Sunday, January 24, 2010

Decisions decisions...

One of the difficult decisions a 'one off' preacher needs to make is 'Which text will I preach from?'

I have such a decision ahead of me in the next couple of days. I've been asked to preach at our new 9:30 service next Sunday, and as usual its the 'your choice' direction from the organisers.

But wait - I also have another choice. Which language?

If I preach in English (I will be translated) its so much more straight forward. Preparing is quicker, speaking is more natural and I can concentrate more on delivery and emphasis, rather than being tied down to my text and wrestling with pronounciation.

But then again, I need to preach I Spanish - because thats what I need to learn to do. It means many more hours preparing and practicing - and even then people might not understand what I'm saying??

So what to do?

Actually I think the decision has a lot to do with what happens tomorrow. Monday afternoon could be a big preparation time for me, or it could be a time when I meet with a guy to start working through of the Moore College courses.

We'll see how it goes.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Supporting missionaries

Over the past year several people have asked us how they can best support us and other missionaries.

Mark Rogers from the Gospel Coalition (a group of like minded friends in the US) has come up with some helpful guidelines here
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/01/06/10-ways-to-encourage-a-missionary/

(Careful readers might get a laugh at point #10).