Sunday Wrap-Up...

So this Sunday was a busy one at my new job.

The Youth Choir sang at the earliest worship service. The Youth Choir here is a unique creation. It sings mainly praise choruses and with a band. (I am everyone’s favorite acoustic rhythm guitarist.) We sang the Tim Hughes song “Here I am to Worship.” It went well.

Then we headed on to Sunday school. Currently, we are using the Nooma video series and it seems to be okay. I am personally a huge Rob Bell fan, even though I am fairly sure he cost me a job in my search. (The long and the short: an associate pastor asked me some of my favorite recent reads and I mentioned Bell’s Velvet Elvis. She began scribbling notes furiously and as I left mentioned that I should consider reading more classics…Ah, the joys of church.)

Then I headed to church. And this week was the first time I did my monthly spot in the children’s sermon rotation. I used a visual aide and everyone seemed to speak well of me, even as I declared my undying love to the best football team in the country- UGA! I will post some more about it tomorrow, for a reason to be announced later...

As my dad was in town, we hung out that afternoon. Lunch was at a really, really bad Chinese restaurant and then Dad napped while I unpacked. Sorta. It was good to eliminate a Chinese place from my list of "Places to try out." Dang I miss Chin-Chin's, Atlanta's finest Chinese food by far. Makes me grateful to be headed to Atlanta this Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

Back at the church, I began a series on life in the church. My friend Jeremy and I wrote it last year and uses some scenes from the film “Remember the Titans” to introduce the ideas. I didn’t teach it last year at Cornerstone but I am enjoying digging in and teaching it this year. During some discussion afterwards, we stumbled into the dreaded “C” word- cliques. It was an interesting discussion where I worked hard to play neutral moderator. The long and the short of it is that we still have some work to do to make the youth ministry (and its participating students) as welcoming and as long as we can.

We ended the night with a fast and furious version of Elbow Tag. The level of engagement in games is going up, which seems to mean kids are having fun and feeling free to be kids, which is an important core value for me personally.