The Dawning of a New Era...

Sunday night we had a special service at our church. We didn't know what else to call it, so we just called it a "Welcome the Pastor" service. He invited friends and family from all over. We, as church members, invited people that normally don't come at all, or normally don't come at night. We had 86 in attendance (if you include the 5 kids in the nursery and the 2 nursery workers). The service consisted of 3 congregational hymns (accompanied by 1 piano, organ, trumpet, flute, & violin), 4 different groups (with member overlap) doing special music, a time of meeting & greeting, and the preaching service.

My first service here was the New Years' Watchnight Service of 1994. From that service until March 2008, the greatest number of people I've seen in attendance for any service has been 75 (for an Easter Sunrise Service back in the late 1990s). Any service that we see 40 to 45 in attendance is a great service for our church. This last Sunday evening approximately 35 people came because they were somehow related to the pastor, or a friend of his family. We as a church had around 50 attend... on a Sunday Evening!

I enjoy meeting visitors and talking to people (and eating, of course) which we do a lot of at the fellowships; hopefully we can schedule similar services more often.

Thankful Random-ness & Multitudinous Blessings

As the year closes, I've been considering a number of various items. So many that I couldn't possibly blog everything in a coherent or cohesive manner. Consequently, I feel it's my duty to inform you: This post will be disjointed, but, in spite of that, will still (hopefully) convey a glimmering of my thoughts.

Blessings:
- great wife (patient, loving, compassionate, even-tempered)
- Little Bear is alive, healthy, and normal -- in spite of the DRs' predictions
- so are the twins
- Varmint #4 is on his (or her) way
- have a great pastor, a very good church, & (soon) a hard-working assoc pastor
- able to work (& have more job offers than I can accept)
- our mini van has needed minimal repairs... since 2003!!
- my new (to me) trumpet


Things I enjoy:
- the twins' nap-time (Mommy likes it more)
- Sunday church services (even if I preach)
- Organic candy (candy that's good for me -- imagine that!!)
- receiving a backrub (without asking for it -- "just because")
- King's Kids on Wednesday nights
- helping others
- listening to Little Bear pretend to preach, lead singing, prepare messages, & volunteer to do special music for church: "so Daddy doesn't have to do so much"
- Publix Premium Eggnog ice cream... need I say more?
- finding "new" passages in my Bible that somehow I've missed over the years
- grimy little hands that want to give me hugs (& dirty little faces that still want to kiss my "scratchy-face")
- watching the Varmints 3 grow, develop new skills, & learn new things
- reading a book (OK... several books)
- listening to good, conservative music (our "christian" radio stations aren't)
- finding money (& saving it, & receiving it, & getting gift cards, etc...)
- building things for the Varmints 3 -- and watching them enjoy them
- feeding cows (a few of them let me pet them)
- being given a box of new (to me) books to read
- keeping informed of what's happening in the lives of friends & family thru their blogs and Facebook pages
- petting the neighbor's Rottweiler (she's 100+ lbs, & thinks she's a lapdog)


Things I like:
- being the best Boggler in a small church =D
- cool & nifty new gadgets, and I really want a bug (of course, then I'd feel like I must teach myself to program them, so it's probably best I don't)
- getting a start on cataloging all our books at LibraryThing (if you don't want to click the link, scroll down this page and you'll see a list of random book covers on the left -- altho for some reason a few don't show the covers)
- the versatility of e-Sword (free Bible study program)
- being able to renew my library books online
- having an alternative to Wikipedia -- even if it isn't complete yet