Happy Holidays...it is not a big deal...get over it

I know the word I use is quite provocative. It is not cool to use Holidays in our midst. In the last year we have been told about the War on Christmas. John Gibson and O'Reilly have told us about the Culture vacuum and that Christians are being fought on all sides. I do agree that there is a a culture war and we must do our part I am not sure about the war on Christmas. My guess is the Christmas being spoken of is not what Christ came into the world for. Greed and Materialism is not Christmas. Christ is Christmas. God in the Flesh coming to earth born of a virgin who was killed and bodily rose again is what Christmas is about. So I am not sure we should really care what a clerk at Target or Walmart tells us when we check out. Because I bet the Christmas their is not a Christmas worth fighting for.

Preaching

I am often asked the above question. Is it hard? Well imagine writing a term paper every week. Usually mine are about 15 pages. It takes about 25 hours to write a good sermon. Then there is Sunday School, Sunday night. Trying to visit people that are sick and shut in. Pick up orders, order supplies..etc. Here is a very dated but good quote about what it is like to be a preacher

"This is the claim I make for a good theology of preaching—that it introduces order into the chaos of a mans ministry. He is lost in the thicket and tangle of crisscrossing paths and dense undergrowth. A dozen major responsibilities tug at his sleeve, this way and that. Administrator, educator, counselor, prophet, pastor, social worker, maybe custodian, secretary, copier, plumber, carpenter, and husband and parent—on the side he is expected to be many things, indeed even wants to be. But there are definite limits to his time and energy and physical composure. He would like to be all things to all men, but there are times when he feels the need of saying, ‘this one thing I do.’ And the one thing claiming precedence over all the others, demanding to stand at the center, because it has been the distinctive, necessary task of the ministry in every age, is the matter of proclamation. Nothing else will substitute for it. Its priority is absolute. It alone is capable of bringing to heel the multitudinous and variegated duties which yip and yap at the minister’s coattail like mutts of hell wherever he goes.”

OOOPS