Passed

Well, whatever it was that had me down has passed, I am back to being more my normal self.  I have a feeling part of it is having meat withdrawls(I’m on day 5 of no meat), and part of it was me just not having rested and allowing bad thoughts to slip into my head.

I remembered some discussion of a church father’s writing, and I wish I could remember who it was, because it was very helpful.  What I think he said was that when you find yourself in a place where you feel like you might be experiencing oppression, that you go into a place by yourself and pray, standing up, facing east with hands in the air.  And as you pray you let your focus shift from you to God.  Then you do the sign of the cross and continue to dwell on how God is drawing you to Himself, and how you are a part of God’s story.  I know that I have modified it some from what I had read, but I found that it did work, because doing that sort of prayerful reflection always leads me to looking back at God rather than myself.  By the end I found myself praying out loud that I was thankful that God was in control and not me.

Crazy experience, but definitely part of dwelling on who this God is that revealed Himself in Jesus to draw us to Him.

exhausted

I am spiritually and mentally exhausted, so I have decided to postpone on writing about my reactions to the sign, for the sake of being charitable.  Today I’m just going to put up two prayers, because to be totally honest, I think that’s all I have in the tank right now.  I’m probably going to be praying at least one of these prayers all day.

The first is the prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

The second is the Jesus Prayer

Lord Jesus, Son of God
have mercy on me, a sinner.

blog name

It seems strange that my blog would be titled theycallmepastorbryan and yet I would not really do much blogging in the terms of my pastoral roles…  Part of this is because I blog about theology and the church plant and my general thoughts on church planting at The Anchor Church site.  Partly it is because I have been taking some time from a lot of my writing this summer, to kind of scale back and work on how I sound and try to sound more like a pastor that’s understandable than a super smart theologian(which I really am not anyways).

However, there is one thing which I have been reflecting a lot, which is the Christian identity of being missional, that all Christians are sent people.  This is easy for me as I am planting a church that’s focused on discipleship, so being missional is rooted in who I am being as a pastor, and how those involved with the church plant should be involving in the community.   Sometimes being missional means turning over choices I would rather make.  I would prefer to live in a house in the neighborhood, but I have been realizing that it was a choice more about my comfort than mission.  As it stands now, God willing of course, I am looking at living in an apartment as part of fulfilling my missional calling.

Why? you may ask.  It is because living in an apartment gives me inroads into a ton of people’s lives.  It gives us a ton of opportunities to impact other people’s lives and bear witness to the gospel if we are just open to what God is doing and what doors are opened around us.

I say all this just to say, yes I am still a pastor, and yes I am still a church planter, even though much of my posts lately have been about Colville and c0ding.

Spokaloo

Today I make the trek from Colville to Spokane and back.  This is the second time I’ve done it in 3 days.  I get the feeling that I would drive a lot more if I lived here permanently, which is really no different from growing up in Hartline.

I’m meeting with two guys today, one is my friend Brent, to talk about the ministry stuff that he is doing.  The second is my friend Rob, to talk about church planting and Christian Associates(the network we are most likely affiliating with).

One of the great things about being with family is the sudden realization of “oh you can pick stuff up for me on your trip!” I now have a burgeoning list of things to be accomplished during my trip, which is fine with me!

Well my friends, I hit the road.  Perhaps I will share stories of my journeys tonight…. But probably not… maybe…

They Call Me Master (of Pastoral Studies) Bryan

I have now finished all of my classes to get my MAPS (A’s in both my summer classes!)  In December I will get the little piece of paper that will confirm that I indeed am a Master.  And a reverend master at that!

Feel free to refer to me as Master Bryan, Master BD, or silly guy who went to college for 6 years.

Warning: This post is literally going to be all over the place

Well, I made it through day one of work in Colville, 7 hrs in front of the computer… Sometimes it feels painstaking, but I know it’s good for me to do work and to get some hours in.

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I met with D&C today to talk about wedding stuff. I am remarkably calm, and not too worried about it. It should be fun, and it’s nice to be able to help them out. After we finished talking and the family moved on to other planning stuff, I got bombarded by my cousins children. Actually playing with the kids is probably one of my favorite things about being in Colville. That and staying with Elliott and Whitney, I always feel at home around them, which is a good thing!

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I spent some time reading the Message tonight. I feel like seminary students aren’t supposed to like the Message, but I really do. I read through 1 John tonight, and the message of it really jumped out at me, it seemed that over and over John kept emphasizing the need to Christians to love. That those who love Jesus also love people. That if they persist in hate and in purposeful, habitual sin, that they may not be saved because it is not the way of Christ.

This fits with what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, which is the overemphasis on salvation by faith, to the detriment of Christians showing their faith by their works. It changes Christianity from a way of life(how the early followers described it) to a system of right beliefs. It’s not that the right beliefs aren’t important, it’s just that it’s not just about belief. I know a lot of people who can say the right thing but could never do it. It was and is one of the things that worries me most about being a seminarian.

Along this same theme, I am trying to finish Brian McLaren’s The Final Word and the Word After That at first I was a little turned off on his treatment of hell, but now in the last section of the book, I am finding more what I agree with, like he purposely left it wide open to let me wrestle with the place of hell in Christianity. Maybe I will change my mind again before the end of the book though, I don’t know!