30 Days Later
Wow, 30 days since my last post. One on the first of the month, one on the last.
I've been reading a column written by Chaplain Dale Cooper called "Coop's Column." He has good stuff about worship.
I'm pretty involved at my church, I work there on Fridays and am a chair of the Worship & Arts team, plus a few other things. I love my church and I feel right now we're having the best worship we've had in as long as I've been there, mainly because our pastor is so wonderful, but also because our worship leader is doing a great job with our praise team.
One thing that's a little discouraging is that we've lost a few families. Several moved out of the area and some are at different periods of their lives where they are gone a lot or visiting other churches. I miss them. I think about the years when I stuck with my church sometimes only out of loyalty. I was disappointed for so long by the fact that we would not allow women elders, and there were other discouraging times with some pastoral problems and so on. But I felt like I couldn't leave this family, these people who brought meals when I was sick and who loved me and who helped to bring up my children.
Best to focus on all the blessings -- the fact that we do have this wonderful pastor, that we're doing things as a church family to make a difference in the community, that we're getting visitors from the community regularly, that I'm learning more about prayer and meditation and building my relationship with God, that I look forward to our new year of "God stories," going through the entire Bible together and encouraging our members to tell their stories.
God is with us.
I've been reading a column written by Chaplain Dale Cooper called "Coop's Column." He has good stuff about worship.
I'm pretty involved at my church, I work there on Fridays and am a chair of the Worship & Arts team, plus a few other things. I love my church and I feel right now we're having the best worship we've had in as long as I've been there, mainly because our pastor is so wonderful, but also because our worship leader is doing a great job with our praise team.
One thing that's a little discouraging is that we've lost a few families. Several moved out of the area and some are at different periods of their lives where they are gone a lot or visiting other churches. I miss them. I think about the years when I stuck with my church sometimes only out of loyalty. I was disappointed for so long by the fact that we would not allow women elders, and there were other discouraging times with some pastoral problems and so on. But I felt like I couldn't leave this family, these people who brought meals when I was sick and who loved me and who helped to bring up my children.
Best to focus on all the blessings -- the fact that we do have this wonderful pastor, that we're doing things as a church family to make a difference in the community, that we're getting visitors from the community regularly, that I'm learning more about prayer and meditation and building my relationship with God, that I look forward to our new year of "God stories," going through the entire Bible together and encouraging our members to tell their stories.
God is with us.