7 Highlights from Sunday
It's Monday morning and I have a few thoughts about yesterday.
(1) ICB is a great church. Last night while leaving the Christian Guest House (evening worship) I ran into one of our morning worship visitors. She was telling me how meaningful it was to worship with us in the morning, how grateful she was, and what a great vibe (my word, not hers) the church had. I think that's right.
(2) It was a pleasure to hear Dwight preach in the AM and Rod give an extended testimony in the PM. They had completely different messages, but both were the same in some mysterious way. They both called us to be the church where we are. And we were. And we are. And we will be.
(3) I'm encouraged to see some real community developing in our Evening Worship among young, single adults. There was a group of five of them chatting at 9pm when I left the Guest House last night. Worship ended at 7:40. It's always a good sign when people stay and chat for over an hour after worship.
(4) We have a group of seven going to Rod's house to watch Slumdog Millionaire Wednesday. Rod lives in Klong Toey slum. It'll be a great experience for them all. Thanks Rod. How many churches are doing THAT?
(5) It was funny to me that I asked if anyone in our church was doing anything special for Lent (the 40 days of preparation for Easter) and NO ONE raised their hand except one lady in the evening worship service. Now I know a few people ARE doing something, so why they didn't participate in the hand raising I don't know.
(6) I'm NOT doing anything special for Lent. Some folks suggested I give up coke or chocolate. I thought about it, but decided it wouldn't be a spiritual pursuit. I have however continued to lay off coke in a big way. I've had 32 ounces of coca cola since last Thursday. That's about 8 ounces per day. Down from probably 40-50 ounces a day a month or two ago.
(7) Since I didn't really preach this weekend, I had some extra time to do admin work. I realized that our church is 27% Thai, 25% American. We have big groups of Philippinos and Indonesians. Sizable groups from about 4 other countries. And a smattering from another 20 countries.
(1) ICB is a great church. Last night while leaving the Christian Guest House (evening worship) I ran into one of our morning worship visitors. She was telling me how meaningful it was to worship with us in the morning, how grateful she was, and what a great vibe (my word, not hers) the church had. I think that's right.
(2) It was a pleasure to hear Dwight preach in the AM and Rod give an extended testimony in the PM. They had completely different messages, but both were the same in some mysterious way. They both called us to be the church where we are. And we were. And we are. And we will be.
(3) I'm encouraged to see some real community developing in our Evening Worship among young, single adults. There was a group of five of them chatting at 9pm when I left the Guest House last night. Worship ended at 7:40. It's always a good sign when people stay and chat for over an hour after worship.
(4) We have a group of seven going to Rod's house to watch Slumdog Millionaire Wednesday. Rod lives in Klong Toey slum. It'll be a great experience for them all. Thanks Rod. How many churches are doing THAT?
(5) It was funny to me that I asked if anyone in our church was doing anything special for Lent (the 40 days of preparation for Easter) and NO ONE raised their hand except one lady in the evening worship service. Now I know a few people ARE doing something, so why they didn't participate in the hand raising I don't know.
(6) I'm NOT doing anything special for Lent. Some folks suggested I give up coke or chocolate. I thought about it, but decided it wouldn't be a spiritual pursuit. I have however continued to lay off coke in a big way. I've had 32 ounces of coca cola since last Thursday. That's about 8 ounces per day. Down from probably 40-50 ounces a day a month or two ago.
(7) Since I didn't really preach this weekend, I had some extra time to do admin work. I realized that our church is 27% Thai, 25% American. We have big groups of Philippinos and Indonesians. Sizable groups from about 4 other countries. And a smattering from another 20 countries.
