Easter re-cap

Wow, that would have been exciting to this musician. As a small congregation in rented facilities, we were in a larger than usual room today (school gym rather than a classroom). During the congregational singing, I played my flute, mostly following the melody line; the pianist and I played an arrangement of the tune "Ash Grove" aka "Let All Things Now Living" for the offertory. We had a vocal solo just before the sermon, which is a rare occurrence for us.

For the context - we lease space from the Seventh-Day Adventists, who about a year ago moved into a church/school complex; unfortunately, due to financial restraints partially caused by heavy permitting requirements here in the NW, they have been unable to finish their sanctuary. They usually meet in the gym (on Saturdays, of course), we get the use of a classroom on Sundays and two rooms on Wednesday evenings. Today we had potluck breakfast in the gym and stayed in the gym for worship service. So, instead of being "squished" into a classroom, we were taking up about 1/4 of the seating space they had from their services yesterday. Not to mention terrible acoustics in both the gym and the usual classroom.

Glad you had a great day!

Ah the hazards of this format . . . you couldn't see me smile, nor remember times past in other churches where everything fell apart at the last minute.

No, Dave, you certainly did not come across as bragging, and I'm sorry if I sounded like I was whining. We were actually pleased with the turnout and participation. Our soloist yesterday was also the songleader, as our regular songleader is out of town. This young man is from overseas, and has been saved for about two years; he is a music performance major at one of the local universities. So, it was a genuine delight to have him able to participate that much. I have deliberately had to cut back on my performance opportunities in the local community with my current job responsibilities, so I wouldn't have had time to direct or even participate in something more involved this year, anyway.

We had several families and individuals who were return visitors, a few first timers, and of course the C & E crowd.

I was truly intended to share "here's what our small congregation in rented facilities was able to do", and again, didn't mean to sound whiny.

Praise the Lord Ann!

We had an early service with the choir singing "Behold the Risen Lamb" (can't remember the composer, but it's a simple, almost completely two-part piece set to Waly-Waly). Then breakfast in the Fellowship Hall (which is always SO good for singing voices ). Then in the morning service the choir sang "Let Us Not Forget" (again my memory fails me on composer ). We had a father and son play the offertory on French horn and baritone horn (that was really sweet, son on the baritone is about 12, and he did a really good job). And then we had a quartet sing "It Should Have Been Me" for the special music. Easter's about the only time of year you can get away with Latin in an independent Baptist church in Georgia. And we did give the meaning of "Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison" before we sang to be sure everyone knew what we meant.

(Edit: I looked up the songs and added links. It was bugging me that I couldn't remember. )

The last couple of years we have a communion service and some quiet time from 9:00-9:30 then from 9:30 to 10:30 we have a continental breakfast (just fruits and breads, donuts, etc). at 10:30 we sang a lot of congregational hymns beginning with The Power of the Cross and ending with Rejoice the Lord is King (kind of tracing the cross through the ascension. We had a wonderful ladies trio (my mom, my wife, and my sister in law sounded beautiful) which was fitting as the song was beautiful Savior. I preached on three resurrections in the OT (Elijah, Elisha, and Elisha's bones) and then three resurrections in the NT (Jairus' daughter, Lazarus, and Jesus) and it was exciting to note that in the OT, the prophets prayed in earnest to be able to raise the dead, but Jesus simply spoke (except in his own where he spoke nothing) and the dead lived. This proves that only God gives new life, Jesus gave new life, Jesus is God, trust him for eternal life. The best part was at the end of the service my closing plea was to seek to know Jesus who is risen from the dead. A little girl of about 11 years old, came up to me and asked me if I could help her know Jesus. Her family has recently been coming to church and I have discipleship studies with her dad. Praise God she was more than ready to know Jesus and she believed on him for eternal life. It was a blessing that Jarius daughter was about the same age as this little girl, Jairus' daughter got a fresh start on life, this little girl is a new creation in Christ on the day we celebrate Christ's resurrection. How exciting to serve a Great God!