We had a great Mothers’ Day service
yesterday at church. The crowd was kind
of small, but they were all engaged with the sermon. Jim started off with a real tear jerker
Country-Western song. Something about
asking Jesus “if there’s a telephone in heaven, please put Mama on the
line.” It definitely got people’s
attention. As it turned out, the rest of
the songs were incredibly upbeat, so the contrast worked really well. The singing was loud and praiseworthy. Great praise experience.
The teaching time was a lot of fun as
well. There was a family visiting with three
little boys and their Dad’s Mom. Very appropriate
… they were at church with Grandma because it was Mothers’ Day, and the fact
was not lost on those youngsters. For every
single question I asked about Moms and kids, they made a connection between
their Dad and good ol’ Grandma. And they
weren’t shy about expressing those connections out loud, either. It sure made my job as teacher a lot
easier. I’m pretty sure it helped
everybody else stay engaged in the sermon as well. Chris had their youngest in the nursery, and
it sounded like he was a real humdinger as well. When he heard the music going at one point,
he wanted to know who that was playing the banjo. Chris told him Mr. Jim was playing his
guitar, but no. He insisted somebody was
playing the banjo. Well, OK then. Then later he heard the drums and absolutely
wanted a piece of that action. Great
kid. Hope they come back to town soon.
After church the Dad of that family
approached me and asked if he could take a look at the stool I sit on every
Sunday. He said there was something
wrong with it that he felt certain he could take care of. I gave him full rein on that proposal. It did feel like I was shifting rather
rapidly on occasion when I got a little excited. He offered to take it with him to the RV park
where they were staying and where his tools were, get it fixed up, then bring
it back to the church. I assured him
that would be fine, and if there was no one here, he could just leave it by the
door. Well, as it turned out, he had the
tool he needed in his car. He tightened
up the bolts and brought it back in before I could even start turning out the
lights. Gotta love it when people enjoy
using their gifts for the Lord.
And speaking of using gifts, before church
one of our newer Seasiders showed up early to help Chris with the usual Sunday
morning cleaning duties. Even brought a
tray full of cleaning supplies. Great
job, Valerie. Thanks for jumping right
in there! Between her and regulars Janell
and Brennan and of course Chris, the building reaches a pretty respectable state
every week. I’m proud of you guys.
Joshua 24:15 says, “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves
this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the
Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve
the Lord.”
Father, would you please honor the sacrifice
of those folks who are busy each week behind the scenes at church, tightening
bolts and cleaning bathrooms and sweeping floors and mopping and emptying trash? I sure do appreciate them. Amen.
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