Posted tagged ‘Latin’

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Getting Followers

January 15, 2019

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                    January 15, 2019

                                

Getting a book published these days is as complicated as that Latin final exam I flunked back in college. I was better at “Pig Latin” than I was at Latin, but the college didn’t offer that alternative. 

I’m better at writing than I am at doing all the other “stuff” that publishers are looking for, like establishing your “platform” and summarizing your 100,000 word book in one paragraph. They use words like “hook”, “genre”, and “synopsis” like they were jelly beans that are so easy to pop into your mouth.

Another element they’re looking at is how many “followers” you have! Who reads your blog (Like you are right now!) and how many people would be interested in your book?

And so the quest for more followers happens! Getting followers feels a little bit like panhandling! There’s some pleading involved. All I can say is “I think you’d enjoy reading my blog, so please, please, please be one of my followers!” And on the other side of the sign the words “God Bless!” It’s not like I can offer a discount or a tip on what stock to buy. Almost all of my followers have some kind of relationship with me. 

Jesus had a few disciples and a number of followers. Disciples left their fishing nets and tax collecting table to follow him. There was no turning back. They were all in. Followers listened to his teachings and then returned to their homes and work. They were interested, but their levels of commitment differed, some all in and some Sabbath attenders.

Sounds a bit like church attenders! There are those who are all in with the church’s mission and ministry and others, sadly the majority, who have one foot in and one foot out. They are “the interested”! But they are also interested in sushi, Hallmark movies, and clearance sales at Dilliard’s. 

Commitment is another matter! What are they committed to? Very little! Their interests are fluid and their commitments are minimal! 

So I’m trying to attract followers, who I know are kinda’ following, to impress publishers who will then see that I’m worth being committed to! 

Did you follow that?

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Bad Grades Revisited…44 Years Later!

February 15, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           February 15, 2016

                              

They had become a distant memory, like an old girlfriend who you now struggle to simply remember her name.

And then I decided to begin the process to be hired as a substitute teacher! Steps one through thirty were fine, but then came the part where the Colorado Department of Education wants copies of your college transcripts…ALL your college transcripts!

When I transferred to Judson College in Elgin, Illinois in the fall semester of 1974 I was teetering of the slippery edge of academic probation. One more unimpressive quarter at Miami of Ohio University meant I would be asked to take a little vacation. A singing group from Judson visited our church one Sunday in the summer of 1974 and a week later I was applying to be a transfer student at the small American Baptist-related institution. A man named Wendell “Press” Webster saw some potential in the student from Ironton, Ohio who had complied a GPA in his first college quarter of “.533!” That’s right! I didn’t put the decimal point in the wrong place…”.533!” From there it was all uphill for the next year and a half.

Let me say that I didn’t knock the professors dead at Judson with my academic excellence, but I did do okay, and graduated after two years.

All that had become ancient history to be told again after my death! But then there was the application process!

What’s that saying? The sins of the past will always come back to haunt you. I never thought that failing Latin would come back to haunt me, but it now has. The irony in the situation is that one of the classes I’ve been asked to substitute teach in is Latin! Gous figureus!

Don’t worry! I’m being approved to substitute, but the memories of that past failure…and failing grades…is once again fresh in my mind. Sometimes we pay for our times of stupidity over and over again. My stupidity took the form of cutting classes, trying half-heartedly on important assignments, not navigating the waters correctly of English Composition 101. Things I should have known better about, but thought I could slide by.

Forty-four years later I can now laugh with just a hint of embarrassment.

My absence of excellence and mass of ignorance in those past actions brings a new sense of appreciation for the grace of God. I realize that the God I serve looks at the screw-ups and pitiful efforts of my past and says that because I follow his Son those things, those bad marks, and failing experiences have been forgotten. I no longer need to bring them up for review as I go forward.

God accepts me even though my Latin is suspect. Amazingus magnus!

Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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Being An Old Rookie

February 3, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                       February 3, 2016

                                         

    I’m thirty-four days into my retirement after thirty-six and a half years in pastoral ministry. People have asked me several hundred times what I’m going to do? The answer to that is still being filled in, but I’m beginning some new endeavors.

Last week I was asked if I would be interested in being the interim pastor at a church a good drive away from where we live. My answer: “Not yet!”

What I have done so far in the first thirty-four days is spend a good deal of time with my ten month old granddaughter, learning how to change a diaper again, how to feed a baby, how to carry a baby in one of those baby carriers you wear, and finding out that going to the bathroom for someone who is watching a baby can only happen at certain times…so shake a leg quickly!

I’ve also officiated several basketball games for youth leagues. That experience has brought me into contact with some good coaches, and other coaches that I wouldn’t let my grandkids get close to. Last Sunday afternoon a minute and a half into one of the games I officiated I stopped the game and had a little “Come to Jesus” session with one of the coaches. He got the message that the fear of God was close at hand, and didn’t say another word to me for that game except to call time-out.

I’ve visited four different churches on Sundays and enjoyed the different experiences. More than that, I’ve had four Saturday nights where I’m not thinking about what I’m going to say in the Sunday sermon.

But perhaps my most adventurous new exploration is that I’m beginning a new career as a substitute teacher. What!!!!

Tomorrow I’ll go to observe in a classroom for the second time. The first time I observed in a couple of high school classes. Tomorrow I will observe in a couple of middle school math classes. One of them is Algebra. Maybe I’ll learn something, because it really didn’t stick the first time around when I took it…46 years ago!

In essence, I am a sixty one year old rookie. I face the unknown with excitement and hesitation. I remember how we treated substitute teachers back in the day. I’m sure we drove some of them to positions of employment with the elderly! We were insensitive brats trying to get anyway with anything we could. My fear is that I’ll encounter the great-great grandchildren of a couple of those teachers who know the criminal history of my high school days with their ancestors.

In my defense…I have no defense. It is just what we did.

My hope that the sins of my past school behavior will not come back to haunt be is rooted in the fact that I am already a coach at the two schools I will substitute at. But I also recognize that I am an old rookie who may be a bit gullible. When that first student says that “a + b= z”, I’ll say “Sounds good to me!” When that first spit wad zings past my head I’m not sure how I will react. When chalk dust is put on my chair and I sit down in it with my dark pants on I may become disoriented and bright red in the face.

You may be saying, “Those things will never happen!” I hope you’re right, because those are things that I did to substitute teachers when I was in school. The sins of the past…

I just want to get past the first day. Last week at a basketball game I was coaching, my wife heard someone from the other team say “Their coach is chill!” I’m not sure what that means, but she said it was a compliment.

I hope I am chill in the classroom the day when I get the 5:45 A.M. call. I can hear it now, “You have a substitute position today in…middle school Latin.”

Oh great! I’m going to teach a subject I flunked!

Categories: children, Grandchildren, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
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