With a little detour on their way to Edmonton, two Free Methodist pastors dropped in to see us Wednesday. One of them, Daniel, is a good friend of mine from Prince Albert. The other, Bob, has a father whom I knew from year’s past. Both were on their way to their SPN (a great name for a pastor’s small group!!)
We took a tour of our house and basked in the sunlight as we talked over lunch.
As we sat around the table (Jill, my wife and the best cook in the world, made a great pea soup and we had ham buns to top it off) we discussed our families and friends. Daniel’s son is almost 1 year old – I was at Wesley’s baptism this past year. His wife is working at home – they are trying to balance having more job offers than what she can accomodate!
We tossed around our personal approaches to sermon preparation time. We all agree its a week long task that sees the hours of preparation downsized to a few minutes on Sunday. We agonized over the place of relationships in pastoring a church. We all agreed that that’s what its all about – the church of Jesus Christ is people!! All three of us are basically introverts who are learning to be relational – some of us have progressed further along, so we were all encouraging one another.
As we were departing, the topic arose — John Wesley and sanctification. For those of us who stick to words we can handle, that’s really just about being more like Jesus every day, until the core of our being reflects who Jesus is.
Unfortunately that tangent will have to wait for another day. But, it’s a good excuse to get back together!!