Sunday is Cantata Sunday at EPUMC. This means that we will have a very full choir and a very nice orchestra offering in music the story of Jesus’ birth. I really don’t know how Don, our worship director, does this every year. In addition to making sure we have such an excellent variety in music every week, he is also preparing for Cantata Sunday from the beginning of October. It will be a wonderful day.
One of the things about Cantata Sunday is that I don’t preach. And so for the last several years I’ve taken the week beforehand to go away to my family’s cabin near Cross Lake, MN to prepare sermons for 2018. Well, let me be clear, I don’t write sermons for a whole year, but I do try to map out scriptures and a theme we will follow throughout the coming year. It’s a bit of a daunting task, but I’ve found that this sort of preparation inspires me. I hope it encourages Don and Deb and others to at least know what I’m thinking. I’ll tell you all about this at our Annual Meeting on January 20.
So that is where I am this Thursday morning… Well it’s actually Wednesday night that I’m writing this piece. Up here I work until about 7or so and then go into town for something to eat. Tonight I went to the Bourbon Room in Cross Lake, which as I’ve told you before, has some good eats in addition to a variety of its name sake’s libations. I went expecting to get a chicken dinner, but tonight they had something new, a barbeque buffet. I could not resist.
To tell you the truth I enjoy being up here alone. You can here the wind blowing over the newly formed ice of the lake, the moon and stars light up the night so vividly. After a while though I just need to be with people, and when I go into town for dinner, it can be interesting. Take tonight for example. I went to the Bourbon Room because in addition to a chicken dinner for $12, I thought I was going in for, every Wednesday night they have a meet raffle. In case you didn’t get it… a meat raffle at a place called the Bourbon room spells “cheap entertainment,” and tonight it didn’t disappoint.
There were moans and groans from people who didn’t win the latest plastic bag of pork chops or wieners. It was just another cold lazy winter night up here at the Bourbon Room, and yet for me at least there were some things to reflect upon that are often lost in the business and routine of a week in EP. Things like making sure you are at a place like this on the night they do something to get people out in the dead of winter in a resort town with no snow. Not to mention the new barbeque buffet, two words I have never heard uttered one after the other.
Now I’m not trying to compare our church to the Bourbon Room by any stretch of even my imagination. There is a very big and important difference between someone’s “Cheers” and Church. What I guess I’m driving at is that we all have different communities that draw us to together and help us to feel a bit less alone in this sometimes-lonely world.
Cantata Sunday EPUMC brings people together in a way that the hope of a good sermon cannot. I hope you invite a friend or member of your family who could use some companionship and something positive in their life. Because maybe in the place you reach out to push out the loneliness, you will find the love and acceptance of God awaiting you.
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan
One of the things about Cantata Sunday is that I don’t preach. And so for the last several years I’ve taken the week beforehand to go away to my family’s cabin near Cross Lake, MN to prepare sermons for 2018. Well, let me be clear, I don’t write sermons for a whole year, but I do try to map out scriptures and a theme we will follow throughout the coming year. It’s a bit of a daunting task, but I’ve found that this sort of preparation inspires me. I hope it encourages Don and Deb and others to at least know what I’m thinking. I’ll tell you all about this at our Annual Meeting on January 20.
So that is where I am this Thursday morning… Well it’s actually Wednesday night that I’m writing this piece. Up here I work until about 7or so and then go into town for something to eat. Tonight I went to the Bourbon Room in Cross Lake, which as I’ve told you before, has some good eats in addition to a variety of its name sake’s libations. I went expecting to get a chicken dinner, but tonight they had something new, a barbeque buffet. I could not resist.
To tell you the truth I enjoy being up here alone. You can here the wind blowing over the newly formed ice of the lake, the moon and stars light up the night so vividly. After a while though I just need to be with people, and when I go into town for dinner, it can be interesting. Take tonight for example. I went to the Bourbon Room because in addition to a chicken dinner for $12, I thought I was going in for, every Wednesday night they have a meet raffle. In case you didn’t get it… a meat raffle at a place called the Bourbon room spells “cheap entertainment,” and tonight it didn’t disappoint.
There were moans and groans from people who didn’t win the latest plastic bag of pork chops or wieners. It was just another cold lazy winter night up here at the Bourbon Room, and yet for me at least there were some things to reflect upon that are often lost in the business and routine of a week in EP. Things like making sure you are at a place like this on the night they do something to get people out in the dead of winter in a resort town with no snow. Not to mention the new barbeque buffet, two words I have never heard uttered one after the other.
Now I’m not trying to compare our church to the Bourbon Room by any stretch of even my imagination. There is a very big and important difference between someone’s “Cheers” and Church. What I guess I’m driving at is that we all have different communities that draw us to together and help us to feel a bit less alone in this sometimes-lonely world.
Cantata Sunday EPUMC brings people together in a way that the hope of a good sermon cannot. I hope you invite a friend or member of your family who could use some companionship and something positive in their life. Because maybe in the place you reach out to push out the loneliness, you will find the love and acceptance of God awaiting you.
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan
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