Remember the book, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”? It’s all about those 40 weeks when mom and dad are waiting for the arrival of their little bundle of joy. It tells them how to prepare. It tells the things that will happen in the mom’s body. It tells them what they’ll be feeling. It tells them what they need to purchase. All of those things are important as they wait in anticipation for the baby’s arrival. Finally, that day comes, and the parents stare into their child’s face for the first time with a giant smile. It’s an exciting day!
What about the countdown to graduation? I’m thinking of many of the students I know who are in a season of graduations. They have been waiting for their graduation day for quite some time. They have worked hard for it. They’ve studied, written papers, taken exams, and many other things. Soon, they will walk across the stage and receive the degree for which they have worked so hard. It will be an exciting day!
Even the time leading up to vacation is a time of expectations. You book the travel and lodging well in advance, and then you count down the days until you can relax. You work like crazy to get everything done so things can function without you for a while, and then the day comes when you go on vacation! It’s exhilarating!
What about heading to church on Sunday? Are you expectant? Do you expect to be in the presence of God with His people? Do you expect for His Spirit to teach you something through the preaching of His Word? Do you expect Him to show up and change your life?
I pray that I will be preparing for Sunday each day of the week, using the moments in my life to hear what God is teaching me so that Sunday when I arrive at the worship gathering with my church family I will recognize His presence and be ready to hear His Word.
Do you show up on Sunday with great expectations? What is it that you expect?
Wow! I can’t believe it’s been almost three years since I started my doctoral courses.
Last week I took my final (of six) seminar called “Foundations of Teaching.”
I’m a few steps away still from getting my doctorate, but the in-class portion is finished. Now I have some projects AND the BIG PROJECT to finish up and turn in, then I have to defend it, and then I will graduate (hopefully by December).
Thanks to all who have been praying for me during this time. It’s been a lot of reading, thinking, and writing. It’s also been a lot of fun and good relationships along the way.
Please pray that I can finish well and get the projects done in a timely manner.
I’ve entered in to the abyss that is the reading for a doctoral seminar. It usually feels like I have so many more pages to read than time…and that’s usually an accurate description of what actually happens.
The course I’m taking this time is called “Foundations of Teaching.” It’s all about learning and teaching and developing curriculum. I’m looking forward to the class. If only I can get the reading finished.
I’ve had the list for a few weeks now, and here’s it is:
I was in a conversation the other day on Facebook about how difficult it is to write anything. The quote that started it all was by my friend Tommy.
He asked,
“How do you write a song/sermon/essay…etc? I have found that when you sit down to do those things, every time without fail, you haven’t the foggiest idea how to do it. Only when you are finished can you look back and say “That’s how I did it”, but no one really knows how to start anything. Every day you sit and try and learn it all over again.”
I really and truly agree. Most of the time, getting started is the most difficult part of getting anything done for me. Once I get the ball rolling, things flow. But up until that point, I often sit around and seem to have forgotten how I did it before, even though by this point in my life I have written many, many papers, blog posts, and other documents.
Last June, after a doctoral seminar I took, I jotted down what my process for academic writing. I did that so I could return to it when I needed to write something else. I thought this would be an appropriate time to share it here.
Start in Scrivener with an outline (Sometimes I start with a mind map, but usually it’s an outline in Scrivener)
Put research in Scrivener
Get as far as I can by just “putting thoughts down” (Just spit it out already–at this point it’s definitely not very good)
Transfer it to Word template (Templates are your friend)
During my recent trip to Cuba, I conducted a research project about compassion for the lost in the lives of adolescents who participate in short-term mission trips. It was a quick study that yielded some interesting results.
One of the most important things that I learned in my research was this:
A mentor or pastor is important to help adolescents develop the compassion for the lost by helping them see people all around them who need to know Jesus. Compassion for the lost is not something that automatically happens in the lives of young people, but it can be influenced by the life of someone else and the prompting of a pastor or group of friends who will help them see what they are missing as they see others and interact with them.
When Jesus tells his disciples to pray for laborers (Matt 9:36), he is demonstrating his own compassion for the lost and helping them increase their compassion. Good mentors and youth pastors will help young people see the opportunities all around them, and their own compassion will deeply affect the adolescents to whom they are ministering.
Too often we overlook the fact that our job as pastors and mentors (and parents) is to help cultivate compassion for the lost in the lives of those around us.
As we walk and talk, teach and disciple, we need to include compassion for others in our conversations. We need to remind our children and our students that God loves the brokenhearted and is seeking to save the lost–and he wants to use us to introduce them to Him. Just putting them into a position to do something that is service or mission related is probably not enough. We need to use those experiences to launch into conversations that revolve around compassion and caring.
My hope is that as a parent I can have compassion for those around me and teach my children and others to see the world as God sees it–and to have compassion on it as He does.
I spent some time this week helping my friend Micah make some videos about the Adolescent Orphan Ministry he is starting with our organization, Youth Ministry International.
The story he tells grabs my attention because this entire ministry started with one person’s desire to do something daring and take a mission trip. Then one thing led to another and now there is an entire vision to connect local church youth ministries to adolescent orphans around the world and help them become followers of Jesus.
Remember, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (Luke 16:10).
What is the one thing God is asking you to do today that you need to obey Him in?
If you want to know more about YMI’s Adolescent Orphan Ministry, be sure to visit pattersonfam.org.
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