One of the beauties of being only paid part time to lead a church is that you are forced to deal with many of the same pressures other people have in their lives. When there isn’t a full week to give to ministry then you need to find a way to prioritise the essentials and come to grips with stuff you just can’t do.
I have been pondering what we will teach about in the second half of the year and I thought it would be interesting to work through Genesis from the beginning. Then I began to consider the challenge that would present in terms of research and preparation and realised I just don’t have the time to do it justice. Any time you open Genesis you open a can of worms, and while I’d enjoy the journey I simply know I’d be winging it with the content. So maybe it will be a safer option…
A shame because I think it would be valuable to grapple with the Genesis content in an intelligent way and to have some good debate around the different ideas that are out there.
Its not often I find myself wishing I had more time to work in a church, but there it was this morning…
I agree that Genesis is good to work through, so, how about…
* Working through Genesis with the agreement that, if you don’t know the answer to something you don’t try to provide it. Who says the pastor is supposed to know everything anyway? Maybe there’s someone else who could research unanswered questions for you?
* Could you work with someone else on this? Possibly more time consuming I know, but a good training opportunity.
* Maybe put if off for a bit and study something you feel is easier to prepare, while working on Genesis in the background?
Hope you can find the time to put this together.
Yeah – although people think they know the answers!
And when its like that its a toughie
I agree though that genesis could be valuable
Maybe that’s because they are asking the wrong questions, or maybe faith is built on the wrong thing?
Focus, one of the organisations I help out with in the UK, produced a series of short films looking at science and the claims of the Bible – they are interviews with leading scientists who also profess faith. You may find them useful if you have time to get into this: http://www.focus.org.uk/