HANNIBAL-- Happy Thursday, friends!

It's been a really busy week in Pastor Brian-land.  We're planning for our big outreach event/carnival designed to reunite all our Vacation Bible School kids in the city park in town Saturday, and I have a friend of our church in the hospital in Columbia after major surgery.  Needless to say, I've been all over the place.  But God is so good.  I've been really blessed this week-- but a part of me, honestly, will be glad when we get to Sunday.

This morning I did some pre-marital counseling with a couple (not my own!) and listened to a Junior Hill sermon online.  I need to hear a real rip-roaring old-fashioned Southern Baptist evangelist like Hill about once a month or so.  It tends to refocus my sense of seriousness about evangelism.  Then I ate a delicious Tall Paul's lunch while waiting for an oil change, went to Columbia, then came to Hannibal for the evening.

Hannibal has had a marvelous concert series on the Hill Street mall this summer called "Music Under the Stars."  It's really great to have those kinds of events in town, and tonight we heard from Columbia's solid, solid Tom Andes Quartet (jazz).  I'll confess, it was the first jazz concert I've been to since the last one I played in: Jazz Lab I and Combos, December 2005 at Truman, and that was just too long ago.  Of course I miss playing jazz all the time, I really, really do.  My problem is that I have nobody, really, to play with.  There are no gigs, and nobody who likes playing the same stuff I do.  I can only play Glenn Miller dance-band stuff so long, and the same goes for weird '70s-and-later stuff.  I would just love to get on as a sub in a big band somewhere, and play some places with small combos.  But circumstances don't really warrant it right now.  The Andes Quartet played so many of my favorites tonight: "There Will Never Be Another You," "All The Things That You Are," and the old Frank 'n Brian theme song, "All Blues."  It made me nostalgic.  Maybe somebody will come out of the woodwork.

The Cardinals salvaged one game from the Cubs series tonight.  I repeat: I still haven't given up on this team-- not yet.  Otherwise, there's not a whole lot going on.

Tomorrow's plans?  Plan for the Fun Day Saturday.  Enjoy my family.

Until tomorrow night...

HANNIBAL-- Welcome to Friday night.

Not much going on over here in Marion County; a quiet day with family.  The Cardinals won tonight, which was good.  I'm still convinced that they can turn this thing around.  I enjoyed Mexican with my mother today, and an afternoon visit to my grandmother that concluded with the determination that we would eat lunch tomorrow (ah, but where). 

My brother also told me today that he noticed that my front passenger tire was low, and that I probably needed to have that checked out.  My brother usually knows what he's talking about in things like this, so I called the nearest tire store to get an appointment late this morning.  They told me they could get me in at 6:30 this evening.  After waiting in their waiting room for about fifteen minutes, my 2001 Ford Taurus completely under their control, a middle-aged mechanic told me that I needed a new tire and that steel was coming out of my old rubber (I never saw that, but I'll give them a bye there).  Fifteen more minutes and $100 later, I drove away.  At least all this happened while I was in Hannibal, and not ten miles away from the nearest mechanic like I would have been in Bucklin.

I also decided today, in a spare moment, to endorse Mike Huckabee, former two-term Governor of Arkansas, for President.  It is simply the right thing to do.  In my opinion, he is the most balanced, likable, and principled conservative in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.  He also was a former two-term President of the Arkansas State Baptist Convention and pastored a number of Southern Baptist churches in the Opportunity State before his election as Lieutenant Governor of that great state of my forefathers in 1994.  He certainly is committed to life, and to destroying terrorism in all forms, and to securing this country's safety and economic well-being.  But Gov. Huckabee is also a supremely conversant character, ready to discuss and work with Democrats and liberals on all issues, from environmental policy to welfare issues.  I honestly think that given a shot, Huckabee could be the most persuasive conservative in this race, and a man who could beat any Democrat if allowed a fair stage to compete.  More on Huckabee later.  But he's my man.

I've also been reading a lot lately on the issue of church growth and planting, and what makes churches grow, etc.  To be honest, I'm getting tired of the whole thing, and wondering if the whole solution to successful, healthy church growth is predicated on two very simple, yet profound things:  a commitment to God and His Word, and a commitment to just love people.  What has really bothered me recently is the self-righteous moralistic ramblings of mostly Christians from my generation about what they perceive as self-righteous moralism in the traditional church.  So many postmodern evangelicals snub the traditional Southern Baptist church because we bother to have organ music (or even 19th-century hymns for that matter; quality Christian music, for that matter, seems to have taken a roughly 190-year vacation after about 1800, a faulty proposition at best), or dress up on Sundays, or have evening worship, or fellowship dinners, or Sunday-school classes.

In response to all that, let me just ramble at this late hour myself a little bit.  I really, really sense that Pleasant Grove is growing and about to grow some more (how much more, I don't know, and I really leave that up to the Lord).  We have services at 10:30 and 7:00 every Sunday, and 7:00 every Wednesday.  We have old-fashioned, age-divided Sunday-school classes (but are definitely open to non-age-graded classes and weekly small groups as well), even including the "Primary" and "Juniors"!  Our organ still works, and we have a very competent organist!  We sing old hymns and a lot of '80s-era choruses.  I preach in a coat and tie on Sunday mornings (and only Sunday mornings, may I add).  And we're growing.  But I didn't mention one thing:  If I can brag a little bit, I think people are really loved at Pleasant Grove.  It's the friendliest church I've ever been in, and the most praying church I've ever been a part of as well.  Our welcome time, after a rousing rendition of an opening hymn (hallelujah, it's "He Lives" this week), will often last five solid minutes of hugging and conversation.  I really think everybody in church gets hugged at least twice before they leave on a Sunday morning.  We are simply ourselves, and consumed with God's love.  And we're growing; no fancy programs, no candles, no guitar music, no Taize, no extra, advertised attempts for "relevance."  We're growing.  If a church feels led of the Lord to do those things, I'm more than okay with that, and think that my Baptist family has more than enough room for that methodology.  So what are we doing wrong?  I'll leave it to the Lord, and His infallible Word, to let me know on that one.

Tomorrow?  Lunch with Grandma, maybe go to Quincy, watch the Cardinals and Braves in the evening, a later trip back to Bucklin.

Until tomorrow night...

A quick aside, friends: I am working on a new blog.  This will not replace this Xanga, but will supplement it with a more Pleasant Grove and Baptist-focused content.  It can be found at http://pleasantgrove.wordpress.com .

Thanks!  BB

HANNIBAL-- Welcome to Friday evening of this long Independence Day weekend. 

And welcome back to my blog.  It's been far too long, I think, in battling a week without an Internet connection at all, to other assorted pitfalls that come with moving, and especially moving to a very small town.  I now live in Bucklin, Missouri, population of roughly 500, about eleven miles east of Brookfield, and pastor Pleasant Grove Baptist Church.  Actually, I live about ten miles north of Bucklin.  It's dark at night, beautiful actually... you can hear the coyotes howling and even occasional bobcats, a predatory cat that's making an enormous comeback in north Missouri.  All my neighbors are cattle farmers.  I wondered how I'd like it, and after a month, I actually love it. 

But tonight, I'm in Hannibal.  I didn't wake up this morning completely expecting to be here, but I'm glad to be here nonetheless.  At noon today, I took my grandmother out to Pizza Hut for lunch, and that's always an experience.  Right before I left, I checked my voicemail to find out from our chairman of deacons that the Pee Wee League doubleheader back in Bucklin that I was supposed to umpire tonight had been cancelled, and I didn't get a reason for that.  So I just decided to take another day in Hannibal; Sunday is ready to go and nobody's in the hospital. 

And friends, those are the two enormous governing factors to the daily life of a pastor.  A good Campus Crusade friend of mine, actually a subscriber to this blog (you know who you are), mused when I told him that I was entering full-time pastoral ministry, "Wow... all day in the Word."  Nothing could be further from the truth about ministry life, and to be honest, I'm glad about that.  Otherwise, pastors would be monks, and that's not a healthy thing.  What's been on my mind this week?  Oh, definitely II John.  I finish that short series up Sunday morning with a message that the Lord has just been remarkably clear about with me: how to effectively communicate with God's people.  Always a timely topic.  But also we have a guest speaker Sunday night, Lyle Witcher, Youth Evangelism Specialist with the Missouri Baptist Convention.  Special guests require special thinking.  So that's been on my mind.  And other things too, like where do we want to put a chair lift in the church?  Will we continue the same mowing arrangement next year with the church lawn?  Do any members currently request special visits?  How will we ever follow up all those Vacation Bible School decisions, not to mention track these kids down in the first place?  How can we put an effective couple of outreach events together this summer?  And so this is what we do as pastors.  It's an extremely involved calling, a simply exhilarating one actually.  And the nice thing personally is that you can relax and escape for a weekend whenever you want, provided two things: Sunday's done and nobody's in the hospital.  If either of those stipulations aren't met, you're on call.  And I'm fine with that as well.  Because I love writing and delivering sermons, and I actually love hospital visits.  Hospitals are healing centers in my book, and it's just great to be on the spiritual end of the healing business.

So anyway, Grandma and I went to Pizza Hut for lunch today.  It was packed (of course, they have the buffet and most people were off today).  I rather enjoyed my chicken taco-ish pizza, although it just ain't what it used to be there.  I don't know.  There were three kids, obviously siblings, eating in front of the buffet with their grandparents, all wearing matching T-shirts that said, "Camp Grandma" on the back.  It was amusing, and they looked like they were just having a great time.  It reminded me of those times in the summers when I was a kid, spending time with my paternal grandparents in Rolla for a week or two at a time, driving down to Arkansas with them for family reunions and driving all over Missouri with Grandpop in sometimes-exotic cars as he arranged dealer trades for the local Chrysler dealer in Rolla.  They're some of the happiest memories of my life.  It was a little poignant for me as well; Grandpop is now probably in the sunset of his life, bravely but waningly battling cancer that has spread to his bones.  I'll be down there in Rolla to see him and Grandma very soon.

It was a nice time reading Scripture on the patio this afternoon with the dog (until the neighbor kid started shooting firecrackers).  I've been in Revelation recently, and the more I read Revelation, the more of the character of God I see that I can apply to my everyday life.  Revelation is looking less and less like the Bible's prototype of science fiction to me and more like an applicable book, albeit one that speaks of literal future events in large part.  God is just, but so patient, and especially so protective of His people.  I do so appreciate knowing that God is concerned about me when the world is crashing in all around His church, in this turbulent time.  Indeed, God is good.

I picked up a sandwich, then ate dinner at the overlook at Riverview Park.  What a stunningly beautiful scene.  Then, I met family for the Bethel Association's patriotic concert at HLG's soccer field.  A nice evening, truly.  A perfect one for sitting outside, and good to hear good and heartfelt (if slightly overdone) music that exalts our Creator and hearkens us back to what made America great in the first place: His grace, goodness, and providence.  And even the fireworks after were great!  I can safely say now that I saw a fireworks show this year!

Oh, life is good.  Tomorrow's plans?  I don't know.  Go to my aunt and uncle's house out in the country to go swimming in what is supposed to be a hot (but seasonably so) afternoon.  A nice dinner out?  And probably drive back to Bucklin to close this fine weekend with time in the Lord's house Sunday.

Until tomorrow night...

Welcome to Sunday night, Memorial Day weekend.

It was my last Sunday on the pulpit supply, at least for this go-around.  I preached at Elm Grove Baptist Church near Curryville this morning, and it was a pleasant experience.  To be quite honest, I wondered if my last Sunday as a supply guy would be kind of poignant, being as I loved short-term ministry so much.  But it wasn't.  The Lord really showed me today that Elm Grove is a really good church, a church which deserves a really good pastor, and that I really had no role in the matter.  And I'm very okay with that.  A nice service this morning with a decent holiday-weekend crowd of about sixty, with good music. There was something of a pall over the day, however, as the church had lost two deacons in the course of the last week; I know I'm called to be a pastor because I couldn't help but grieve somewhat today for them.

I drove back, uneventfully, and ate a nice lunch.  I've decided I really like the Light Miracle Whip better than the original.  Maybe it's because I feel like a fundamentally more moral person for eating low-fat salad dressing, I don't know.  I've also decided to make myself stop napping in the afternoons.  This should help stop my recurrent cycles of poor sleep (like the last two weeks); I sleep for fifteen minutes only, then wake up.  A fifteen-minute nap, studies (and experience) show, has a refreshing, rejuvenating effect, while a two-hour nap just screws up the rest of the day.  So after my fifteen-minute catnap, I got up, worked on my never-ending task of finishing grades at the school, then came back home and wrote the evening sermon.  On the drive back to Curryville this evening, I ran into one of those old-fashioned summer gully-washer thunderstorms, and it was raining so hard on 61 that I had to pull over to the side of the road for about five minutes.  The congregation was amazingly expressive tonight during their testimony time, really pouring their hearts out about many different things and taking several occasions to pray for specific people and situations as a church.  I've been struggling as a pastor with how to appropriately integrate testimonies as a regular part of weekly worship, and I think I learned a lot about how tonight.  We're going to open up evening worship at Pleasant Grove to testimonies in a much broader way, and I'm interested to see what happens, to be honest.  I preached from Leviticus tonight (the theme today was the cost of sanctification, and I was in II Peter this morning), and I have to admit that I always feel just a little ornery preaching from Leviticus.  It's like nobody expects it.  Leviticus is like the annoying old uncle of the Bible in some people's minds; it's there, it kind of looks ugly and maybe even smells bad, but boy, it's good to know once you give it some effort. 

So back to the parents' house and relaxation now (and a wonderful late dinner here) in advance of Memorial Day.  It goes without saying that I can freely blog, and enjoy my convoluted, but fulfilling life, only because some brave, supremely dedicated men and women gave their all for this country.  Memorial Day has to be more than a great barbecue, but rather a time to reflect on the joy of American freedom as a terribly precious thing, a reflection that takes the form of enjoying the families we have the freedom to enjoy, as well as quiet reflection in certain moments. 

Tomorrow's plans? Rest, and food, and preparations for the big move to Bucklin Friday.  And great family time.

Until tomorrow night...