Monday Morning Musings ...

Yesterday was a day of contrasts. We began the day with a special time during what is normally our Sunday School hour. We had what was called a "Vision Meeting". Some of our ministry leaders, my associate pastor and myself all shared highlights from the past church year and some of vision for this coming year. Everyone did an excellent job of sharing, I was very encouraged by the way in which each of them handled their time up front. However, the time had a big downer moment when my associate shared that he was resigning to take another position with a church near St. Louis. I knew this was coming, so it was not a surprise to me, but it didn't change the fact that it was a big downer. He has done an excellent job with our youth ministry and much of our media (computer, website, sound) ministry as well. As much as I will miss him this is an excellent opportunity for he and his family. He, his wife and daughter will be greatly missed. He shared just before me which meant that I got to deal with it for part of my time. Kind of hard to talk about the future when the biggest question on everyone's mind is who are you going to get to replace him?

Worship went as well as could be expected after that kind of news was presented. We continued the series on "Yes You Can...Have Healthy Relationships", with a message on forgiving those who have hurt you. That is always a relevant and difficult subject to present. The Bible is clear that we are to forgive, but how? We attempted to deal with this much needed area of relationships. There was a reasonable response at the end of the message. Out attendance was decent for the first Sunday after all of our schools began their summer vacations.

Sunday evening was the last of our small groups that were dealing with this sermon series on relationships. Our group had a cookout along with our time of sharing. The food was plentiful and very good. Translation, I ate more than I should have eaten. The time of eating and just talking with each other was very good. Our time of sharing was good, but somewhat stifled, I think by the difficulty of the subject. Overall I am thrilled with the reports of how this time of small groups went. This might be a beginning of something special.

During our small group time a storm blew in quickly. We got reports a little later that there was some kind of terrific wind that went down our street. Sure enough, we had some large limbs down and a small tree uprooted, plus a very, very large section of a very large tree came down at church.

Here's hoping that you are having a good day and enjoying the knowledge of forgiveness.