Sunday, October 10, 2004

Whew! What an exhausting but exciting day~! From our service to the orchard to the bonfire, it was a great day!

To begin, let's look at the service. Because we no longer have Greg's sound equipment, we had to piece our old stuff together, but the sound went surprisingly well. Today, the praise team was minus Audrey, who was absent because she was attending her grandmother's wake. But the worship went very well. People were singing and were into it.

The sermon went alright as I did my second lesson in Irresistible Evangelism: Playing the Master's Course. Flo and Donna thought the golf analogies were a little too much (it's all good), so I will play that down a little next week. No one was saved, but at the end, I handed out tees (the starting point to "get in the game [of evangelism]) and prayed with people who came to the altar over specific people they knew who needed Christ ("You're not in the game if you don't have a name!"). It went well.

Also, Corey & Jill Hampton and Sean and Shea were with us again. Corey and Jill are seriously considering joining, and Sean and Shea will definitely be back again, according to Shea as they left. I am excited to see God provide more growth.

At the end of the service, the church gave us two gifts for Krista's and my one year anniversary. They gave us a memory book with comments and notes from many different church members, and they gave us a $175 gift certificate to be used to get away for a night or two. It was unexpected but so sweet. God has so blessed us with a great congregation.

One thing about the service - sickness played into our attendance today (we had 54), as Margarite, Heather, Ralph, and little Amanda Westsrate were all sick and not with us (neither was Amanda's mom, Amber). We specifically prayed for them during our prayer time.

After church, about 35 of us went down to the Applecrest Orchard down in Hampton Falls. It was a nice orchard (LOTS of people), and it was nice day to hang outside. One "funny" note: we did see the host of America's Funniest Videos, Tom Bergeron. All I can say is that TV does ALOT to make him look younger than he is.

After the orchard, we all went up to Kyle and Amber's house in Milton for a cookout and bonfire ~ it was great! They have a beautiful home, and lots of room in their yard, so many of us played two-hand touch football. My team won (7-0) on a touchdown pass from Chuck to me (please don't ask me how far I had to run to catch the ball - let's just say that when I caught the ball, I saw a sign for the state line of Maine close by!).

After all was said and done, it was a great day with great people who are blessed because of a great God!