All About Sunday

I really enjoyed yesterday’s visit to the church. I had watched a web broadcast last Friday so I’d have an idea of what to expect. I noticed that the music was not what I was used to, from when I was a child. The choir at my grandfather’s church wore gowns and sang hymns. I was surprised to see that this church had a band as opposed to an organ. The band was made up of electric guitars; I believe an acoustic guitar and drums! I honestly didn’t know how I was going to feel about it. I loved it. I had always said that I would love to visit a black church because they seem like they have a ball. It wasn’t quite like that, but you couldn’t keep from moving when they were playing. I’ve been listening to a lot of Jeremy Camp and Casting Crowns. It was similar to that.

Pastor Rob spoke about death. This has been a topic that I’ve never really had to deal with, fortunately. It has also worried me quite a bit. Several things he said really stood out to me (if you'd like to view the entire sermon, click on the title and it will take you to the print version online). He explained that death is a reality and it’s the last enemy we will ever face. BUT...death is a phase not a finality. He sited several verses from the Bible where Jesus talks about people “falling asleep”.

“This sickness will not end in death” John 11:4
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will now go wake him up”

He even had a slide show of the very site of Lazarus’s resurrection and talked about it being Holy land.

He also explained how the Bible mentions that it’s ok for us to grieve for the loss of a loved one, but, as Christians, we are not to excessively grieve since we know that if they were Christians, they are not truly dead. I wanted to ask him what are we “allowed” to feel if we know they were not Christians.

I love that there was this little “worksheet” on the back of the program. It was fill in the blank. I thought that was so cool.

The Sunday school class was hysterical. Everyone joked, ate and joked some more. I joined in this particular one because it was Pam’s. I was actually supposed to go to a Faith Builders class since that was more for my age group. Next Sunday, I will attend that one. Poor Pam, I feel like I follow her around like a little puppy dog sometimes. When we did finally get down to business, we discussed how we can find out what God’s purpose is for us. There were 3 things we are to do:

1. Listen to what the word of God says.
2. Ask questions about what He says.
3. Ask God to make it clear what our purpose is

Then the leader said something that I thought was really important and something that I had not thought to do. He said that after we do all of these things, it’s important to sit and “shut-up”. We need to sit in His presence and stop talking so we can hear what he has to say to us. We are often so buys asking Him for this, asking Him for that. When are we supposed to actually hear Him?! I plan on putting this into practice. Although, I have no idea when I can find 10 -1 5 minutes out of the day where I know I won’t be bothered.

He also suggested (or maybe someone else did) that we memorize Psalm 37. YIKES! I just looked at it. It’s long! It’s good though.

The kids Sunday school went well too. Jillian has a list of verses she needs to memorize through May. She has already memorized her fist verse which is:

If you love me, keep my commandments. Jon 14:15

She also got a study guide from the clear learning system. It contains a CD with verse too. I plan to listen to it with her this afternoon.

Zachary didn’t bring anything home with him. Not sure if he was supposed to or not. He did say that they discussed how “we should treat our family like strangers”. I think it was probably stated that we should treat our family members like we do strangers. He got the point though. He understood that we can often treat our family members badly, but yet we are often so nice to people we don’t even know. He said he even asked why it is that we do that. Both the kids really enjoyed themselves.

Katie enjoyed herself as well. I didn’t think they would be teaching 2 and 3 year olds about Jesus, but they are! They learned that Jesus is alive because when his friends went to the tomb, he was not there. There’s a song that we’re to sing with them, to the tune of “Where Is Thumbkin?”. It goes:

Where is Jesus?
Where is Jesus
He’s not here.
He’s not here.

See, the Tomb is empty.
See, the Tomb is empty.
He’s Alive!
He’s Alive!

We’re also supposed to repeat throughout the day/week “Jesus Is Alive!” It’s called a “Heartprint” which is a main Bible concept or truth that they want to imprint upon the child heart. Cool huh?

We all definitely enjoyed ourselves and can’t wait to go to Bible study on Wednesday night.


Be still in the presence of the LORD, and wait patiently for him to act. Psalm 37:7