Sunday Reflections

Well, the Thanksgiving weekend is coming to an end. I really enjoyed the long weekend with my family. We relaxed, laughed, played, watched the previous seasons of the Office I hadn't seen (my new favorite T.V. show), and ate way too much. I was really looking forward to today - just something special about getting together with my church family over a holiday weekend. I love hearing about everyone's Thanksgiving, travels, and family stories. The weekend wouldn't have been complete without it.

Yes, we were down in attendance today, but several things stood out to me. First of all, the picture is the new backdrop that Nancy & Linda did for Coastal Kidz' new series, "On the Trail." They did a great job! And speaking of Coastal Kidz - I am so proud of Erika for stepping up today and leading the Team! She is normally Jennifer's assistant, but on Friday we found out that Jennifer was possibly having contractions and might not make it through the weekend (we're praying for you and baby - can't wait to hear!). She had plenty of help, but on short notice, Erika led the Team and did a great job on our first Sunday of Coastal Kidz having a full service and the first Sunday of the new series!

Gerri, who leads our Communion Ministry, really took to heart my challenge to be a Team Player and a Team Builder. I saw her walking around with her schedule, talking to new people, casting vision, and challenging people to join her Team. Keep up the good work Gerri!

And yes, I did wear a Clemson shirt today and yes I made Karen wear a Clemson hat. Actually, she was a good sport! I know at a lot of churches the Pastor wearing a team shirt might be sacrilegious, but we're not a lot of churches. Everyone knows I wear Clemson shirts all the time and we have a lot of fun with it at Coastal. Don't worry, I know it's just football, and no - I don't worship Clemson.

One rather funny highlight to me was the coffee today. With our new Welcome Room in the process of completion, we're going to be creating more of a real cafe atmosphere. So we decided to upgrade our coffee. For years, like hundreds of churches and your local mechanic waiting room, we just had a couple of coffee pots of coffee. Typically, I would make the coffee around 7:45AM and we would drink that same coffee up until about 10:30AM. Not really being a coffee connoisseur (like my good friend Buck), I never gave it a second thought. Well, today all that changed. We went to a Bunn Airpot coffee brewer and 3 Airpots. We even had 3 speciality coffees! For several caffeine addicts (Jeff & Prisca), you would have thought they had gone to heaven! They were a little extra jittery today. Now when we start serving Diet Mountain Dew, then we'll talk.

The service itself went well. Our band has really made an effort to work on transitional times. We do need to continually work on those same times with our sound and technical teams. Very few people realize how much effort and intention those ministries require. And we have definitely come a long way. People notice when something goes wrong, but take it for granted all the other times. I never want to allow the small things to keep me from worship, but I never want us to think those things don't matter either. Like everything else, it is a work in progress and we are growing.

My message today was from 1Timothy 6 about how to live grateful lives in a greedy world. It was a very timely message for this time of year. It was all about our attitude toward money, possessions, and things. I talked about learning to be content, not putting our hope in things, and enjoying & employing everything God gives us for His glory.

Loved the short video from last week's "The Church Has Left the Building" service. Only 6 weeks until we go to two services! Next week we begin our Christmas series, "Unwrapping Christmas." Well, that's it for today. I'm hoping we'll need some volunteers for painting this week. I'll let you know!