SteveJamieson.com

Today I added three keys to my key chain. It all started when I went over to church this afternoon for a meeting with Assistant Pastor Greg and Elder Dale about the church’s spiritual gifts assessment program, which I will be taking over as the primary responsibility of my internship. Dale has been the one in charge of it recently, but, since he’s taking a pastoral position elsewhere soon, it’s time to pass the torch on to me. Of course, by torch I mean all the paperwork, files, books, videos, and other resources related to the program, which are now sitting on the floor of my room waiting to be perused as soon as finals are over. However, that has nothing to do with keys.

While I was at the church for the passing of the proverbial torch, Greg decided to get me set up with the necessary church keys so that, when my internship officially starts on June 1st, I can immediately do such things as enter the church after hours, and get into my office—both rather important things. Now, all you attentive readers should have already noted that unlocking an exterior door and my office door should only require up to two keys, and therefore you ought to be wondering what the third key is for. Well, unfortunately, the anticlimactic answer is that it’s to unlock the sunday school room that contains the door to my office. Anyway, I suppose the point of all this is to say that it feels cool to have keys.

I think I have found the ultimate Christmas present for me. The other day Jed sent me a link to a story on CNN.com about a company in England that makes inflatable churches. That’s right, how cool would I be if I had a portable, 47 ft long × 25 ft wide × 47 ft high church building complete with plastic “stained glass” windows and inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and gold cross? It’s every seminarian’s dream. If I can’t find a call when I graduate, all that I’ll have to do is find a nice open space, start up the fans, and, after a few hours, I’ll have my own church ready to go. The novelty will attract people right away, so I can immediately start holding services. Boom! Instant church plant. Okay, so maybe that whole scenario isn’t all that realistic. Still, it’s an inflatable church! What pastor wouldn’t want one?

Tonight’s session meeting went wonderfully. The elders voted unanimously to hire me as the church intern effective June 1 and extending to May 31, 2004. This is awesome news. This will allow me to knock out my field ed. hours, fulfill requirements for my presbytery internship, and earn money at the same time. I don’t know what I’d do without this tremendous opportunity. In addition, I get my own office! How sweet is that? Now, I just have to come up with an official proposal for what I intend to accomplish, and sign up for 8 credit-hours of class this summer so that I can cut my fall ’03 and spring ’04 schedules back to 11 credit-hours each. I’m very very very happy.

My Dad’s flight got in Friday morning, and despite his suitcases having popped open, he was soon in a cab on his way to meet me at the seminary. He got to campus just in time to join me for Acts & Paul. That evening, my Dad and I went to the symphony where we enjoyed a fine Singles Awareness Day… er… Valentine’s Day program featuring a feisty French conductor.

On Saturday, I did some homework and it snowed. Granted, it wasn’t as much as the east coast received, which Kyrie has adequately documented, but it was enough to make driving on Sunday morning a tad treacherous. Sunday was, of course, my public preaching debut, so I had no choice but to venture out. On the other hand, the snow cut church attendance in half, which made my preaching debut a little less intimidating.

My preaching debut turned out really well. I was very nervous while I was sitting in front of the congregation waiting for the sermon time, but once I got into the pulpit I got into the groove pretty quickly. I was pleased with the final manuscript of my sermon, into which I had put a lot of effort improving during the preceding week, and I got a lot of positive response from the people I talked to after the service. I am looking forward to being able to preach at Memorial again sometime.

Hopefully, I will soon have the manuscript posted over in the documents section, along with an MP3 of my preaching it for those of you who couldn’t be there.

I’ve completed three preaching classes. I’ve preached 4 different sermons before my classmates. I’ve taught Sunday school classes. I’ve led liturgy. On Sunday, February 16^th, I will take another step forward as I ascend into the pulpit at Memorial Pres. and preach to an actual congregation.

A week or so ago, my friend and ruling elder Willy approached me about preaching on the 16^th. That date is Mission Focus Sunday this year at Memorial, and it is apparently custom to have a guest preacher present a sermon about missions as part of the program for the day. Willy wanted to know if I was interested, and if I had a sermon already prepared that fit the theme, since it was rather short notice for a busy student like myself. I volunteered my Acts 6–7 sermon, and he and pastor George confirmed that it fit the theme.
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