Good afternoon. Welcome to Thursday Thought.
As I entered the building this morning, I thought of things
that needed to be done or checked on.
One of those things was the re-arranging of tables and chairs to
accommodate the weekly Thursday morning Bible class that began at 10:30 today. That class uses a room that is also used by
several other groups during the week, and needs to be reset for the class. Most of the people who attend the class are
older, and many are no longer able to move the tables and chairs into place as
needed, so staff tries to get that done for them. I decided to check on that a little later,
and went to open up the office.
As I entered my office, I noticed the notes and papers from
last evening’s Missions committee meeting, which reminded me that I needed to
do a couple of things regarding decisions made in committee. I’m a member of the committee, and was here
last evening for the meeting. I
determined to handle those items a bit later, and logged in to my laptop to
check email.
There was nothing of great magnitude in the email. However, I replied to a couple of them and
cleaned up my inbox. Linda, our office
manager, came into the office about that time.
I was happy to see her as she is the first contact for phone calls and
people at the door. I knew I no longer
had to watch those two items and could get some other work done.
As I was going to rearrange the chairs and tables for the
Bible study, I ran into CJ, our youth minister.
He was coming from the classroom area where the Bible class meets, so I
asked him about arranging the chairs. He
said he had already done that, so that was taken care of. I went back to the office.
Shortly after I came back, I was told that the ice maker in
the kitchen was not working. We’ve had
it serviced several times in the last few months, and I no longer am sure what
to do with it. I haven’t called the
repairman yet, but will probably do so later.
There was enough ice in the machine for the lunch that was going to be
served at noon today.
One of the people who comes to the Bible class on Thursday
mornings came to my office and said the lights were too bright in the class
room. We had recently replaced the old
fluorescent lighting with the new LED panel lighting, which is indeed brighter. She said the lights were dimmable and wanted to
know where the dimmer was. We did not
install dimming capabilities for those new fixtures, so I told her that they
were what they were. We had received no
other complaints on the brightness of the new fixtures, so I am presuming that
it was just her preference to not have them so bright.
I completed the tasks given me by the Missions committee by
writing a check to send to someone we support in missions, and sending an email
to another ministry we support asking for some information the committee wants. That didn’t take long, but did take a little
bookkeeping for the check.
By this time, the Bible class was ready to begin. My wife and I had invited a friend who
normally doesn’t attend our church to the Thursday morning Bible class a few
weeks ago, and she came last week and promised to come again this week. I went into the classroom to see if she was
there yet. She was, and I made it a
point to greet her.
I took some time to visit with Linda about a couple of
things that needed discussion. I filed some
paperwork on the fire sprinkler system inspection we recently had
completed. I checked email again and
answered a couple more of them, made two appointments for this afternoon, and
got some water to bring to my desk.
Finally, an older gentleman came to the door and asked to
speak to a pastor or assistant pastor.
Since I was the only one in the office, it came to me to visit with
him. He wanted to know if all Churches
of Christ were the same, and what our general tenants were. He didn’t ask those questions specifically,
but that was the information he was desiring.
I visited with him and answered his questions as best I could off the
cuff. He was satisfied with the responses
and asked about our worship services. I
told him about that, and he departed.
In between these things, I managed to check my email, take a
quick tour of the building interior just to be sure things looked OK, answer my
cell phone a couple of times, get some refreshment, and take care of some
additional paperwork. I also started on
this Thursday Thought. It is now after
lunch and I haven’t yet had the time to open a book to read, to study for an
upcoming class I’ll be teaching, or engage in deliberate prayer. Hopefully, some of that will come this
afternoon as I await a 3:30pm appointment.
I tell you all of this to say that this kind of a day isn’t
at all unusual for me. What may be a
little unusual about the day is that I haven’t yet seen anyone who has a
benevolence need. There aren’t many days
pass that don’t have at least one benevolence need that comes our way. However, the day isn’t over yet. I trust your day is a good one…one in which
you walk with God, whatever your vocation…whatever your circumstance or situation
in life. Sandi Patty wrote a song some
time ago called “The Stage is Bare,” which speaks of daily life and living when
there are no crowds, no one to sing to or for.
Speaking to God in the song, one of the lyric lines reads, “Tomorrow's
such a daily day; And I so need to feel you then Holding my hand.”
Most days are “daily days” for most of us. May your daily days be filled with the
presence and love of God.
Blessings,
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