The web home of Joel, Jennifer and Evan Searby, reporting on life in Gainesville, Florida.
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the searbys
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
a good, busy weekend
Yesterday I crashed. It was a long, exhausting weekend. But it was a good weekend. My dad arrived on Thursday evening to continue working with Harvest on church development issues in this time of transition. There were several meetings throughout the weekend and many were fruitful and positive.
On Saturday Jen was able to get us some tickets for the Gators game. Ok, so they weren't just tickets, they were on the fifteenth row at the twenty yard line! It was a lot of fun to be there with 85,000 screaming and yelling. We could see everything and were right behind the Gator bench. Now I have some insight into what this thing is that they call the "gator nation." It's crazy.
Sunday I preached my first sermon as the interim minister at Harvest. I think it went really well. I am preaching a two-week "series" on Jesus. I felt led to get back to the basics of why we even exist as a church. This week was "who is he and what does he want with me" and next week will be "snapshots of his character." This week was pretty heavy teaching and theology yet with application as well. Next week will be more practical, looking at how Jesus actually lived his life and how he interacted with people. If I believe in the power of living out our commitments to Him then I believe also in the power of His message to unite us. We are going through some tough times of division and questions about mission. Honestly, I think we all (Christians) spend too much time talking about things like worship (which Jesus did not) and not enough time focusing on the things He really calls us to do. I'm hoping that a return to our purpose will help to shift the focus and loosen us all up a bit on the "peripheral" things, as Cardinal Joseph Bernadine said. If, for any reason, anyone would want tapes of our services, I'll be glad to send you one, we make copies each week.
Today is another busy day for me. After work I have a meeting at church for an hour then a meeting at La Tienda Latina (a local store and restaurant) where I'm tutoring a doctoral student in Spanish as she prepares for her translation exam. She'll be doing research in Mexico but has to pass an exam to move on to that step. It should be a good way to stay connected with the language I love.
Stay in touch!
~joel
On Saturday Jen was able to get us some tickets for the Gators game. Ok, so they weren't just tickets, they were on the fifteenth row at the twenty yard line! It was a lot of fun to be there with 85,000 screaming and yelling. We could see everything and were right behind the Gator bench. Now I have some insight into what this thing is that they call the "gator nation." It's crazy.
Sunday I preached my first sermon as the interim minister at Harvest. I think it went really well. I am preaching a two-week "series" on Jesus. I felt led to get back to the basics of why we even exist as a church. This week was "who is he and what does he want with me" and next week will be "snapshots of his character." This week was pretty heavy teaching and theology yet with application as well. Next week will be more practical, looking at how Jesus actually lived his life and how he interacted with people. If I believe in the power of living out our commitments to Him then I believe also in the power of His message to unite us. We are going through some tough times of division and questions about mission. Honestly, I think we all (Christians) spend too much time talking about things like worship (which Jesus did not) and not enough time focusing on the things He really calls us to do. I'm hoping that a return to our purpose will help to shift the focus and loosen us all up a bit on the "peripheral" things, as Cardinal Joseph Bernadine said. If, for any reason, anyone would want tapes of our services, I'll be glad to send you one, we make copies each week.
Today is another busy day for me. After work I have a meeting at church for an hour then a meeting at La Tienda Latina (a local store and restaurant) where I'm tutoring a doctoral student in Spanish as she prepares for her translation exam. She'll be doing research in Mexico but has to pass an exam to move on to that step. It should be a good way to stay connected with the language I love.
Stay in touch!
~joel
