I've been kind of remiss in my posting for the August Happiness Challenge the past few days...
When I first moved to middle Tennessee, I was attending church with most of my extended family. I can't tell you how great it was to sit on the same pew as my parents, my sister and her husband and my neice and nephew on most Sunday mornings. It was just really nice and when I started to feel myself being led to another church, the hardest thing to have to "give up" was that sitting on the same pew with my family every Sunday.
Deep down, I knew it was the right thing to do and where God was leading, but that didn't make it any less difficult.
In that time, I've found a church I really like and have been attending there. It's a bigger church than I'm normally used to and I still have these moments where I step back and go--wow, that's a big church. We had four full-time ministers on the staff. One of the things that I've loved in the time I've been visiting is we get a variety of ministers and preaching styles..and all of them are good. They're all different, but I can't tell you how many Sundays I've gone in and the minister has preached the exact sermon I need to hear that day. There's one minister in particular whose sermons always speak to me just a bit more and that I always get a lot out of (as I've said, the others are no slouches...it's just Jacob's connect with me more). A few weeks ago, I invited my parents to visit to hear him preach and they really liked him. I decided to invite my sister and her family to join me for church today as well as my parents.
And everyone came and I got to have the joy of sharing the worship with my whole family. I got to sit on the same pew with everyone, have Davis be really happy to see me and want to come sit on my lap for some of the service and watch the two kids head down front for the children's sermon. After church, I took Davis and Gracelyn up to see the balcony and stained glass, which thrilled them both so much they had to take everyone up to see it.
I was also pleased that my sister and her husband both really liked the service and Jacob's sermon this morning, which was, as usual, up to the standards of excellence he has set.
In short, it was just a wonderful worship experience in every way. And not only does it make me happy, but it brings me great joy as well..
posted by Michael Hickerson at 8/20/2006 01:05:00 PM |
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