August 8, 2004

Today...what a day it was. I had my nephews with me overnight (Davey and Sammy), and so I was a little apprehensive this morning with Krista out of town that things would go smoothly. But the boys were fine, and I met Rod at 7:30 for prayer.

AT 7:35, a man drove into our lot, stayed a second, and then drove back out - turns out, later on he and his wife and sons would attend our church. At 7:40, another car drove up, and a lady about 60 got out and came in - her name is Harriet. She is a former member of Beacon, and she wanted to check us out. And so she did - from 7:45 on - she was such a nice woman, although we were hoping for more time in prayer - but who said that things had to go according to our plan, right?

Today, because Krista and Greg and Gail were out of town, we did a different kind of praise team, with me, Rod, and Audrey making up a vocal trio as we sang with CD's. It went well, and I used our new cordless headset mic. But the fun didn't happen until we were just getting ready to start. At 9:55, we realized that the projector wasn't working right - ok, wasn't working eventually at all - and so we wouldn't have a projector. Then, right before service, I had to use the bathroom (bad) and so I went - and the handle broke off the toilet and wouldn't flush! OK - at that point, I had to laugh. "God, what do you want to do today that the devil is trying to dampen our meeting?" I thought.

Well, we laughed and explained the problems to the congregation (we had 58), and went ahead with service. I fed the lines to the music as I led, and Chuck went to Home Depot and fixed the toilet. I preached on "Gold Medal Faith: Keeping Your Eye on the Prize" - and had many come to the altar. I really am trying to continually challenge our people to decide to follow Christ on a weekly basis, and so far, it is working pretty well.

We had 7 visitors (Joanne's daughter, the Thompson's friend from PA, Harriet, and John, Tina, Justin and Nate from Maine - no last name). I am really glad we have switched to Sundays - I think we might be onto something here...I pray that God's power will be more and more evident each week.