How long is your church service? Mine is about ninety minutes. I remember how once upon a time, I regarded twenty minutes as long enough for a Sunday sermon. The preaching does not last the whole ninety minutes, but neither can I recall the last time I had a quick twenty-minute "snack" of a sermon, either.
.
Switching gears. Some blogging posts have contained lengthier, meatier discourses, but I am of the opinion that this is not an ideal place for such a thing. I just don't feel like I can expect you to invest a good chunk of time on my biweekly or triweekly commentaries and occasional rants of silliness. Naturally, you have other things you want to do, and there are a few sites you want to visit before deciding what to say and whom to say it to..
Sometimes I have this itch to get wordy, though. For example, last week I studied Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. And can I tell you what would make me happy? I would love it if someone in a crowd would ask how my class went this Sunday, and then the whole group latch on for fifty minutes or so and still get as excited as I was about the lesson..
But my ramblings here are meant to be more like sipping short speeches from an espresso demitasse than the thirty-two ounce super big gulp drinks. (Oh wait, those are forty-four ounces, aren't they? That's insane! Who drinks those things?!) Where was I? Oh, demitasse. Yes; you sip and move on, and hopefully leave an occasional comment. (We like comments.).
My problem is that I can't distill a favorite highlight from the lesson. Or at least I don't want to. I wish we had time to drink in every little detail with the background, maps, cultural explanations, strategy, and the significance for today's people. I must admit, today I wish I could be exhaustively verbose! Do you ever feel like that when you're blogging?.
**ding** Time's up; gotta go.
Posts
9 comments:
hi there- been looking over your blog for awhile now and have commented on some.
Would like you to look over at
Xpatriated Texan and read your view on his recent blog. Humm guess I am challenging you, and you don't even know me!
Don't worry how long or short your blogs be, if they are intesting is what matters.
We have something in common actually our letters have almost the exact lettters. switch the r & a and its my last name.
Really we have more in common than that we both have a love for the word & His teachings!
oops is in 3rd paragraph our names have almost the exact letters
Mommanator, I briefly looked at Thurman's site. If we sat down and talked together, he and I would probably disagree about a lot, but unless the Lord brings us together, I'm not even going to go there.
Thanks for visiting, and for encouraging me to keep the posts interesting. Yes, I recall that there was the one... ;-)
Actually, I have decided that on eof the perameters of my posts is that they need to be reasonably brief. If I changed that, it would alter the demographics and for that, I may as well create a new blog... uh-oh, headache... let's not talk about additional blogs...
I tend to talk a lot period. Nevermind if it's a blog post or something. A good friend of mine jokes that whenever he sees an email from me, he goes to make some popcorn before he sits to read it. :) When I do blog, I never intend to be so verbose but I guess there's just so much that wants to come out that I just type away. However I never really type for the purpose of hoping others read it, which I guess is why I say a lot in my blogs. Though I'm not foolish enough to believe that no one will read it, so I don't put things there that I want no one to see. As far as reading blogs, I love reading them of any length.
For the record, our church service is also around 90 minutes. Evening service is about 2 hours (though part of it is for our prayer meeting).
Craver -- I often wonder about this -- am I going to lose people in my many words. I tend to think, like you, that this format lends itself to sips. But some people have such enticing words that more is good too. I would LOVE to hear more about that lesson!
I LOVE the BIG GULP DIET COKE - as you well know - and certainly yesterday's post is anything but a snippet - it's pretty close to a monologue.
The point is, I don't have anything to write unless God gives me something (unless you'd like to know what I actually do to rats, etc), so I write until I get finished with what He has said to me - and then I edit, edit, edit trying to make it shorter and more concise - but you'll see that it's still long.
So, maybe today you'll be that little, tiny bit of frozen yogurt, sweet and refreshing, that I had at lunch and I'll be the big gulp diet coke (more than one in a day) - each serves it's purpose I suppose.
I would like to know about your Sunday school class though - well, the highlights - I do have to leave the room frequently you remember due to the big gulp.
I think occasional longer posts are absolutely fine. There are some blogs that I will read no matter how long the posts are (try me!! :)) and others I probably wouldn't even if they were really short and a quick read. The content matters more than the length. . . and after all, it is your blog and it must serve your purpose!
Friends, you are such an encouragement. Okay, I' will try to distill parts of it, but I can't afford the time right now to spell it all out in technicolor wonder. Nevertheless, here are some highlights:
John 4:1-42
** The groundwork of history and culture was laid out to emphasize that this was not like a casual water-cooler conversation, but there were some incredible dynamics going on in this encounter.
** It was a Pharisaic taboo to for a man to speak with a woman out on the street... even his own wife.
** She was chosen by Jesus, not because she was the right kind of person, but despite herself.
** When she got sassy, God put the spotlight on her sin, and she was humble enough not to give him the third degree about "judging" her. It wasn't a soft, warm invitation, but God is never wrong. Jesus' intention was to save her, not soothe her.
** In that short time, when she crossed over from clueless to converted, skeptic to saved, she also became qualified and active to be a witness for Christ. That was the point I used to challenge the class. A person who savingly believes on the Lord is qualified to begin telling others about it that very same day. We don't need to know the answers to everything, we can simply start by saying, "Hey, can I tell you what happened to me?"
Amen, Craver.
Post a Comment