Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Awesome Churches

"I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus" Paul writes to the church gathered in Corinth. Pastor Jim and I say the same thing about both Hector and Lodi. We have had some wonderful, grace filled worship these past few weeks. The Youth led worship at Lodi on the 13th- wrote a play linking the Old Testament prophet Elijah to the current day situation in the Gulf, led the prayers and confession, chose the hymns, in short, did a wonderful job leading us in worship. Same thing in Hector the following week- excellent choice of a skit about the banquet in the kingdom (umm, Queen-dom!) of God, leading worship- especially inviting other people (younger and older) to take part in the worship skit-which they did! Church is one of the few intergenerational places in our culture today- it was awesome, and so are all the youth in each church who helped make it so! This past week, we had songs from the Caribbean (Halle, Halle), a South American hymn, a Psalm sung to an Early American tune with words by Michael Morgan, a confession from South Africa, and a worship song with whirled vacuum cleaner tubes, water goblets, organ and voices- sung and arranged and offered as praise by many of our church- I give thanks to my God always for you!