incubating or procrastinating?

I'm preaching this Sunday. I have a direction but I am having a really hard time focusing my thoughts. I feel like my brain keeps running in 15 different directions. I have thoughts that seem like really good ideas until I start to follow them, and I inevitably get stuck or don't like where I end up. It reminds me of those papers that I used to start, and then I would get stuck and end up scrapping the entire thing and starting over at 10:00 the night before it was due. (and who knows - I may just be doing that Saturday night!)

But then I wonder if it's because my life is so out of balance right now. I haven't had a lot of social time. I haven't given myself much sleep. I say it that way because it is the choices I have been making. I have let myself get unbalanced. And I haven't fixed it because I haven't been motivated enough to do so. Honestly, I don't want to pay attention to the mess that I've made. It's easier to just keep living it.

But then that's where I think I'm going with my sermon isn't it? Living a life of passion. Taking the risk. Leaping without knowing where you'll land. So maybe the reason my sermon isn't written isn't my normal incubation period ( check out this news article to see what I mean... http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/worklife/02/16/o.procrastinator.or.incubator/index.html), but rather the fact that I am procrastinating on fixing my own life. That I don't want to DO what I want to PREACH. It's easy to have ideals. It's hard to live them. We all know what we wish the world would be like, but it's hard to be the change that makes it happen.

I read an article yesterday about the mediocre commission (http://doroteos2.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/the-mediocre-commission/comment-page-3/#comments), and in that article, they rewrote what we generally refer to as the great commission in the way we tend to live it. This is what they wrote:

From the Gospel According to Bob, 28:16-20:

Then Jesus sayeth unto them, “Go, invite people to come sitteth for an hour in church once every six weeks or so, telling them that very little will be expected of them, that they will heareth good music and that there will be coffee and snacks.” But, Peter aggrieved and dyspeptic said, “But, what if there is soccer??” And Jesus replied, “Well, that is a problem.” (KJV)

Jesus said, “Bring people to church.” Peter replied, “They may not come.” Jesus said, “Whatever.” (The Message)

And it's true isn't it? That's how we live. We go to church unless there's something more important. And I'm not saying that church is the only way to have faith, but I think it is a place to find a faith community and that being in community is a part of the call of God. And that it should be a priority in our lives. But more than calling us to GO to church, God has called us to BE the church.

I have been in the middle of reading (I use this term loosely as I go for long periods without picking it up) a book for awhile by Kenda Creasy Dean, a youth ministry professor at Princeton, and in this book she is examining the results of a study and the implications it has of the church. At one point she asks the question, "Do we practice the kind of faith that we want our children to have?" And her answer is this "I think the honest answer might well be, 'Yes, we do.' The simple truth seems to be that young people practice an imposter faith because we do - and because this is the kind of faith we want them to have. It's that not-too-religious, 'decent' kind of Christianity that allows our teenagers to do well while doing good, makes them successful adults without turning them into religious zealots, teaches them to notice others without actually laying down their lives for any of them. If this is the faith they see lived out by their parents, their pastors, and their churches, how would they know it's a sham? In a world crazed with violence and intolerance, isn't being 'good enough' good enough?"

It's a challenge for sure. And one that I need to examine in my own life. I am a youth pastor. But do I practice the kind of faith I try to teach to my youth? Or am I a fraud? Or maybe both? Something to consider for sure... now about that sermon...

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