A Call to Excellence

I recently attended a meeting for all of the ministry coordinators at church. This was was the second such meeting that we have had since moving into our building. We started the meeting with a throw back to what the first meeting had covered. During the first meeting we talked about the vision of our church and Pastor Glen really hit home how we are called to excellence and how as a church that wants to attract more people we really need to focus on being excellent in all areas of the church. This first meeting really began to challenge me because if I am going to run a ministry in the church and hold it to a higher standard then I am going to have to hold myself to that same standard. Well, during the second meeting we started by reading one of the scriptures that dealt with excellence:

1 The queen of Sheba heard about how famous Solomon was. She also heard about how he served and worshiped the Lord. So she came to test him with hard questions.
2 She arrived in Jerusalem with a very large group of attendants. Her camels were carrying spices, huge amounts of gold, and valuable jewels. She came to Solomon and asked him about everything she wanted to know.
3 Solomon answered all of her questions. There wasn't anything that was too hard for the king to explain to her.
4 So the queen of Sheba saw how very wise Solomon was. She saw the palace he had built. 5 She saw the food that was on his table. She saw his officials sitting there. She saw the robes of the servants who waited on everyone. She saw his wine tasters. And she saw the burnt offerings Solomon sacrificed at the Lord's temple. She could hardly believe everything she had seen.
6 She said to the king, "Back in my own country I heard a report about you. I heard about how much you had accomplished. I also heard about how wise you are. Everything I heard is true. 7 But I didn't believe those things. So I came to see for myself. And now I believe it! You are twice as wise and wealthy as people say you are. The report I heard doesn't even begin to tell the whole story about you.
8 "How happy your men must be! How happy your officials must be! They always get to serve you and hear the wise things you say.
9 "May the Lord your God be praised. He must take great delight in you. He placed you on the throne of Israel. The Lord will love Israel for all time to come. That's why he has made you king. He knows that you will do what is fair and right."
10 She gave the king four and a half tons of gold. She also gave him huge amounts of spices and valuable jewels. No one would ever bring to King Solomon as many spices as the queen of Sheba gave him.

1Kings 10:1-10

As we were reading I was thinking how much better the world would be if our leaders understood how to set an example of excellence. How they would really impress people if they were able to honor their commitments and live a life of integrity. What would it take to see that happen? The only thing I know to do is to require excellence of myself.

Delusions of Grandeur

So I have been going to the pool the past few days with my cousin and doing some water aerobics. I am attempting to exercise so that I can loose some weight. What you need to know is that there is rarely a time when I am with my cousin that we do not end up overcome by a fit of laughter. I made the comment that I wished we had an Olympic sized pool because then I could swim laps and after all I do have a speedo swimsuit and it was made for racing. Then the conversation switch to synchronized swimming and I decided that I could be a synchronized swimmer. That is when Carri informed me that I suffered from delusions of grandeur. She seemed to think that it would be more likely that I would injure myself attempting to perform and that she would have to call 911 and would not be able to perform CPR because she would be laughing so hard at me. So I guess that I won't be on the next Olympic team for racing or synchronized swimming.

One, Two, Three strikes your out....

I went to a baseball game on Sunday. I haven't been to a professional baseball game since long before the Astros started playing at Minute Maid Park. I mostly didn't go because I am not all that crazy about baseball. It is a good game but I would much rather play baseball than watch it on tv or in person. As a matter of fact, I only went to the game on Sunday because my favorite three year-old asked me to go and I decided that anywhere he went would probably be fun for me.

Now if you are planning on going to a game anytime soon and you are not a big fan of baseball, I recommend taking along someone that you will find entertaining. I had a great time watching Thomas be amazed at the size of the Park and the fact that there was a giant train. He watched the first few innings and asked questions about what was going on. He ate pizza, pop rocks, and cotton candy. Then somewhere around the 4th inning he began to come down off of his sugar high and fell into a deep sleep for about 3 innings. He slept through the 7th inning stretch and missed "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". It wasn't until someone hit a home run and the whole stadium cheered that he woke up. We left shortly after that because that was about all the baseball we could stand.

So basically if you aren't big baseball fan, you need another form of entertainment. My idea of entertainment is a three year-old. All in all, it was a pleasant experience and I enjoyed the game and the people that I went with. There is something magical about baseball and that was not completely lost on me.

A reflection....

I have successfully completed another year of teaching. I think that I learned a lot this year about who I am and the kind of teacher that I want to be. When last year was over I was just so glad that I had made it a full year with out any major problems that I didn't really spend a lot of time looking back over my accomplishments and failures. I only set one real goal for myself for the new year and that was to do everything I did the previous year but to do it better. At the end of this year I can say that not only did I do that, I did a whole lot more. I don't really want to go into a long blog about my accomplishments and failures from this past year. I just want to hit a few of the highlights.

I have become more involved on my campus and I feel a connection to the school and to my co-workers that I did not have before. This has dramatically changed the way that I look at my job. I feel like I am on a team that will work together to help educate and change the lives of the students at my school. I want to be on this team because I have gotten to know some of the people that I work with and they are awesome.

Any nervousness about being a new teacher has almost completely gone away and I feel at home in my classroom. I am beginning to form my theatre program and have started dreaming big dreams for what I am going to do in the coming years.

I have realized that no matter how easy or difficult teaching can be, I always have something to learn from my experiences. I am excited about the future and what it holds for me.