10 years already?!

On Sunday, we had our annual church service on the lawn. This is my favorite service of the year. I absolutely love having the opportunity to be a part of our worship band. I feel fortunate that I get to participate with my voice while everyone is doing what I call the hard work. Worshipping with my voice is a way that I have really found to connect with God. I also feel especially fortunate to be a part of a band that is extremely talented...again, they do the hard work, I just get to add in harmonies here and there and be a part of the wonderful experience.

On Sunday, Joshua spoke about "our story". This was especially significant because this month is the 10th anniversary of our church...and what a story it has been...birthing from a church split, changing locations on a regular (sometimes weekly) basis, seeing many pastors and church members come and go, growing pains, shrinking pains, and everything in between. David and I and much of our family, have been a part of this story. David has taken on about every role you can imagine and I've been in a few roles myself. It is neat to revisit a story....the beginning often does not cue you in to what the current story will be. If I would have tried to imagine what the church would look like in 10 years when we met for the first time (10 years ago in the Delta HS auditorium), this is not what I would have thought. And now, I don't even want to try to guess what we will look like in 10 more years...but I do want to be open. I think of Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" song....the rest is still unwritten. And so it is with our church AND with our life. Though the story of our past deepens our present story, we are not limited to that being the rest of the story. The Rest is still unwritten and I want to be open to what that might be. I also want to be a participant in that story and not just a bystander. It is much more exciting that way!

Switching gears....after our outdoor service. We continued the celebration by eating and playing games. There was a dunk tank, inflatables for the kids, corn hole and horse rides. Jonah was all gung ho about riding the horses, but apparently he was more interested in his blue raspberry Hawaiian Ice. After waiting in line for the pony ride, Jonah was only barely okay with touching the horse. He asked if his friend, Waverley, could ride first, which seemed chivalrous but it was really just his way of diverting the attention so that he could get back to his Hawaiian Ice. He never rode the pony....