and practical than they've had in the past. One parishioner was telling me that in the past she would ask her husband on the way home if he knew what the sermon had been about and neither would have a good grasp. Apparently they were pretty heady and theological. So I guess I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing, and keep working on my preaching voice. Speaking of preaching, I'm going to the Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis this coming week for continuing ed. and I couldn't be more excited! I'm hoping it's as helpful and inspiring as I'm expecting it to be.