The Birthday Boo

Jamie, the most exceptional child ever, turned one yesterday.
Jamie is my boo, not to be confused with Ben's cat, Boo.

Ben apologizes to his Boo everytime he hears me talk about my boo--but isn't she just the cutest thing?

Saturday

Whew, I've been home a whole 24 hours. Seems like weeks since that's been the case, but of course I was home for a night or two last week.
We went out and cleaned up a little yard debris from the tree in our front yard. It's mostly dead and badly in need of pruning, and Ben and I are not really the people for that. To begin with, we're not home, and the tree's way too big for us. Neither one of us has any business on a ladder, especially Ben. He thinks he's got some folks from his church who've volunteered to come help us one weekend, which would be great.
We cut down a lot of scrubby trees and roses in the back over the winter. The trees I think were all volunteers, but it had clearly been years since anyone's paid any real attention to all that stuff. Now I've actually got some bulbs sprouting back there...one's an iris, I think, and I'm not sure if the other's an iris or something else. It (almost) inspires me to plant my amaryllis, which is done for the year anyway. At present it's just a bulb and 2 long leaves cleaning the air in my office.
One thing I forgot to do this week is to ask someone to water my plants. Everything's looking seriously dehydrated, and I expect they'll take a while to come back. There's a primrose, which will require serious pruning but was already looking perkier this morning, the amaryllis, which survived the week with no noticeable ill effects, some wandering jew, which is trying to climb out of its pot (a styrofoam cup), and something green which I don't know the name of but which looks more than a little depressed. I think they'll all be okay, and they're easier to manage than our furry children.
A quick gratuitous plug: Eric was able to tug on a string or two and get the wondermutt into a kennel for the week...although they were closed Saturday afternoon, they opened up and took him in, which was a lifesaver. Paradise Acres showed him lots of love and attention while we were gone, and kept us from lying to the dog: we always say we're going to the puppy spa and wind up going to the vet to board. This time he really did go to the puppy spa--but we didn't opt for the daily massage or deluxe bed. Just the basics for the yard dog. They were great to him and to us.
And the Boo cat stayed home, which is her preference, also she lied to Eric when he came by to feed her. She said (screamed, actually, at the top of her cat-lungs) that she was starving to death and had run out of food, but there were 2 bowls of dry food that she had basically ignored. He bailed her out with a little wet food, but we're still being punished with frequent cat-hollering. She'll get over it, eventually, probably right about when we leave for annual conference.

Home again, home again

Well, here we are, back home again.
Ben's mother's spirits seemed high when we talked to her yesterday, and his brother said the same thing last night. She's got an ambitious rehab schedule, but she's anxious to get to her new home, which will be in an independent living apartment.
It's pretty nice; Ben says he would live there.
The drive was fine, if long. We made terrific time yesterday and stopped in Winston-Salem, which is only 5 hours from home. The only bit of the trip that wasn't great was briefly on the east side of Asheville there was some pretty serious fog in the mountainy bits...glad we got through that before it got bad. And the temperature changed 30 degrees in the hour it took us to get from TN past Asheville, but it had been warm in TN.
So now I'm home. There's a wedding this weekend, and a very busy Sunday, what with the Easter Egg Hunt, and the cantata, and I'm preaching Sunday night and Tuesday at lunch. Back to my routine...which I have really missed!

Just a quick update

Well, we have achieved success. Ben's mom is in rehab here in Nashville, and we're headed for home tomorrow after one last visit. It looks like she'll be okay, assuming that she can get her strength back and move into her apartment.
In other news, the new blog is up, at overlookedinsights.blogspot.com

Will I ever get to sleep in my own bed again?

Well, I'm tired!
I've been traveling more than not in the last week.
Monday last week I went to Durham to be with someone having a treatment on Tuesday.
Tuesday I picked Tonya up in the evening and we played for days...shopping and sightseeing and talking. We had a great time. I'll post more pictures soon.
Then (while we were roaming through from Manteo to Hatteras and Ocracoke), Ben's mom became progressively more ill. On Saturday she almost died when her blood pressure dropped to 60/20 or so. So, Sunday after church we hit the road, and stopped overnight in Asheville, and now here we are in Nashville, TN.
Pity I don't like country music, huh?
We'll stay here for a few days until Ben's had a good visit with his mom and we feel like she's stable again. We don't really know what's wrong, but we think it's maybe a problem with her meds, so the docs are working on that. She's too weak to come home, but she's got an apartment waiting for her in an independent living facility here in TN.
Ben just called and said that she's got a bed waiting for her in a really excellent rehab place here in Nashville; they are just waiting on confirmation from her physician that he wants her to go today. That's terrific news! Hopefully she will regain her strength, and they'll continue to work out her meds, and she'll be able to go to her little apartment, at least for a while.
This getting older is tough stuff. Seems like the crises are getting closer and closer...first the stroke, then the broken hip, and now this. It's sad, and sad to think that Ben's mom may not be around for too much longer. Those who've heard me speak of her will know that I find her difficult to deal with, but Ben loves her, and I do, although I rarely admit it, and no one wants to see her suffer.
In other news, there really is none. As of today, I've been out of the office for a week and a half, and won't be back in until Friday evening, when I have a wedding rehearsal. I miss it, a lot, and will be glad to try to get back into some kind of meaningful routine, instead of all this craziness.
I am, though, starting another blog. This one will be about books, with Ben's niece Jessica. I'll post the address here as soon as we come up with a name.

Some quick photos

Tonya and I are touring the Outer Banks. Most of my pictures are film, but here are a couple of good shots from T's camera.





I'm being lazy...prob'ly no more updates until she's gone.

Oh, it's time...

This week will be my first "message" for the Sunday evening service, and I'm starting to get pretty excited. I've chosen the Parable of the Prodigals as my text and "more than we deserve" as my title, so that may give you some idea of where I'm going. I feel different pressure than for Sunday morning sermons. I've been preaching sermons in traditional worship for years, but this service is different. It's got great energy, and it already feels a bit like a community. We're starting to see more and more "guests"--folks whose faces aren't familiar from Sunday morning--and that excites me all to pieces.
And in other news, I'm picking up my best friend ever tomorrow, for a quick visit. Yes, folks, Tonya's in the states, which pleases me immensely. We'll see how well I keep up with blogging; it won't surprise me if I don't even touch the computer until Saturday night. Of course, it won't surprise me if I blog every night, either. We're going to play, something I need desperately and enjoy tremendously. So far the extent of my plan is to take the Cedar Island ferry, and then see where the road takes us. I have to let her go Saturday, which will be sad, but then we can start planning for my trip to Europe this fall.

Stuff I Think

Here's this week's newsletter article:

"Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct." --Thomas Carlyle

Several years ago, I got a speeding ticket. Frankly, I deserved it; I was not paying enough attention to what I was doing, and I was going too fast on an empty stretch of 70 near LaGrange. Ben and I had just had breakfast at Ken's Grill (best grits I think I've ever had, and also the best bbq) and we were headed to Raleigh on our day off to go do something fun. We were talking and having a good time, and I was distracted, and when the trooper pulled me over, I had no excuse...he wrote me a ticket.
Now, this happens to lots of people at some point in their lives. We do something wrong and we are responsible for the consequences. I never argued with that officer about that ticket. It was a fair outcome for what I had done. And having the ticket is not what embarrasses me about this little story...it's that I had a "clergy" sticker in the back window. Yep, that trooper and anyone else who cared to look would have known that someone who professes to be a Christian and a minister had transgressed the law.
In our culture, I'm not sure that means much anymore. I think sometimes we don't hold one another to high enough standards, and don't take seriously the consequences of what we do. We're much more likely (as a gross generalization) to say, "I don't deserve this," than we are to simply pay the price for our error. I believe Jesus would call us to something more. In my case, I've tried to be more careful about my speed (although it's hard, there have been no more tickets), and I paid my fine. Of course, I've also taken the sticker off my car!

Corrected Vision (sermon 03/18/07)

The text is 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I have terrible eyesight. The summer after second grade, my mother took me to the eye doctor, and it’s all been downhill from there. I got my first glasses (Pebbles frames from the Flintstones collection) that summer and wore them until sixth grade. Then I got contact lenses…but not because my mother wanted to relieve me from the social stigma of wearing glasses (and these weren’t nice, subtle wireframes, either, folks—think heavy, plastic and brown). No, the optometrist wanted me in contact lenses because my eyesight was getting worse so quickly that he hoped having something physically on my eyeball might slow the changes down. I was excited to get contacts…but I was also worried, because I knew there was something really wrong with my eyes.
Now, at this point I’d worn my glasses for five years. I knew all about scratches and dirty lenses. I knew that screws sometimes come loose and your glasses just fall apart. I even knew that leaving them on the floor while taking a bath was a pretty fair guarantee that I would step on them as I got out—I learned that one the hard way. I’d grown used to them fogging up when I went from the cold winter outdoors into the heated school, and I understood what peripheral vision was…that blurry zone past the frames of my glasses to the sides. What was also clear to me is that I couldn’t see more than six inches in front of my face without my glasses on, and however inconvenient or unattractive they might have been, I couldn’t live without them.
So the day came when my mother and I went to the eye doctor and learned how to stick little circles of thin plastic onto my eyeballs…and my world changed. Suddenly, I had peripheral vision again. I could play outside and not worry that my glasses would slide off. I could actually read the labels on the shampoo bottles in the shower (think about it…can’t wear glasses in there!). No more worry about breaking my glasses, no more lenses fogging up, no more heavy plastic frames…I was in heaven. My corrected vision gave me a whole new perspective on life…I could finally really see everything around me. My vision was clear, there were no obstacles to what I could see, and I still love that moment when I put that little piece of plastic onto my eyeball and the whole world comes into focus.
Once upon a time, there was a Pharisee named Saul. He was zealous in defending the faith of the Jews, so when he heard that there were people claiming to follow the Messiah, Saul was quick to put a stop to it. One day he was on his way to Damascus to break up a group claiming that a man named Jesus of Nazareth had been the Messiah, when something shocking happened…a bright light shone around him, he fell to the ground, and when he got up, he couldn’t see anything at all. A voice told him, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Get up, go into the city.” So Saul went off, and met a man he’d come to kill, and found that his vision was corrected as he was reconciled to Jesus Christ and to his lifelong belief in God. Saul was completely changed, not outwardly, but inwardly, changed in nature and faith. Transformed by his encounter with Jesus Christ, Saul found himself so different from who he was before that he went so far as to take a new name, calling himself Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. And we know that Paul went on to become a kind of missionary priest, founding and supporting faith communities all over the known world, because the power of God had transformed him, reconciled him, reuniting him with God in Jesus Christ.
One of the ways that we think about this holy meal that is the Lord’s Supper is as the sacrament of reconciliation. We believe that there is power here at this table to bring about the transformation of lives, to make us truly one with Christ. This is what reconciliation is…being brought back to oneness with God, made new by God’s grace. In this grace-filled celebration, we believe that we can encounter Jesus here in some way, can have our hearts and minds and lives changed by the power and presence of Christ. We believe that here we can find reconciliation…but what does that mean for us?
When we are reconciled to God, when in Christ we are brought into right relationship with God, our vision, like Paul’s, is corrected. We cease to see with “worldly eyes”, distracted by all the busy-ness around us, clouded by a culture of materialism and me-ism and blinded to the work of God we are called to all around us. Instead, reconciliation with God opens our eyes to possibilities all around us, to the grace and mercy of God worked out in the lives of people we know and people we don’t, opportunities to make the kingdom of God visible to others as we respond to God’s goodness to us.
The hard thing about reconciliation is that it’s not about our initiative or even our benefit…it’s about coming into God’s vision for us and for the world. That means that at the Lord’s Table and in the other ways we are reconciled to God, we are transformed not for our own sakes, but for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of reconciling with others, and transforming the world. It’s not about correcting our flawed vision of the world, but about bringing others into Christ’s vision for the kingdom of God lived out here and now.
When we come to the Table, we often think it’s something we do for ourselves, a brief obedience to something in the Bible (something Paul reported in a letter to the Corinthian church, no less), a brief spiritual pick-me-up, a moment for quiet reflection and closeness with God at the altar…and it can be all those things. But when we come to this table in response to the presence of Christ in our lives, when we are looking for a little vision correction, we come to the table to learn what God is calling us to do in Christ, to be strengthened to do his work in the world, to be changed into the people of God in the kingdom of God. Reconciliation is not a change in us only for our own sakes, but for the sake of what God wants to see in the world…for lives to be changed…for new life to break out among God’s beloved.
A large part of Paul’s ministry after his conversion experience on the road to Damascus was calling the churches to live into God’s transforming, reconciling power in Jesus Christ. He called the churches to support one another, to make real in the world the vision Jesus taught, to participate in God’s work in the world with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Paul saw firsthand how we can get in the way of what God wants to do, how we can encounter Christ and leave without reconciliation, how we can leave the table and not bear fruit. In his letters, Paul writes to churches plagued by a lack of unity, by division and cliques and confusion about what the gospel meant, in a world where it was becoming increasingly clear that Christ’s return would not happen on their schedule. Paul knew, too, that it is possible for those who have become one with Christ to lose that closeness with God. We come to the Table often so that we can correct our vision against God’s vision, so that we can be reconciled again, so that God can do in us what we cannot: see the world, see ourselves, see our neighbor as God sees them.
Our calling then, is three-fold: to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, to be agents of reconciliation to others so that they might come to share God’s vision (Paul called us ambassadors for Christ), and to maintain that sense of vision that comes through our reconciliation. While in the weeks leading up to Easter, we practice a Lenten discipline of self-examination to help us live in the transforming power of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, this is not just a spiritual spring cleaning but a constant need in our lives to reflect on John Wesley’s question: how is it with your soul? How do we as Christians reveal God’s vision for the kingdom to one another and the world?
What happens when we are reconciled, made new, transformed into those who see with God’s vision, is that we are able to see what has been there for us all along: the power, grace, and mercy of God, made real to us by Jesus Christ, and kept alive in us by the Holy Spirit. God’s vision has been there all along: through slavery and exodus, through temples and foreign leaders, through persecution and state churches and all the damage that humankind can do to it. Reconciliation makes clear to us that which we see dimly: God’s love, Christ’s gift, the Spirit’s presence are real for all people and can and will and do change lives and change reality.
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he reminds the people called “Christian” of how often it is that we are to seek reconciliation with God: not once, but as often as we eat and drink, an ongoing process of watching ourselves to be sure that our vision is consistent with that of Christ. And just as getting contact lenses revealed to me clarity of sight and a broad field of vision I had not known before, so can our time at this table reveal to us the vision God has for you, and for me, for Ann Street church, and for the world: a world where we are all regarded as God’s beloved children, where the lost are found, the hungry are fed, the sick find company and comfort, and where the love and compassion of Jesus Christ are made known in God’s people. Here is where our errors are corrected and our sight made right. In this bread, in this cup, lives are changed, souls are set free, our vision is made clear, and we can be made one with the Lord of heaven and earth, who calls us to make his kingdom real for all his children. Let us eat, and drink, and be made one, whole, holy. Amen.

Did I mention

I'm supposed to be writing a sermon.
But I've run across this, and it's worth sharing:

You'd never end the story by turning us away
so why do we live as though we could do something that will stop you loving us?

You'd never end the story giving up waiting for us
so why do we live in fear of wearing out your patience?

You'd never end the story with a litany of our sins
so why do we live as though you see us through eyes of judgment?

You'd never end the story giving us one last warning
so why do we live in fear that your goodwill might run out?

You'd never end the story not recognising us
so why do we live thinking you don't know the shape of our souls?

You'd never end the story with outpourings of anger
so why do we live in fear of incurring your wrath?

You'd never end the story making us repay all we've taken
so why do we live as though we owe you for loving us?

You'd never end the story by taking us back as servants
so why do we live as though there are limits on your grace?

You'd never end the story with anything but love
so why do we live as though our story might end with anything but love?

(Cheryl Lawrie)

Coach K's response

"The fact that we've gone every year since 1996 is a story in itself," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "If you're in this tournament long enough, you're going to go down. There's 260 or 270 teams that don't get into this thing. It's not our birthright each year."

Bet that's not what he told the team at half-time, but there's dignity in it.

Not the best basketball season ever

I'm in mourning. The Blue Devils lost tonight.
Now, it's not deep mourning. To begin with, it's only a game. I realize that's a risky sentiment in eastern NC, but that's the truth. It's only entertainment, and despite attempts to connect deep truth to basketball, it just doesn't seem to have any real eternal significance.
I know. Blasphemy. Don't shoot me.
Frankly, the team that played tonight deserved to lose. They were outmatched by VCU. Last week they were outplayed by NC State, who deserved to win. Even so, it was physically painful to see it. The Devils fell apart in the second half, rallied, but just couldn't close the deal. As the announcer said, they haven't lost a first round game in what, the last two centuries?
But there's a time for everything, according to Ecclesiastes...a time to win, and a time to lose. This must be Duke's time (although that's anathema to the Arminian in me). To make a rational connection to all this, the Blue Devils are closer to an ordinary team this year. They can't all be great years, and God knows we've had more than our fair share. So this one's only okay...we won more than we lost, and there's always next year.
There's so much more important to focus on...I'm almost relieved it's over. For all the other fans out there (including my Tonya, who will be here next week), have fun. It is entertaining, and I don't begrudge you your fun, even though mine's done. But while we're dragging out our licensed collegiate logos and eating snacks while watching way too many hours of tournament play, let's not forget that there's more out there that really matters...how we live, and love, and worship, and treat one another. Just give it a thought, maybe during the commercials, okay?

This thing I have to do...

I am blocked...it's my turn to preach this weekend. We'll be celebrating Communion, so it will be a shorter meditation rather than a full length sermon. There are endless stories and themes in Scripture that could be maturing into an excellent sermon...but nothing is inspiring me at the moment. Even my faithful fallback, the lectionary (a 3 year cycle of readings that deals with the whole of the Bible as well as the cycle of the church year) has let me down; this week's text is the Parable of the Prodigals, and I think that's probably the one of the first sermons I posted here in January. I'll get there; I've just been distracted and tired and need to spend a little focused time reading and studying.
In other news, I've had great fun with music for our new service. Although attendance this week was about half what it was the first week, I think it's something more reasonable. Now we just have to work on reaching out to folks who are unchurched, which is our primary intended audience. What is interesting is that we also seem to be meeting a need in some of our "regular" members for a different kind of worship experience than we are able to offer on Sunday mornings. One of the original aims of this service as I remember it was to provide an alternative for some to the Sunday morning services...so we have a twofold goal. It will be interesting to see how that works out.
So back to the music: once upon a time in a prior life, I worked in Christian retail. While I was there, several exciting things happened: Christian fiction began to take itself seriously, with dramatically improved editing and plots. The Veggie Tales came out. Who knew singing, dancing, talking vegetables could be such fun? And Christian music began to move into the mainstream with new groups like Chris Rice (my favorite living musical theologian) and Third Day. So I learned a lot back then about modern worship music (its own genre at this point). It's been great fun to update what I knew and to learn some of the new material out there...some of it's quite good.
Well, guess I've avoided sermonizing enough for one evening. Time to hit the books!

Ski trip update update

Turns out we had one injury. One of the First UMC kids has a broken arm: Thursday night, before the ski trip, he ran into a basketball goal and hurt his arm. His parents didn't think it was broken, the physical therapist who was on the trip didn't think it was broken, and he didn't want to miss the ski trip. He was able to move all his fingers, and he spent all weekend alternating between skis and the snowboard...but today he's in a cast. Keep him in your prayers, but this is one tough kid!

It's good to be back

Okay, so here's the ski trip scoop:
The trip had a couple of very minor hitches that were very easily resolved. Was it ideal? No, it was warmish (60s) and we took too much stuff: too many clothes (except for mine, which never made it on the bus, but that's why God made Wal-Mart), way too much food (a good problem to have with a pack of ravening teenagers) and more games and movies than we could watch (see the last parenthetical comment).
But, we all got home safe and sound, with no major injuries (scrapes and bruises don't count) and no discipline issues that really mattered. The policy, incidentally, was for the second offense to require the "sinner" to sit with me, have his/her nails painted (I brought blue and pink) and hair braided and watch chick-flick movies, unless I felt that was something they would enjoy, and then we'd do something else. It must have been a good threat, because I didn't have so much as a time-out with any of them.
I can't say that I'm ready to go again, exactly, my spine really objects to the bus ride...but would I take our kids again, knowing that they enjoyed it this time? You bet!

Chimes Article March 12 (Ski Trip)

Ponderous Thoughts

“I don’t have a pet, but if I did, I’d name him ‘Peeve.’” --Anonymous

Sometimes we just need a good laugh!
I am safely back from the MYF ski trip, and I managed to bring everyone back with all their parts intact. Sure, there were some scrapes and bruises, but everyone seemed to have a good time, and we didn’t lose anything major (maybe a hat here or a glove here). We also all had a pretty good time. We took one youth who wasn’t able to ski due to an injury, and he went snow-tubing with some of the other youth. We had one who took a pretty hard fall the first night, and she got up the next morning (sore) and went to take a ski lesson…after that, she couldn’t be stopped! We even ate great food and stayed in nice rental houses (which may never be the same).
You know, there were lots of moments there when we could have found something to be annoyed at: the bus was not as big this trip as we needed, and so a parent had to drive her own car, even though we had planned to all go on the bus. It’s a long, long, long bus ride in really close quarters, and there are never enough beds to go around on a trip like this. There were 4 bathrooms for 44 people…do the math. But we really didn’t let ourselves get peevish (you knew I’d get that quote in here somehow!)—instead we mostly succeeded in laughing things off, learning to have a good time despite living in each other’s back pockets, and we must have done okay…next year we want to go for 4 days!
Thanks for your prayers and good wishes…a good time was had by all!

Anne
PS: Many many thanks to Keith, the only other adult from our group to go, for his unfailing even temper and grace. Hey, Keith, want to go next time?

Home sweet home

We've had a pretty good ski trip. No one was hurt beyond scrapes and bruises, everyone was fairly well-behaved, and we all got back home safely. All the hours in the bus have left me a bit sore, but I'm home and all is well and that suits me fine. Sometime this week I'll try to post some photos.

Or maybe not

Scrambling to get ready for the ski trip...

Not so disciplined

I started this blogging business as a kind of spiritual discipline, an attempt to do a little journaling with some consistency, and on that level, I've done okay (not great, but okay). But the last two weeks have been tough. I've been busier than usual, which is impressive for me, since I view busy as basically a way of life. I've been really preoccupied with the new worship service, although I feel a lot better about it now that the first service has gone so well.
I have to say that I'm a little impressed with myself. I've generated (with lots of help and input) multiple PowerPoint presentations, which I've taught myself. I've designed multiple ads, from flyers and handouts to newspaper and slick copy. I've read and studied a fair bit in the last 3 or 4 months about worship, particularly contemporary worship, emergent church, and looking ahead for some direction into what to expect for and from the UMC. That's been a pretty substantial amount of work, but I've really enjoyed it.
And now it's time for the ski trip. Friday morning we'll load up 42 kids and adults into a charter bus and head for West Virginia, for skiing, snowboarding, and snow tubing. I will be in the house, spending my time making hot chocolate and maybe cookies, and tending to whichever folks aren't on the slopes (Ben among them). If we have wireless access, which I doubt, I'll post updates and maybe some pictures. If not, there will be a few more days I don't manage to blog.
As weak as this effort is, it's all I've got for tonight. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

The most exceptional child

This is my niece Jamie, the most exceptional child ever. I am involved in a campaign to be her favorite aunt, which should be tough...she's got two more. But she is a gorgeous child, and she's just started walking!

Newsletter 03/05/07

This week's newsletter article...


Not-so-Ponderous Thoughts

“Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God's Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present.” --Phil. 1, The Message

I cannot say “Thank you” enough to the folks who have helped our contemporary worship service come together, but I’m going to try. Thank you to:
John Daniels for his encouragement and support, for getting and “setting” our table, tireless posting of fliers, and great ideas about getting our message across.
Anna Stanley in her worship chair capacity for our outdoor banner, for great ideas and constant consideration for how best to put the service together, and for her leadership. And thanks to Anna and to Greg Ehrler and Sue Way for patiently listening to the worship team rehearse and running the sound system and powerpoint.
Lee Jones (and Geri) for helping us figure out logistics and “strategery,” for setting up the room, and for being willing to help in any way they could.
Dan Krautheim for the dogwood cross, reminding us that Christ sees the beauty in us and calls us to come to him as we are.
Five:19, our worship team, including Constance Sowers, Jeremy Ganey, Steve Stanley, Fran Krautheim, Britney Gatto, and John McLeod—your “joyful noise” sounds great and gives life to our worship.
Joyce Fulford and Betty Peterson, who took a barely formed idea and made a worship banner that perfectly expresses how Christ welcomes us to come…and it’s got shells on it!
Harriette Kirk, for lending us her artistic skills on the flyer, for sending out public service announcements and newspaper ads, for her good cheer and encouragement.
The UMYF for being good sports about sharing their time and space with this new service.
Thanks to Eric, for having the vision to start this service and letting me do pretty much whatever I wanted and needed to do to help make it happen.
And to all of you, for your prayers and encouragement, for telling your neighbors and friends, for your support and witness…keep it up! Small flyers (suitable for giving to friends, family, and neighbors) are available in the office, and ya’ll come any Sunday night to sing and worship with us.
Anne

And it was GOOD!

I'm tired, hoarse, and wound up...but the worship service tonight was great. Everything came together. The table looked great, and I think folks got the symbolism of all the different pictures of people, the mirror, the "wormy" cross, and our theme of "Come as you are".
The worship team was great. PowerPoint came together and flowed well...if anything, I have more placeholders than necessary, but no worries. There's plenty of time to fix that. Sound was good, after some issues early in the afternoon. Five:19 (the band) was terrific, and people really seemed to enjoy the music, which makes me happy. Everyone did such a terrific job!
We've really tried to do a new thing, at least for us, and in my reading I haven't found anyone doing quite what we want to, not in the way we want to. It will be fun to see if we are successful at creating a new worshipping body that integrates itself into the life of the larger congregation at Ann Street. No way to tell after just one service, but I'm so excited, and so pleased, and so thankful. I really don't think it could have gone any better.

New service photos

Finally remembered to borrow the digital camera and take some pix.
Our Cross, handmade from wormy dogwood by a church member:











Some wonderful ladies in the church designed the banner and made it for us.
















This week's table design, reminding us that Christ welcomes us to "come as we are"

Come As You Are...

This is the picture Eric's using as a visual for his message "Come As You Are"

This is the day!

This is it...tonight we have the first one of our new contemporary worship services. At 7pm we'll find out if all our advertising and word of mouth "buzz" has done any good. I know we've got some great suppport from the church, but it's the unfamiliar faces I'm really hoping to see.
We're as ready as we can be; the last worship team practice is at 1:30 this afternoon, my lunch is ready (can't face today without one good meal) and I even have a volunteer worship designer who is coming to help set up our worship area. The powerpoint's done, the custodian's going to be setting up chairs this afternoon, and we've got nametags for our greeters and those who want them. If only I could settle down just a bit--I'm nervous. It's happy excited butterflies nervous, but nervous nonetheless.
Hopefully late this evening I'll be able to post some photos and an update about how all this has gone.

What a week!

It's been a bit more than typically busy this week. Eric was out sick, this is the last week before the start of the new service, and the carpet guys were back yesterday. And I had a migraine Monday night, which made Tuesday a bit of a challenge (I wore sunglasses most of the day).
But an end is in sight. Eric was back in the office today, and while we had decided on Wednesday that I would preach this week, he offered today to preach, and I let him. I was really struggling for something to preach about. This week we have a baptism and also will celebrate Preschool Sunday, where we extend a special invitation to the families of the children in the preschool program to come to the church. The children will sing a few songs, and I will have the children's sermon with a real crowd; last I heard there are 17 families coming that are not church members, as well as a couple of families that are. The kids are used to coming over each week for Chapel Talks in the sanctuary, so they are familiar with and comfortable in our worship space. And we'll have the opportunity to plug the new worship service, which is good.
So in addition to all that, Ben's mother, who is nearly 80, was so debilitated by an outbreak of shingles that she was having to have her friends stay with her in Alabama 24/7. She did not tell her children this; we knew she was sick but we had no idea she was that weak. Instead a friend called Ben's brother on Wednesday to tell him that someone needed to come care for Mary Lou or she'd have to be hospitalized. Since then, she has improved somewhat, but we don't think she'll ever go back to her home again, at least not to live. There's a place for her at a retirement facility but it's basically an independent living thing, and right now she's not able to care for herself enough to go there. And assisted living means Medicaid, which we'd all like to avoid at this point. We're basically waiting for the phone call telling us when to go to AL and help pack up the house and dispose of her things.
So here's where I am this week: no time to read, a new worship service less than 2 days from its start, and I'm tired. But, I went out on a date with Ben tonight: a double feature of our own making, "Music and Lyrics" and "Wild Hogs". It was fun, and nice to go do something that was just for us. Tomorrow I'm committed to rest and housecleaning, which will be a good thing. And Sunday's the big day!