It’s the last Sunday of the month, which means we will also have our monthly communion service this evening as well, but I wanted to get the morning done before I forgot anything.

It was slime Sunday today for the kids… we studied the story of David & Bathsheba, and Mrs. J related it to the kids by explaining that even though David (a man after God’s own heart) really messed up – and then messed up again and again by trying to fix it on his own – God still loved him, and God was still there to help him.  Her illustration involved smearing ketchup and mustard (murder & adultry) on a picture of King David along with a few other things and mixing it together  Then she had to use a few paper towels to clean it up, and that ball of paper towels kept growing and growing as she tried to clean up her mess.  It was a great visual!  You can listen in by clicking here.

We also had a few minutes set aside to honor her for her service to our church and the kids this morning.  It was so cool to see everyone giving her a standing ovation as a thank you for what she has done!  Due to some outside circumstances she is taking some time off from Children’s ministry and the parents are stepping in to fill the gap until we have a new children’s director.  She will be missed in the children’s dept., but this time will hopefully be refreshing for both her and Mark.  Thank you Mrs. J for all that you have done and continue to do in the lives of our kids!

Oh yeah… the song list.

• Sing Sing Sing [G]
• Your Grace Is Enough [F]
• Glorious [G]
• My Jesus I Love Thee [Bm] Brading
• kids message & thank you to Vicki
• He Reigns [D]
• announcements
  
• Message – David & Bathsheba
  
• Your Grace Is Enough – Reprise

This is the 3rd week for Sing Sing Sing, and I think they’ve got it!  As usual everyone was chatting before service so Warren & Chris just started in with the rhythm and we started singing… it really is the best way to get their attention some days!  I gave Your Grace Is Enough a tiny intro, just because it’s the first week we’ve ever led it.  It’s played on the radio a TON up here though, so about 2/3rds of the congregation already knew it 9which always helps!)

Glorious is a fav. of our church and we haven’t done it in a while (it, like Martin Smith’s Majesty, kept getting bumped for other things).  It was nice to do it again, and it was even better to see people just worshiping!  I think that’s the best part of my job – I get to look out across our family of believers and see their love for our amazing and awesome God each week.  It’s just cool!

Karen led My Jesus I Love Thee – but this isn’t strictly the traditional hymn.  Brading has re-done it with a slight R&B flavor that really fits it well.  It builds from a solo & keys for the first verse to a full band with lots and lots of sound by the 3rd verse, then drops it back down to just keys and voices.  As an added bonus it’s fun to sing    It’s on the Unified Worship Series Modern Hymns cd, along with some other great stuff.  The Contemporary Hymns cd is also a great one.

The kids got out their wooden instruments for He Reigns, which is always a challenge for the first little bit.  Warren made sure he played nice and loud so we could keep the beat over the cacaophany of sound coming from the kids.  They had the rhythm by the chorus and kept a good beat for the rest of the song, and it worked out great.

The message today was on temptation, and Pastor Chris did a great job! You can listen by clicking here.  We finished up with a reprise of Your Grace Is Enough and sent everyone out to enjoy this sunshine we keep getting.  Some may be a tad unhappy with me right now though, because it’s lovely and cloudy at the moment.  Oops!  I guess my wish came true!  I like my sunshine in short 2-3 day spurts, and not too hot, which I jokingly made mention of this morning.  Oh well.

I’ll post the setlist from this evenings service later – possibly tomorrow morning.  It’s our last evening communion service for the Summer, so I’m hoping for a better turn out (fingers crossed!)  This is part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist carnival – see what worship leaders around the country did!

So, how was your service this morning?

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Um… yeah.

So it’s Memorial Day weekend, and a bright and sunny one at that.  We were a little lower on attendance, but not a huge amount.  Pastor Chris showed a great video (from To End All Wars, I believe) that reminded us the cost of our freedom (wow, it was powerful!) and then tied it in very nicely with his sermon on Grace.  We are still studying King David, so the passage for this week was from 2 Samuel 9 – the story of David & Mephibosheth.

Over all it was a great service!  A little convicting from time to time, but I’ll get to that.

The set:

• Sing Sing Sing [G]
• Desert Song [D]
• God of Wonders [F]
• How Great Is Our God [F]
• kids message
• Every Move I Make [G]
• announcements
• video & prayer
• message
• How Great Is Our God recap

It’s a great set… when your worship leader doesn’t decide to dump a bottle of water on the keyboard and pianist.  Yep.  It was a lesson in self control and learning to not be so sarcastic (and such a smart you-know-what).  Oy.  Fortunately, the keyboard still mostly worked – a few keys didn’t want to play at all, and a few played extra loud.  I may be taking my keyboard down for a few weeks until I can afford to replace it.  Ugh.

It personally tied in with the message quite well though.  Nancy was so gracious about being fully baptized 25 minutes before the service started.  Everyone else was gracious about not getting on me for causing issues with having to clean everything up (and possibly ruining the keyboard) and I got a little lesson on learning to curb myself a bit.

That being said, I was a little off today.  I was feeling bad about Nancy being soaked (through the whole service!) and about the clunky sound coming through the speakers.  I was distracted, but tried to simply worship in the midst of it all.  It always amazes me how He meets us wherever we are, in the midst of what ever circumstances we find ourselves in.  It’s amazing.

I pray that this is a close to watered-down as our worship (or our faith) ever gets!  Oh, and that I stop threatening to throw things at people who smart off at (with) me.

So, have you ever had technical difficulties that you were solely responsible for?  How did you handle it?

As always, this is part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist carnival.

I know, I’m late.  But I have a good excuse!  We drove south to a friends house and spent the afternoon at the park playing Catan.  Quite fun, even if we were freezing in the 75 degree weather… yes, I was cold and it was 75F outside.  Disclaimer: we were sitting in a very shady grove surrounded by big trees with a breeze blowing and we were all in tanks tops and shorts.  Brrr!  But I won, by 2 points if I recall.

So, back to the service… I get so easily distracted!

The songs:

• Sing, Sing, Sing [G]
• Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) [F]
• O Worship The King [F]
• kids message
• Here I Am to Worship [E]
• announcements
• message “Why Not Take All Of Me”
• Made To Worship [F]
• Take My Life [D]
• communion message
• Lead Me To The Cross [E]
• taking the Lord’s Supper
• Reign In Us [F]

Yep, that’s a LOT of songs!  The message was on worship, and was taken from the passage in 2 Samuel 6 where King David attempts to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem (resulting in a death) – and then gets it right and is able to bring it.  We moved a couple of songs to the end of the message so that people could get some “practical application” before they left, and my hope is that they left with the knowledge that worship is so much more than a few songs sung on a Sunday morning!  I have to admit that I was wishing Pastor Chris had picked a different title – I kept having the old jazz chart “All Of Me” going through my head, and it was annoying.  (looooong story having to do with my college jazz band and our honeymoon)

Sing Sing Sing was a new one today, and it went over really well… well, other than me starting the repeat of verse 1 with the words of verse 2… oops!  Fortunately I caught it on about the 3rd word, so I saved it pretty quickly.  I think I like it, and I think that a decent enough group of people knew it that it will catch on pretty quickly.  That and the fact that it repeats the same thing A LOT.  Repetition is a good thing when you are trying to learn something!

I read Luke 19:37-40 at this point to remind all of us why we worship God – first, we worship Him because He is worthy and deserving of our praise and adoration, and second because if we don’t do it the earth will have to!  It’s a good reminder.

That flowed wonderfully into Hosanna (Praise Is Rising) which is a fav of our church.  We followed that with O Worship The King (which I kept blanking out on the words for… oy!) and then had the kids come up early for their message.

For the kids song we sang Here I Am to Worship, and it was cool to see even the little ones getting into singing and clapping and doing the hand motions for it.  I still struggle with the bridge, because I think we will see the true cost of our sin one day… but other than that I love the song.

The message should be live tomorrow if you’re interested (and it was a pretty good one).  You can check it out here.

The band came back up and we led Made To Worship (a new one for me) and Take My Life (as sung by Chris Tomlin & Christy Nockles).  It was pretty powerful.  Take My Life is a song that can go on and on and on if you have the time for it… which I was really wishing we had this morning!

Jim shared a story that made communion a little easier for the kids to understand (since they were back in with us this morning) The story was about 2 boys that were friends, and one of them got sick and died.  He asked his friends to continue to celebrate his birthday even after he was gone, and to look forward to the day that they would all be together again.  I saw a few people wiping teary eyes by the end of it (I’ll even admit that it moved me, cold heart that I have

We led Lead Me To The Cross while the elements were passed out (which I bumped to E this week – SO much easier to sing!) and then Jim prayed over the bread and juice and took it together.

Since it was already 11:33, we just did the 2nd bridge and chorus of Reign In Us (you know, the part that they chop off when it’s played on the radio… grrr) and sent everyone out with that.

It was a good day.

People were entering in – lifting their hands, focusing on God rather than each other, and lifting their voices to God.  It was another of those days that I find it harder to “lead” because I just want to worship.  I’m still trying to find that balance… and I suspect that it will take a long time to get there!  I try to remember to make eye contact with those that seem to like that… but I’d much rather be in the background just singing to God than in the front.

Some thoughts on worship, since we are on the topic.

We serve a holy God… a God that deserves everything that we are!  He created us to worship Him, and whether we choose Him as our object of worship or not, we will worship something.  It is what we were created to do.  Whatever we give our time, energy and money to is what we worship… there is a saying that you can tell what someone worships by looking at their bank account.  You can also tell by watching how they live out their lives.

I know that I have been guilty lately of letting other things take that place in my life, and I haven’t been living out my life as an act of worship every day.  Just take a look at my living room to see the lack of excellence there!  Actually, don’t.  It’s embarrassing.

At our home group this week we were asked the following question:  What is an idol in your life?  Even though Eric laughed at the truth in it, I had to admit that the internet can at times become an idol rather than a tool.  There are days that begin and end with me sitting here with the laptop open and running, facebook or twitter going strong.  The internet is NOT supposed to be the beginning and the end in my life, God is!  He is the alpha and omega, but I have allowed something else to take that position from time to time.  That realization came on Friday as I was leaving a meeting with Pastor Chris.  Oy!  How easy it is to allow other things take too much of our precious time!

So, I will be working on that.

As much as I will miss constant updates of some new-found friends and acquaintances I have found on twitter and facebook, I will not be allowing myself to spend quite as much time there.  I need to nip this in the bud (so to speak) before it completely takes over my life!  Oh, and I really need to get the house picked up.  No, really.  I have family coming for a visit next month, and I’m sure they would appreciate sleeping on a futon that isn’t piled high with junk and having a shower that’s clean and shiny to use.  And a bathroom that isn’t full of piled up laundry.  And we need clothes to wear.

So, that is my confession for the week, as well as my prayer request – that I will be able to control the urge to be constantly online, to be constantly checking for status updates and new tweets, and to actually get work done!  I also pray that I will let God be the beginning and ending of my day… that I will let Him guide me from the moment I open my eyes and throughout my day to whatever He has for me.

And now I have a question for you…

How do you define worship?

I’m looking forward to reading the answers…

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Wow… that was a long one!  If you made it this far, congrats!  And thanks for reading…

Did I mention that we had Vietnamese Spring rolls for lunch?  Or were they Summer rolls… not sure.  They were the hard-rice-stuff-dipped-in-water wrapped ones – very fresh, very yummy.  That’s the treat for anyone that made it all the way through!

As always, part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist blog carnival!

First, Happy Mother’s Day to all of the fabulous mom’s out there!  I hope you had a wonderful day!

Our day was lovely thus far (except for the headache).  I had a semi-relaxed morning before church (which NEVER happens), I got to wear a pretty flower corsage that Nani made me (at Michael’s) and a fun afternoon that included lunch with friends and a matinee with Eric & the girls.  The only problem was having to sit so close to the screen which gave me a massive headache.

But I digress, as that’s not why you are here…

The list…

• Not To Us [F]
• Jesus Messiah [E]
• Desert Song [D]
• Grace Like Rain [Am]
• kids message
• Beautiful One [C]
• announcements
• message – Moms 360
• Doxology

Not to Us is a great song to start off with, but I’m not sure that everyone was ready for us to start.  Some were still chatting and laughing well into the song (which was distracting to me, if no one else).  Oh well.

After this morning I have decided something.  I don’t much like to sing Jesus Messiah.  The worst part is that I can’t put my finger on why I don’t like to sing it… I just don’t.  It always seems too slow when it’s the correct tempo and it’s too fast when it seems that the tempo is good.  Weird.  Any tips?  Please?  Perhaps it needs to become a communion song.  I had it second as it always seems like it should be a fast song, but then I am reminded that it really isn’t.  Oops.

We did Desert song for the 2nd time today and I think it worked well… I was a “bad” leader on that song as I had closed my eyes and just worshiped along with everyone else.  ;~)  I really like that one, and I am in debt to the many other worship leaders that opened my eyes to it.  Thanks!

Grace Like Rain is another great song that I love, but the tempo seemed… off today.  Could have been just me though, I felt a little too tired or something.  And it felt a little too low… but then, many songs feel that way to me.

We led Beautiful One for the kids, and they all loved it.  It’s so fun to watch our children getting into worshiping God!  Jen led the motions to it and 90% of the kids were participating.  A couple were a little too young to keep up and Nanika chose instead to stand up with me.

After church people spent lots of time chatting and fellowshiping… and there were chocolate dipped strawberries!  Yum! THen we had lunch at Bajio (Mexican) and went to see Star Trek.  Yep, it was a good one.  Highly recomend it.  Gonna have to buy it when it comes out on DVD.  And there is my entirely unspiritual ending to my Sunday Setlist once again!

Eric is working on dinner now – lamb chops, twice baked potates, asparagus, homemade rolls and homemade cheesecake for dessert.  I am a blessed woman!  The bread is baking now and it smells WONDERFUL.  The cheesecake was baked yesterday, and the potatoes are almost ready to go in.  A lovely ending to a lovely Mother’s Day!

As always, this is part of Fred’s blog carnival.  If you want to take part – or just read about other church’s services – check out the carnival over at FredMcKinnon.com

Wow, I can’t believe it’s May already!  It was a busy weekend for us before we ever got to church, so yesterday was spent resting.  Sorry for the delay!

Das liszt…

• Everlasting God
• Desert Song
• AG (My Chains Are Gone)
• Indescribable
• kids message
• Everything To God
• announcements
• message – He Said What?
• I Will Rise
• Communion
• Amazing Grace – verse 1, acapella

Most of the songs on the list are very well known… to make up for the newer ones, of course!  Desert Song kept coming up on these lists a couple of months ago, so I had to check it out.  Yesterday was the first Sunday we led it, and it seemed to be pretty well received.  We don’t quite have the members to pull it off like the recording, so instead we added & subtracted people from time to time to add dynamics.  It was a very fun song to plan out, oh, and to sing too!

We did Everything To God again this week, to give the kids (and adults) another chance to learn it.  Once again we slowed it down a tad to make catching those breaths a little bit easier.  The kids did a better job of keeping up with the motions this week too (perhaps because they had seen them before?)

Art led I Will Rise for communion and it sounded great.  It was just the 2 of us singing this week, so I managed to squeeze in a few harmonies here and there and let him lead most everything.   We sang I WIll Rise for Easter with the choir, so it’s still a pretty new song (for those not in choir) but people seem to like it, and were singing along.

Sorry… I’m still beat from the lack of sleep last week, so I’m not terribly talkative today.  Not even the knowledge that I have tickets in my little hand for Wicked is adding to the excitement today.  I just hope I’m not getting sick…

How was your weekend?

as always, if you want to check out the rest of these, head over to Fred’s blog!

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Part of Fred’s carnival.  See what other worship leaders are doing too @ Fred’s blog.

This morning was fun!  There were lots of people out sick, traveling or enjoying the sun (who knows) but there were also a few new faces.  We started a little more low-key than normal, and I was thrilled to see that many people were lifting their hands and fully entering into worship by the chorus of the first song – yay!

I was going to upload a vlog here, but I can’t get it to load (and I’m tired of messing with it) so you just get a normal blog today.  Sorry!

Da list:

• Reign In Us [F] Starfield
• Lifesong [G] Casting Crowns
• Praise Adonai [Am] Baloche
• Sweetly Broken [F] Riddle
• kids message
• Everything To God [F] Anderson
• announcements
• message – Patience
• Reign In Us [F] – short version

Again, it was so great to see people really entering into worship way early in the first song.  It was the third week we had done Reign In Us, and between us leading it and it starting to be played on the radio, I think people are starting to know it pretty well.  And the bad did is flawlessly   the transitions were perfect!

We followed that up with Lifesong, which we haven’t done in about a year.  When we used to sing it we had an amazing tenor who led it (and he nailed it every single time – it was fabulous!)  Unfortunately, we no longer have Ernie… we have me (NOT a tenor) and Art (an amazing baritone) so we made do.  I was pushing for doing it in A, but everyone else thought the chorus would be too high (boo!) so we dropped it to G (too low on the verses for me) and Art led the verses while I led the chorus. I think it worked out well, but I’d love to hear back from someone else who was there!

Then we moved to Praise Adonai (another one we haven’t done in months) and Warren went to town on the drums.  He was making all kinds of cool sounds back there using his 8″ tom and the plastic ends of his hott sticks.  It was kewl.

Confessional time:  Sweetly Broken is a song I love to hat, or hate to love, or something like that.  I love the chorus, the lyrics are great… I just can’t ever remember how the dumb thing starts!  Oy!  I think it goes back to the first time I tried to lead it (ever) and TOTALLY BOMBED!!!!  No, really.  Complete blank on how it started, how it went, etc.  It was bad.  So, now that memory haunts me every time I lead it.  It brings it’s bad ju-ju with it.  BUT, I love the song, and keep getting requests to lead it, so I guess it’s working out now!

Mrs. J came up after that for the kids message and used dandelions to share about patience.  You can check out that message here, if you’re interested.

This is where we kicked up the morning (it had been pretty laid-back up to this point).  We introduced Everything To God (from New Life Worship) for the kids song.  Oh, and we slowed it down just a little bit.  Made it easier to play and gave opportunity to grab an extra breath here and there.  Oy.  I think it went over pretty well for the first time – especiall as we were teaching everything – including motions.

Pastor Chris taught on patience this morning, as we continued out voyage through the life of King David.  We started out in 1 Samusl 26, following the story of when David was being chased by Saul, and David walked into the sleeping camp and took Saul’s spear and water jug – but not his life.  David had many opportunities to take matters into his own hands, but he chose instead to wait on God’s timing.  That must have been hard, as he was anointed king 15 years before he was crowned (and then it was only over Judah).  It was a great message – if you are interested it will be available for listening later today over here.

We ended the service with the 2nd bridge and chorus of Reign In Us, which fit really well with the message – I just love it when God does that, don’t you?

That was our morning… now onto the evening service.

Once a month we have an evening communion service – a time of worship, prayer and communion as a body.  Those that attend it say that it’s a service that they really enjoy, and that they like the chance to just gather together and spend time with God as a body.  Unfortunately not too many people make it.  Last night there was an equal number of people leading and sitting in the pews (actually, 2 of the men in the pews were helping lead) so I’m somewhat discouraged.  BUT – I have had people thank me for taking the time to lead this service even though it’s not well attended yet because it was something that they really needed.  It’s my favorite service too

The list of music:

• Agnus Dei
• How Marvelous/I Stand Amazed (Tomlin’s version)
• intro to communion
• Lest I Forget (Rebecca St. James)
• Jesus Blood (Martin Smith)
• Once Again
• All I Have
• time of corporate prayer
• Hungry (Kathryn Scott)
• Only You (Andy Park)

Yeah, it was a pretty Vineyard-heavy night, but it worked really well.  I usually try to incorporate a few scripture readings into the bridges of songs, but I only found one for last night (I think I was a little distracted by a kitchen remodel last week or something).  This used to be a candlelight service… but it’s at 6pm, and the sun isn’t going down until around 7:30-8:00 these days, so we skipped all of the candles.  Makes it easier to see the music though!

There isn’t too much to say about this service, except that it was nice to just spend the time in worship of our amazing God.  Much less “Am I doing this right?” stress and just praising God with the benefit of a band to play along.  Oh, and I got to sing a little more harmony which is ALWAYS a good think in my book!

Well, that was our weekend!  I’m heading around to read about some others, but I’d love to hear how yours went too!

What a beautiful Spring day!  The clouds have rolled in a bit, but it’s still 61F outside this afternoon – I’ll take it!

We picked up our series on the King of Hearts this morning after taking a break for Palm Sunday & Easter, and our topic this morning was on friendship – as exemplified by David and Jonathan.  We all want a Jonathan, don’t we?  Someone who is willing to sacrifice everything they have for us… but God is calling us to more that having a Jonathan for a friend – He is calling us to BE a Jonathan to someone.  That, my friends, is much harder to do!

Well, since I wasn’t in the mood to sing Friends, and I don’t know too many other songs that have to do with friendship, we didn’t follow the theme too closely this morning.  Here is the list of what we did sing, however!

• You’re Worthy Of My Praise [E]
• God of Wonders [F]
• Reign In Us [F] (Starfield)
• The Solid Rock [D]
• kids msg.
• Love The Lord  (Lincoln Brewster)
• announcements
• message – Two of A Kind
• When I Survey The Wondrous Cross – CHOIR
• communion

The first two songs kinda call for a male/female lead… and I am so thankful that Art decided to go ahead and come today even though he wasn’t feeling well!  I ended up singing with him for a lot of it and letting the other 3 ladies do the echoes, since his voice was not it normal full-bodied self today.  Something I can relate with entirely too well lately!

God of Wonders posed a small problem during our rehearsal… we sang this a LOT at CCB, but we sang it slightly differently than the team is used to singing it.  Oops!  So there I was hapily singing along from memory and I started in on the alternate chorus as I am used to… and everyone else stopped.  They skip to the “Precious Lord” instead of starting over with “God of Wonders” (which I am used to doing).  Oops!  That also means that the charts I typed were… incorrect.  Oh well.

This was the 2nd week for Reign In Us, and a few more people were singing along (some were even raising their hands – yay!)  We skipped last week for it since it was Easter, so it had been two weeks since we sang it last.  I think we’ll do it next week to, just to help it get in there.  Fiting that chart all on one page (and still have it readable) is a challenge – and our chart has arrows all over it directing you to the next spot!  Eventually it will become second nature, but until then there will still be the pauses as everyone remembers where we are going to next!  We are getting it though.

The version of The Solid Rock that we do is the Passion one, and we stick pretty close to that.  We haven’t done it for a bit, simply because we didn’t have the chart.  It’s a great one though, and people really seemed to be entering in.

Then there’s the kids song…

I’ve seem Lincoln Brewster perform this live, and I LOVED it (even when I was sick of doing it).  Unfortunately, we don’t sound like Lincoln Brewster, and it often turns into the song that never ends – ever.  My sweet husband kept grinning in amusement during it this morning, and I nearly broke down because I know what he was thinking.  I hope it passed off as more of a hiccup that a giggle, but I can’t be too sure.  It’s a great song, and the kids love it… it just goes on and on and on and on…

It was a communion Sunday today, and instead of the band leading a song, we had the choir sing their song from our Good Friday service so that more people could hear it.  Karen requested that Jennifer join her on the solo since she is also fighting off a cold, and it sounded great.  From what I heard today, people were blessed by it.  This is a very different arrangement of it – set to a tune similar to “The Water Is Wide” that starts with a solo, addsin female voices, then adds in men and harmonies for the third verse.  It is gorgeous!

Again, the sermon was on being a friend to those around you.  If you are interested in hearing it, you can head over to FalconRidgeFellowship.com – it’s worth the listen, if only for the childhood stories and the hike.  Yes Chris, I’m making sure that those get heard!  LOL

Well, that was our day, how was yours?

As always, this is part of Fred’s carnival – click here to see what other churches are doing all over the world!

Yes, today celebrates THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY IN HISTORY.  No other day has more significance since God created the earth.  And it’s been a great day so far!

We had a couple of special extras this morning – namely the choir and a drama.  It was very fun.  But I will go through the list before I get into that.

• Everlasting God [Ab]
• Lord, Light the Firs Again [D]
• How Great Is Our God [A]
• I Will Rise [Ab] – CHOIR
• In Christ Alone [G] CHOIR
• kids message
• Here I Am To Worship [D]
• announcements
• Security Check – drama
• Message
• How Great Is Our God – reprise

These are all songs that we know really well, and they worked out great.  Art ended up leading most everything, and had the solo on I Will Rise (which sounded great – thanks Art!)  Chris switched between bass & piano again this morning… that pastor of ours is one talented guy, and we are blessed to have him!

The kids did motions on Here I Am To Worship (which was slightly shortened today) and they seemed to enjoy that almost as much as getting to open Ms. Vicki’s Easter Eggs!

The drama was performed by Larry & Carol (with a little bit of help from Art) and they did a great job!  It was set in “God’s waiting room” as they were waiting to get into heaven.  “Roy” had died of a heart attack and had brought along a duffle bag of all of his trophies to earn his way into heaven, but he found himself sitting and waiting for a really long time.  Sue had died in a car crash and hadn’t brought anything with her.  As he was showing her all of his life’s accomplishments she tried to explain that the price of admission into heaven had already been paid, but he didn’t quite believe in that.  When her name was called before his, he didn’t understand how she got to go in before him, since he had brought along his “insurance.”

The message will be available online tomorrow if anyone wants to hear it.  Pastor Chris talked about how we are all yearning for forgiveness, and we weren’t designed to carry around guilt.  It was entertaining and convicting all rolled together.  The funniest part was when he got an “Amen” from his wife…  He had just joked about how if we get to know him we would know that he has some attributes that aren’t terribly “God-like” to show how he isn’t perfect… fortunately everyone heard HER amen, and not mine!

We had a full house today which was nice to see.  The place was comfortably packed and people were looking for seats.  The only row that was completely empty was the front row in front of the projector!  Hopefully a few people make it back next week.

How was YOUR Easter Sunday?

As always, this is part of Fred’s Sunday Setlist Carnival.  Check it out!