Sunday stuff

What a day today has been.... much activity around here! It began with getting kids up and ready for Bible class and worship. That went off without a hitch. We actually got out of the house on time (no waiting on Emily to finish getting ready, as she spent last night with a friend from church). Class was good, basically an overview of this summer's sessions. We had been watching DVDs of the keynotes from the Pepperdine Lectureship held earlier this year. We were treated to some great lessons from Randy Harris, Jeff Walling, Mike Cope, Ken Durham, and Greg Anderson. It made me look forward to next year's Lectureship... I hope we can make the trip down to Malibu for it.

Being a holiday weekend, the praise team was running a bit short-staffed. The soprano section was the only one to have 2 people to sing; the bass, tenor, and alto (moi) sang alone. I didn't mind so much (this is only my 2nd weekend), but it was a little nervewracking because some of the songs were pretty new to me. We heard lots of good things afterwards, though, so I felt good about it. I feel very lucky to be able to use my voice to serve God in this manner.... he has given me such a love of singing and to be able to do what I love to honor him is to feel incredibly blessed.

Jarrod preached an awesome sermon based on the passage in Mark in which John told Jesus he tried to stop some men from casting out demons, because they didn't follow Jesus and the disciples. He pointed out Jesus response was that if these people weren't against him, they were for him.... And then he led us to a modern application of that story: how often do we try to negate what others do for Christ because they don't "follow us?" Because they don't hold to the same doctrines we do? It was a very powerful sermon.

We got home with a couple of hours to spare before needing to head back to church to prepare for Reunion. Again we had a 5-member praise team rather than the usual 8. We ran through the songs for tonight; and once more there were a few new ones for me. Tonight was my first experience with an emergent kind of worship service.... I think when it isn't the everyday experience of worship, it makes it very special. I don't think I could imagine doing it every week.

Once we got home, we had some work to do around here... Brian did some cleaning and laundry while I worked on planning the kids' schoolwork for the next week or so. Only 6 more school days before we get ready to leave for our vacation!! I still haven't found a place to board the dog... ack!