Thursday

Thursday always feels like the "big day."

Pilgrim's student worship service occurs at 6:30. In a flourish or organizational activity everything comes together and 20-some 20-somethings show up for a time of prayer, praise, preaching, and (more) prayer.

It's finals month (yes, the students take finals for a whole month) so attendance is always up in the air. The last two weeks we had better than average numbers - but past success is no gaurantee of present reality. We had as few as 13 a few weeks ago (and a high of 36 a few weeks after that.) We have a great time regardless of the numbers.

This morning I paid some bills, did some work around the house, and had a haircut.

The man who cuts my hair could have cut Stalin's hair as well. He's well past retirement age, but the line of old men who wait patiently for his clippers - even though the other chair and barber in the shop are free - is a sure sign that his haircuts are the best. He uses a strait edge razor around your ears and neck. He keeps bottles of vodka, pure alcohol, chloroform, and old men's cologne on his counter. It's really the best haircut I've ever had. It costs $2.50.

I watched some TV and ate some polenta pizza and a baked potato. I've been trying lots of recipes with corn-meal because we have a lot of it and it's cheap.

I re-worked a few parts of my sermon before practicing and timing it. I'm working towards memorizing my sermons. I have 4 or 5 parts where I can step out from behind the pulpit and preach without any notes. It still makes me nervous and we'll see how I do in front of people.

Continued ... sorry, I wrote half in the afternoon and half at night ...

We had about 14 people when Pilgrims started, and around 30 by the time the sermon started. The sermon went well and was followed by a great prayer time.

One of the students said that he liked my sermon ... and then he asked me where I downloaded it from. Haha. I guess he couldn't believe that I actually wrote the sermon I gave.