Christmas Sunday

I had a lot of questions this week. Would it really snow on Saturday? Why has it snowed four straight Saturdays? Is it worth paying the school district the $750 for snow removal if half the church was out of town? Should we just meet in a house or something. Are we going to be able to get the trailer out of the snow with our two-wheel drive?
Yes, the snow causes a lot of problems. We did pay the money to plow the snow and it was worth it because we had a wonderful Sunday. We were charged for the snow removal because the school district is on Christmas break. Our Advisory Council discussed whether we should pay for the snow removal and the general consensus was that since both Andy and I would be explaining what it means to know Christ, we'd pay whatever the district charged. And I'm glad we did!
I had trouble sleeping Saturday night, though. I kept waking up with nightmares of the trailer being stuck in the snow. We had another truck there in case we needed two trucks to pull it loose. But with some good maneuvering, Brian was able to pull it free from the ice. Way to go B-Rob!
Both kids church and "big" church were all about preaching Christ this Sunday. In the middle of my message, I explained what it means to turn from sin and follow Jesus. Between the music and the preaching, I believe we lifted up Christ this Sunday and I'm proud of our church.
I was also honored to have all three of Erin's sisters in church with us today. They had told us they'd be coming and it actually made me pretty nervous. I know this isn't the best thing to admit, but I was nervous about "performing" for them. I was nervous about them coming all week. Which I also have to admit that we had a bit of an 'off' Sunday, between some messed-up music transitions and me getting lost in the middle of my sermon.

I let off some steam to Nate about this afterwards and he called me out on it. "Donnie, we may have messed some stuff up but the Holy Spirit was working through us today." I am a perfectionist and I want us to do things well, but when something goes wrong in the middle of the service I can't allow it to take my perspective off what's really important. We've had Sundays where we did everything perfectly but there wasn't the same spirit that was present in worship today. Yes, we have a responsibility to lead worship well but ultimately it's about the movement of the Holy Spirit, not our performance. And the crazy thing is that my brother-in-law (who is pretty much thoroughly unchurched) told me afterwards, "that was awesome!" So, maybe he was sensing something happening that I was too stressed out to notice?
Yep, I'm glad we were able to gather for worship today.

To see more pictures of today's Christmas celebration, click here.