Gas and Ministry

Well 2 weeks down and I am still alive and kickin or maybe just alive and not so much kickin. Friday was a big day for gas and Winnie the Pooh. Thursday we spent some class time going over our gas masks, how to fit them, and clear them in 9 seconds. Friday morning was the day we checked them out, you see thinking your mask works doesn't compare to knowing it works. So we go into the gas chamber (which was reaaly eirie) evrything is good lookin like darth vader. Then the sergant tapes me on the shoulder and I have to pull up my mask give name rank and ss # and pull it pack down and clear it. Mannnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!it stinks burns and irritates but the mask seals and I can breathe. Then five of us have to take the mask completley off and shout the class motto (TO GOD THE GLORY) for 15 seconds while breathing the CS gas. It was like ridin with Nathan Rogers after a Mexican Buffett. I was cryin, snot was hangin from my nose to my toes and I was doin the Re-run dance trying to shake that stuff off of me, it was hilarious.(someone is putting the pictures on the web) Being able to tell soldiers I know what they went through will mean alot and I WILL go through the chamber with guys in my unit because as a chaplain I must go with the soldiers or my preaching will fall on deaf ears. Our NCO's all went through it with us giving me a greater confidence in their leadership. How important is it for us as ministers to be with people? It was important for God to become man. How much more can we trust Him because He knows what we are going through? We as ministers must be around people and quit just hanging out in our ivory towers!

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11 (NASB95)