I took my Kettle Bell to Church
Published: Mon, 08/05/13
One of the perks of being a Local Preacher is that you get to take
your toys to church and show them off. Children get to do this on
Christmas morning services but as a preacher you can do it any
morning service, so long as you use the item to illustrate a point
in what is known as the children's address, a short and fairly
light hearted talk early in the service before the children go out
to the Sunday school. These days it is quite rare in rural
Methodist churches, certainly the ones in my circuit, for there to
be any children or young families in the congregation. So the
address is there just in case there are any youngsters do happen to
turn up in the congregation and the address can be used as a kind
of primer for the theme of the sermon.
So, since I have only returned to the preaching plan in the past
few months I am preaching for the first time at each church in the
circuit, my first repeat visit is not until the end of August. So
in each case I am getting my only chance to make a first
impression. So I took along my 16 KG Kettle Bell as my visual aid
for the children's address. There were two teen agers in the
congregation, visiting a grandma I think, and I asked the lad to
come out and confirm that my Kettle Bell was indeed heavy. He was
a good sport and he cheerfully did so. I explained briefly that
as a Martial Arts instructor and as a physical worker (Handyman) I
need to be strong. I also explained that at the age of 20 I had
been badly injured in a road accident and the prognosis at the time
was that by the time I was 40 my left arm would probably be giving
me a lot of problems with arthritis or similar. So I cleaned the
bell into position and pressed it three times above my head with my
left arm. The age of 40 for me was a long time ago now. Then I
made the point that when we need help to recover health and
strength of any kind then I believe that we are guided to the
circumstances where it can happen. As soon as the bones in my arm
were knitted together I got back into training and as a result the
injury has never disabled me. Then, a few years ago my friend Alex
Fell-Bowers introduced me to the Kettle bell and I persuaded my
mother to buy me one for Christmas and I have found it extremely
effective in developing usable strength very efficiently. But, you
have to pick the thing up and use it on a regular basis, if you
don't make the effort to work with the KB then nothing will
happen. So my point was that divine guidance achieves nothing if we
don't do our share of the actual work. It fitted in with the
sermon later which was on a text about two people trying to avoid
making any effort themselves. After the service when there was
coffee and chat in the foyer everybody seemed to want to meet my
kettle bell and see if they could pick it up, I don't think a
cute and friendly dog would have got more attention.
When anyone is in a position of making themselves centre stage, as
a preacher or as a Stav teacher or any other public position then
their personality is going to be part of the equation. When making
a first impression you can try and be as bland and inoffensive as
possible. But if you do that people will still project their own
expectations onto you and those assumptions will become a bigger
burden than just being yourself. So I am letting the congregations
in this circuit know who they are getting as a preacher. Because I
have been associated with the Methodist Church since I was born I
know that so long as my preaching is bible based, relevant and
interesting I can get away with a great deal, and if I do overstep
the mark at some point then someone will just have a quiet word
with me and put me straight.
In a way I am taking a bigger risk making this post to my email
list. I am fully committed to the Stav way of life and sharing Stav with whoever is interested. An aspect of
Stav is the Jarl role, which is the spiritual and priestly
expression of the principles. I realised about a year ago that I
could best express this aspect by returning to Local Preaching.
Will I get opt-outs from readers who had assumed I was an orthodox
Odinist or similar? Maybe, that's fine with me if that is your
problem. But if you are going to take Stav seriously then you have
to know yourself and follow your authentic Wyrd, you can't be
anyone other than who you are and you might as well accept the
fact.
At Stav Camp you would spend four days with some very diverse
characters but no bullshit in terms of putting on false identities.
So if being real is your thing http://www.stavcamp.org/