Thursday is the start of my weekend (I can hear it now.... "How do you preachers know when your weekend starts when you only work one day a week?" Ah ha ha!!!)
Actually, come to think of it, I have only rarely heard that comment in this church and that was many years ago (Which just proves my theory..... If someone makes a stupid comment like that.... then they suddenly go missing.... it deters similar comments).
Anyway.... my self-imposed rule is that all sermons and classes MUST be written and done by the time I leave the office on Thursday. Two good reasons for this......
1. Finishing early gives me at least a couple of days to roll the ideas around in my own mind. This helps to clarify them even more before I have to try to communicate them and it helps with transitions between points/smoothness of delivery etc.
2. More selfishly, if I don't get them done during "office hours" then I have to work on them on my own time - which I do not want to do.
Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I had blocked off most of this afternoon for a "Webinar" (a web-based seminar) that I had signed up for and when it was done a little early I had nothing pressing to do because I was already ready for Sunday.
So, as I was going to check the mail, I walked past one of the vacuum cleaners in the back room. When I saw it, I remembered someone telling me that there was something wrong with it. The strange thing was that it was almost brand new, but it did not work at all. So I decided to take a look at it ("Household appliance repair" is not something you are taught in Bible, but maybe it should be as I have fixed a lot of stuff around there. Bible colleges should also include classes too about furniture moving and roof shingling as I have done a lot of those activities too).
Anyway, I took the thing apart and, after checking a few things, I suspected there was a blockage somewhere. Took out three screws.... took the hose off.... tried to blow through it.... nothing! Took a broom handle..... tried to run it through the hose..... would not go! Started beating the hose against the floor while trying to push the broom handle through it..... and suddenly this huge, hairy mass of stuff comes out. It looked like at rat!(It wasn't, of course, but it was about that size and shape).
Put it all back together and it works like a charm.
Now, I am not telling you this to brag (who can't take a hose off of a vacuum cleaner and beat a furry mess out of it?), or to say, "Oooh - look at what I can do" (Because, it is not that impressive. Ok - it is not impressive at all). But here is my point......
People give up too easily!
That vacuum had been sitting there for more than a month.... and it likely was not working that well before it was finally "parked". All it took was ten minutes, a screwdriver and a broom handle to fix it and yet there it sat. (By the way - this is not a shot at the "Maintenance people" at the church.... they would have fixed it had they known about it... they do lots of good work and I don't want to get on their bad side).
One time a guy gave me a VCR and asked if I would take a look at it and see what was wrong. I took the top off and there was about 16 inches of tape wrapped around the play head. I pulled the tape out, put the top back on.... in three minutes it was fixed.
Another time a guy gave me a lawn mower that would not start. When I got it home, I decided to check the spark plug and see what it looked like.... the spark plug was so loose it almost fell out in my hands. Tightened it up and it ran like brand new.
So, here is the thing..... if it is broken already, why not try to fix it??? You can't make it worse and, sometimes, you may end up actually figuring out what was wrong.
As one of my buddies likes to say, "I can wreck a lot of things for the cost of paying someone else to fix it!" :)
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So - one more day of finals...... and everyone will be glad when it is done. It will be nice for the kids to have finals behind them. It will be nice to get out from the pressure of having to study. It will be nice for the parents to not have to re-learn all this stuff so we can help them study.... it will just be nice.
Ok - more pics and stuff to come.... but for now I am done. Thanks for reading!
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