Usually I’m good for a Monday entry about what happened on Sunday, but seriously, Sunday was SOOO amazing that I needed to rest a little and let the thoughts percolate in my head before I committed to writing about it.
In the past three days I’m going on about 10 hours of sleep…so forgive me if I don’t make sense.
Sunday morning I wake up to go to sermon at 8:30. My mom came with me. It had been a while since she had come because she had broken her leg and it was too painful to go to Church, stand in line, walk around, worship, stand for the reading if he asked us to, and so on and so forth. Well, her leg is just about all better, so she came with me. It was nice not to have to sit alone.
The sermon was about sex. Not like, skirting around it, really vague, wait until you’re older and we’ll talk about it sex. It was from Song of Songs, the honeymoon part. And it was real sex. And he talked about real sex, anything there was to be covered about sex, he covered it.
Then, he decided that since the entire series was about relationships and healthy marriages, he wanted to jump start all the married couples and sponsored a date night. For every single married couple in the church. They got cards, picked a restaurant, and within the next two weeks you go to that place and get a $30 gift card. And they’ll reimburse childcare. How cool is that?
okay skip to Quest. no lesson plan. And Motion is short quite a few small group leaders, so I head over to Motion to help out. I get second graders, and it was really fun. They learned about behaving, and the Bible verse was Ephesians 5:7-10. I think. We played charades on different things that’s difficult to demonstrate Christ-like behavior, and good choices you can make during the week. We had discussion questions, and, the coolest part to me, prayer cards. Each child received a card to write specific requests and what they were going to commit to during the week according to the Bible lesson. It was really cool. I grabbed them all up at the end of the day and put them all in my journal. They’re all too sweet and each one made a really good commitment for the week. I’m proud of our church’s next generations of Christ Seekers.
Then, later that night we had a night of worship. We sang lots of songs, and Pastor Furtick shared some really big news with us. We are getting our first permanent facility!!!!!!!!! It’s in the Ashley Furniture strip mall on 74 right off of 485. HOW EXCITING RIGHT?! He said it should be ready next fall. 900 seats. NINE HUNDRED SEATS and the church offices. WOO! And Of course, we showed our pastor a little love.
October is Pastor appreciation month, so a ton of volunteers and attendees wrote letters of cards of gratitude for all Pastor does for our church. He almost cried when he got the bags full of letters. Larry Hubakta spoke some really heartfelt words of thankfulness and appreciation. About how Pastor has a specific vision for every one, even if they don’t see it them selves. Like a kind of spooky, even if he doesn’t know you kind of premonition way. Then Pastor came on to tell us how much he loves us, really truly loves each and every one of us, and how on Saturday nights when he’s stuck with a not-so-great sermon he’ll think of us, and specific faces he doesn’t even know, and how we respond to him while he preaches. He told us as much as he encourages us, we encourage him with all our support and appreciation.
Then I hit up IHOP with the BaxterBynumSmith clan. Fun stuff. I’m still super excited about the new PERMANENT phase of the life of our church. I’m stoked about the fact that the Butler campus the campus they’re predicting this facility will absorb. I’m excited that I get to be a part of one of the most (if not the most) important movements of God in this day and age. This life just keeps getting more and more exciting. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
