Monday Morning Musings...

Yesterday was a difficult (see previous post) and a very positive day. The difficult part had to do with the death of the two young people I posted about yesterday, also a young man in our church lost his grandfather on Saturday and a very good college friend of mine lost his wife due to a brain tumor on Sunday morning as well. So, you can see that their were a lot of churning emotions in the midst of teaching Sunday School, preaching and leading a small group. Such is the duty of a pastor at times.

Our time of singing in worship went well and given all of the recent developments their was a really sense of urgency in our worship. In the series on relationships this message was "Yes You Can ... Be Forgiven". The focus was on accepting forgiveness from God and from others with whom you are in relationship. We had a powerful drama that looked at how many people struggle with God's forgiveness because of the conditions so many people put on their love and forgiveness. Then we transfer that to our concept of God and have trouble accepting God's forgiveness.

Their was a time for response to accepting God's forgiveness or the forgiveness of others. Their were several who responded by coming forward. A powerful moment was a father and son coming to the altar.

We had a surprisingly good attendance, surprising given there were at least 25% of last weeks attendees who I knew would be gone for the holiday weekend. I was encouraged by the attendance all things considered. We had very good attendance in our small group last night and even had a new person. Last week we had better discussion but it was still positive.

My wife and I also went to a graduation open house in the afternoon. It was for a volleyball player, she played varsity and I was the junior varsity coach, so being invited was another encouraging sign for making inroads into our community.

Please pray for those who have lost loved ones.