My group got to leave the sanctuary partway through the service to go see the teenagers’ Sunday school stuff.
It was so neat, and honestly more … fulfilling? than the upstairs sermon.
Easier to follow.
So… yeah.
Today was a good day.
I let go in church today.
Last week I was pretty reserved, only really tapping my foot. Until we were required to join the dancing procession toward the end. But that’s only like once a month or something.
Anyway, this morning I kept getting this … urge, I guess, to raise my arms.
I resisted it for the first song or so, but eventually I just did it.
And a few moments later, through closed eyes, I saw a camera flash, and somehow knew it was on me.
And that’s totally fine.
So there was that, and then there was teenager Sunday school, which was neat.
It was entertaining, as well as educational.
The teacher spoke on Ecclesiastes 12, connecting it to Solomon and David, 1 Samuel 17, and foundations.
It was really interesting, and the kids were pretty great.
Some of them have interesting names, and some have “normal” names. It was neat hearing some of the different ones. 🙂
And then we met with the families we’ve been assigned to interview, some only briefly. My group’s was very short, setting up another time to meet with our person.
And then I went to find the people I was riding back to school with. Two were just about finished with their meeting, and then we went to find the girl driving.
She was still in her meeting, so the other two and I just hung out in the hallway, which happened to be outside the Sunday school classrooms. Lots of little kids running around. It was cute. We made a friend!
And then we came back to campus and I ate lunch and have been on the internet since.
I’m waiting for my prof to email us the study guide for Tuesday’s test…
And listening to sermons and stuff. Quite interesting.
Sounds like at least a couple of people are coming over for a while tonight to play games or something. If I get my study guide tonight, I might go study instead of hanging out in the room. But we’ll see.
It always gets ridiculously warm in our apartment, and it’s really annoying. 😦 But the study room is warm, too, because it’s near the boiler room. So. Eh. =\
But hopefully we’ll get the study guide tonight, because I’m sure some of my classmates have to work pretty much all day tomorrow and can’t really study…
So, so far today has been great! I’m looking forward to some chill time tomorrow.
I just spent five hours with my three best friends from junior high.
Best five hours of my weekend.
We went out to dinner, and then they came here (because I’m closest to the restaurant and whatnot) and we watched the chinchilla hop around and talked.
It was awesome.
And tomorrow’s Christmas Eve!
We’ve got a service at church, and then we’ll come home and probably eat dinner, and then watch The Help (good book, hope the movie’s good too!) and somewhere in there I think we’re opening Christmas gifts. 😀
And then Sunday morning I get to help at church.
This is going to be a good weekend.
I’m going to continue reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince now.
So today started out slightly stressful, but ended up being awesome.
I got my OT exam back, and wasn’t thrilled with my score, but I’ll take it. (About 77%. Disappointing, but it’s passing.)
Then I had a Comm class, which went all right—I turned in my assignment and had it graded before class was over (we have the best TA ever!), and we watched clips from Law & Order. 🙂
Then I went to media, in which we had a quiz that most of us probably failed and listened to an interesting and yet simultaneously boring lecture about what’s coming up in the class.
Also I got an email from the worship pastor at home about upcoming events at which they need help, and it kind of made me feel wanted. Even though it was probably a mass email, it still made me happy.
THEN my day REALLY started to get better.
I stayed after class to fix and upload my project, and as I was about to leave, my prof asked me my major and stuff (again. We went over this the first day of class. He must’ve forgotten.). So I explained to him that I was a Media Comm major, and am a junior, and that I transferred. He asked from where I transferred, and I told him and then brought up working on media stuff at church.
This is where it got awesome. And surprising.
He asked if I would be interested in an internship.
A megachurch that has like five different campuses.
A megachurch that broadcasts their services to like a lot of people.
I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of megachurches simply because they’re giant and I grew up in a church where I knew almost everyone. But still. This would probably be an awesome opportunity!
I’ve told my mom, and that’s about it so far. She told me to get more info, like when and how long and whatever. So I’m going to ask the prof next week probably.
Anyway, after that awesome question, I killed a little time and went to work.
Work was good. It was fun, and we got done sort of early.
Then I came back to the apartment and killed some time before my roommate and I went to the RA’s room for brownies and cocoa.
Not very many people showed up, and I definitely stayed the longest—two hours.
The only other people I spend that much time with are youth leaders, really. So that was awesome.
And then my roomies came back and the one was upset that she didn’t get brownies, so we made brownies. Or rather, brownie batter. Which is just as good, if not better than, actual brownies.
All in all, a really good night. Pretty good day in general.
I am content.
God is awesome.
I have almost nothing to do all weekend. I think I am going to sleep in and watch movies.
That was the title of yesterday’s sermon, given by a guest speaker.
He referenced Max Lucado’s new book, Outlive Your Life.
We even watched the trailer:
The line that stuck out to me was “There is no such thing as an insignificant person.”
That was kind of what the sermon was about, how everything we do matters, basically.
He opened with a story about Cicely Saunders, the woman who started what is now called Hospice.
What Wikipedia fails to point out is that while at Oxford, Cicely took classes from CS Lewis, and through encounters with him, she became a Christian.
She left Oxford for nursing school and got a job in a cancer ward, where she noticed that patients classified as terminall ill were receiving no visitors in their last days. She tried to get someone to do something about it (allow family and friends to visit), but no one would. Determined to change things, Cicely went to five more years of school to become a doctor and eventually started the Hospice program.
Apparently CS Lewis had a hand in the Hospice program. Awesome!
Our speaker continued his message by bringing up the Great Commission, a clear directive, a missional charge, to Christians around the world.
He said that this was the mission of the Trinity: that God sent His Son to carry out the mission of love; and then Father and Son sent the Holy Spirit to continue the mission; and now the Spirit is to send the church to continue to carry out the mission.
He challenged us to discern God’s mission in our context—as in, what’s our part in the mission?
Then he brought up 2 Corinthians 2:14-15, and how we are to manifest the aroma of Christ, a fragrance of hope and love and peace and forgiveness.
Then he brought up Acts 2:47, and how the early church found favor and God added daily to their numbers; and Isaiah 58, about injustice.
He made a comment about how the radical faith of a few sold-out Christians won hearts.
(My first thought when he said “sold-out” was “SOULED OUT,” lol!)
He asked how this applies to us today, and brought up a survey from one of George Hunter’s books about how non-Christians view Christians. There were three general answers:
they don’t actually believe what they say
they believe but don’t live it out
they believe it and live it, but it’s irrelevant to my life
He brought up Matthew 5:16, about light.
That reminded me of this:
He concluded the sermon with the idea that the Bible is the inscrupturated word of God and teaches us the recipe for life, but we can’t smell it—the freshly-baked bread (Jesus). We can be recipe knowers, carriers, and memorizers, but we have to use the recipe for it to actually work.
It has to go beyond Minnesotan niceness; has to be obedience.
Matthew 22:35-39 ; reclaim or renew commitment
And then these four values:
1. Good deeds and good news are not to be separated. (Believe, belong, and bless)
2. You are vital to the health and well-being of the community. (Jeremiah 29)
3. Ministry and service shoud be considered normal in the church.
4. Embrace your commitment, pray, and expect results.
He finished up his time with an invitation or challenge to us to pray for open eyes, ears, and hearts, and to live with expectation.
What I thought was interesting was that he quoted Lucado talking about how the Disciples were common people (duh), but they were also unpredictable. Jesus chose them simply because they said “Yes” to “Follow me.”
He asked us what would happen here, in our town, if we said “Yes, I will follow You.”
And that was pretty much it.
During the offering time, our youth pastor and BG (music leader in town) sang (and she played piano) this song, with my BFF K accompanying them on flute.
I’ve heard this song before and love it. I knew they were singing it on Saturday night when some of us went to the youth pastor’s house to hang out (which he referenced in his follow-up to the sermon). I was super-excited to hear them sing it.
Also, about Saturday…
I felt so. loved.
My sister had her senior pictures taken that afternoon by a friend from church who came into town for the weekend.
After supper, my sister disappeared on us (went out with friends) and my parents went to a baseball game.
The two gals who came in for the weekend (the photographer and her sister, who came to help) plus one of my coworkers who had a birthday Saturday were getting ready to go swimming, and they invited me to go with them.
Seriously?
“Umm… Well, I guess I’m invited now, huh?”
“Yes. Come with!”
“Okay! I have nothing else to do tonight.”
So I put on my swimming suit, left my parents a note, and went over to the same house I was at on Tuesday night to go swimming.
We laughed a lot and played some volleyaball in the pool (kind of).
Then we went to the youth pastor’s house, where BG was already hanging out. One other guy showed up, and they played a game while the photographer and I tried to watch a movie.
It was fun.
I felt wanted and loved and included.
I usually spend my Saturday nights at home on the internet or watching TV or something. It’s usually pretty boring.
So to be asked completely randomly to go swimming with someone I don’t see much…
I was thinking about it after I went to bed and I started crying because I was so thankful that they’d included me.
So that was my weekend. Unexpected invitation, and a good Sunday. 🙂
I’ve been helping with our church’s musical—well, will be helping.
Opening night was tonight (they’re just about done by now), and I’m going to tomorrow’s performance.
I’m helping with Saturday and Sunday’s shows, with the screen stuff.
There are only about five points in the show where they need the screen, so it’s probably a total of around 20 minutes? Maybe not even that?
So the boys and I (two teenage boys helping with tonight and tomorrow’s performances) basically just get to watch the show for free. 😀
Except the boys were goofing off and playing games and hanging out on the internet last night instead of watching the show.
They were yelled at for playing games by the sound guy, because everything from the upstairs computer goes straight to him and … yeah, it’s just not allowed.
I assumed that internet in general was out, and tried to tell the boys a few times.
But of course they totally ignored me and continued to surf the internet.
I know you’re bored, but seriously?
No games. No internet. Bring a book or something.
Or, better yet, watch the show.
The one boy’s mother is in the show, so I assumed he’d want to be watching.
Guess not.
Of course it’ll be better tonight and tomorrow since it’s just one of them up there.
I hope…
Anyway.
My name was in the newspaper today.
They listed me as in charge of sound and lighting, which I am not.
Oops. 😛
Oh well. 🙂
It was a nice surprise.
It was also a nice surprise to see that they’d listed me as “Video Director” or something in the ending credits of the show!
This happened last night on Facebook:
I love my church… 🙂
I’m excited for the show.
By the end of the weekend, I’ll have seen it five times.
There are only four shows.
I’ve been to two dress rehearsals, will be going to tomorrow’s performance, and will be helping at Saturday and Sunday’s.
*Ignore the weird off-centered-y text. Something is weird with WordPress tonight.*
Tonight at church was our Maundy Thursday service.
It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.
Our worship pastor opened the service up by reading kind of the background of MT from a blog he’d found (I don’t know what it was; sorry!). He explained where “Maundy” comes from, which I’d never heard before. Until I was probably a teenager, when I heard “Maundy Thursday” I’d always assumed it was “Monday Thursday” which made absolutely no sense to me. So now I know that!
We started the night with that and a video on the Last Supper, a video focused on the aspect of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.
Then was a monologue of Matthew 26:17-30, along with a video aspect for the second half of the monologue.
Then we did Communion, and this time was different from how we normally do it.
Normally we pass the elements (sacraments; wafer and grape juice for us), but tonight there were four groups of two leaders from the church (my dad was one of them! :)) and each had a cup and half a loaf of bread. The congregation could go up whenever they felt led and take Communion at whichever of the four stations they chose. And then they could receive prayer from those same two leaders who had given them the elements.
I think it took longer, but it may have been more personal than our normal way of doing it.
After Communion came another monologue, this one on Matthew 26:36-46.
Then we sang Lead Me to the Cross and Beautiful Savior (which I cannot find video of; original??), and there was another video element on how it wasn’t the nails that held Jesus to the cross; it was love.
After that, B & B sang Blessed Redeemer (which I’d never heard before; so pretty!) and we sang Above All.
Then there was one more video, on Jesus crying “It is finished.”
The rest of the service was basically a time where people could pray or reflect or even leave if they wished, since it was pretty much done.
One of the guys from church sang a song called “The Death of a Son,” which he’s sung once or twice before.
And that was pretty much it.
But it was very good.
I ❤ Jesus.
Google the lyrics if you don't know the song... It's awesome...
Blessed redeemer, precious redeemer! Seems now I see Him on Calvary's tree! Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading, blind and unheeding, dying for me! ... No one but Jesus ever loved so!