8 posts tagged “church”
i had a nice week end.
Friday i went home and did my laundry and cleaned the bathrooms in preparation for the queen of my heart to visit this week end. but that wasn't the nice part.....
:-)
the good part was Saturday and Sunday...... Saturday i went up to see Sean, Laura and the grandkids. we went out to lunch when i got there. i got something call "rattlesnake pasta" at Uno's. it was really good. cheesy pasta with chicken and peppers. i still have some in the frig to finish tonight when i get home... then we went bowling. Eli and Eva take bowling lessons during the week with other homeschoolers so they're pretty into it by now. and they both bowl pretty good. Eva even beat Eli one game. :-o and Sean, who hasn't been bowling a lot but has been listening to the instructor when the kids are there, bowled a big game. i think it was 160 or close. which is pretty good for non-bowlers like us.... Laura even got to bowl some. but every time she bowled she turned around with a look of pain on her face. when i said something about it, she said that she was having a contraction every time. i said, well stop it... but i want to have this baby, she said.... :-) so that was fun. then we went back to their house, had dinner and i played with the kids some 'til bed time and i headed home......
church was good on Sunday. interesting music and a passion play reading. and palms... and i hadn't been out with Stefan and Judi for a while so lunch with them was nice.....
so -- i'm already looking forward to this week end. Easter and Linda. Sah-weeet!!!
church has been great this week. i went to the Thanksgiving Eve service on Wednesday and we hosted 5 or 6 other churches from Frederick in our sanctuary. so the church was full of pastors and preachers from several different denominations. we also hosted our first ever ecumenical orchestra led by Barbara Biser, a music teacher that goes to ERUCC with us. it was a very good service, lots of ministers took part, and we served communion to the community.
i'm blessed to have found another church that i love so soon after FOTCF closed up. and doubly blessed that i get to go with my friends Stefan and Judi!
btw, the church is actually filled with ministers most weeks... there
are about four retired full time denominational ministers that now come
to ERUCC. i think that's interesting, and pretty cool...
today church was great again. we've got the sanctuary decorated for Christmas, "Joyful Noise" did some of their best ever songs, and Jan gave a wonderful sermon about waiting for Jesus. good stuff for sure!
the week end was pretty good.
i went up to the Purple Door Music and Arts Festival in PA this Saturday. the fest actually runs Friday night and all day Saturday, but i skipped Friday night. the band line up was not enough to drive an hour and a half there and an hour and a half home that night. and to be honest the band line up was nearly not enough for me to drive up for the Saturday fest either. but i've gone to the fest all 13 years of it's excistance and now i feel almost obligated to go. so i did. once there i expected to see several of my show buddies. youknow, people that you see at shows and fests and that's about it. well, they didn't show up this year. i did see Chris, aka Grandfather Rock, but he's like me - been there from the beginning and doesn't want to skip it. but Clarke has been there every year too, and he didn't come this year. and where was Adam? Betty? Rick? ... but the first thing Chris said to me was, "the line up this year is awful." i asked him why, and he blamed it on the new management. the past two years there's been a new director since Kurt Weaver left, and for the past two years the fest has been slipping downhill. and Chris is not the only person that said that to me that day. it was a topic of conversations throughout the day. and as people discussed music, i heard that the line up was weak, and i heard people saying, "i wish they were here." i don't want to sound like all the bands sucked. that's not the case, but each of the three stages suffered through some bands that were not big draws, or bands everyone has already seen... which adds up to a whole fest full of bands that are not big draws and that makes the fest attendance and bottom line suffer. but if the fest complains that they don't have the money to get a good line up, and a poor line up makes the bottom line less each year.... it's a downward spiral.... sad.... Purple Door used to be such a highpoint of the summer. a really great one and then two day fest!
like i said though, there were some good bands and performances. Bradley Hathaway is a stand out every year i see him. he's charismatic and entertaining. singer, ingenue, harpist Timbre was almost worth the trip all by herself. Oh Sleeper keeps getting better and better. Haste the Day was good, and so was August Burns Red. the Showdown was good. the Glorious Unseen was better the second set of the day as they led the fest in worship from Main Stage with some help from Timbre. We Shot the Moon was the buzz band of the day and they delivered on the buzz. that was a good thing. but most of the Main Stage was as elementary as the "turn or burn" message from the speaker that night, Kurt Weaver. yes Kurt returned this year as the main speaker and although i really do like Kurt, he gave an unchallenging message, that any of the few teenagers who did sit for the sermon has heard untold times and could have given. [not to mention that i don't believe in an angry scary god that throws most of his children in an eternal torture pit forever] i know bands like Sherwood and Emery have fans, but, even after staying for every note of their sets, i'm not among them. Disciple played between those two and had the biggest crowd and one of the best concerts of the day. ..... i got some pretty good pictures, i'll put some up this week.
the week end was totally redeemed on Sunday. church was great. like Judi, i like the church more and more every time we go. Barbara spoke from Genisis about Joseph, one of my very favorite people. there is much to learn from Joseph's life stories.... she spoke about the family, he and his brothers had problems, to say the least... but Joseph was able to forgive and see that "God meant it for good." i even got more into the music this week. the hymns, and the special song were nice. i was sitting where i could watch the piano player for the special number and that was cool. after church at the coffee hour two of my favorite ladies, Jean Fish and Barbara (not Pastor Daniel), had a huge spread laid out. ususally there's just some cookies and crackers and coffee and juice down there and people stand around and talk for about 15 or 20 minutes before we go to lunch. this time the ladies had out salmon spread, crackers, lunch meat, cheeses, fruit, shortbread, jelly, juices, and coffee and plenty of everything. so we sat down with a plate and hung out talking to folks for about an hour before we left. :-)
after i got home i called Irene, Beth's mom, and they came over to look at my Sportster. they really sounded interested in buying it, and Wayne really helped me out yesterday by going out to the bike and wiping it down and getting it started before they came out. but alas, once they did come out and looked at it, they didn't seem very excited to me about it anymore.... oh well..... so the only riding i did this week end was out to Detour and back on my Heritage... Wayne put the Sportster up on Craig's List for me... thanks Wayne!
Your ad, titled "Harley Davidson XLS Roadster," has been posted as follows:
my daughter Sarah went to church with me today. i've been going to a Evangelical Reformed United Church of Christ in Frederick. the church has a few buildings down town including a Chapel/Sunday School building, the church building, the church office building, and a building down the street that is multipurpose. we rent out some of it for retail stores and the rest is donated to non-profits, ministries, low/no rent apartments.
i like them...
i think it's pretty cool....
after about 13 years, Friends of Truth Christian Fellowship has closed it's doors, and stopped meeting.
we were always a "river church." people flowed through. came and went. except for a few of us die hards. maybe lots of churches are like that, i'm not really sure... we were definitely a deeper, more precise, church than most. we spent a lot of time studying doctrine, Armenianism, Calvinism, and then Christian Universalism. we were digging into Scripture most churches float over. and in some ways that never let us grow too big. but that's who we were, a small church that loved God and dug into Scripture trying to understand the mind and workings of Christ and the Holy Ghost, as best we could.
we were also a church of good praise music. i was the worship leader for all of our years of live music, and i've had lots of different praise bands through the years. some years of abundant musicians, and some lean times of just me and a guitar. i think the biggest band i had consisted of a drummer, three guitars, a bass player, and singers. we started out with me on guitar, another guy on twelve string, and a flute player. that was kinda cool too... we ended up with me and Angela with guitars and vocals. but we were always blessed with good music and worship...
for the last Sunday my son Sean, came back on stage with us. he sang with me for many years until he moved away with his family. that was very cool and special!
the last song we did was "Surrender," written by Glenn Kaiser. that song has meant a lot to us as a church and been a favorite of ours for many years, so it was a natural choice to be our last song as a congregation.
so Sunday was good. Wayne's sermon was called "He's a friend of mine." in connection with the church name.... he explained the thinking behind the name choice again and talked about the nature of Truth and friendship and family. he really did a good job for a last service.
Wayne wanted to have communion together and asked me last minute to lead and serve it.
so i told him, "ok, but this is the last time!" :-)
the mood was not sad or somber really. although underlying emotions were surely there, we were glad to be together this week just like we always were.... and we had a good service for the most part....
we really didn't have any plans on having a get together, or fellowship after church on Sunday,
\but it just happened that way.......
after church we all ended up buying food and going to the new park in Detour to eat together.
Wayne and Barb and family.
Bill and Stephanie and son.
Sean and Laura, Eli and Eva.
me.
Kyle and Marlene.
Angela. Christopher and Christine.
Kenny and Nicole and their three kids.
all had a nice time at the park. we sat, ate, and talked for several hours.
a mixed day of sadness, blessings, reconnecting, frustrations, and fellowship....
as far as FoTCF goes,
just right.
to follow up on the WORK Work work post from last week, i did work four doubles that week. and i ended up sick. maybe i'm just getting too old to miss so much sleep, or maybe there was a flu thing going around.... well, i guess i'll see what happens this week because we're working again this week, on the same platform edge project. only three doubles this week though. we started last night so i've been up all night as i write this, and we'll be working the next two nights.
since i wasn't feeling very good this week end i mostly stayed home. i had wanted to go out Friday to see the band Aneirin, but couldn't. then i really wanted to go riding my bike on Saturday because it was such a nice day outside, but didn't. i stayed close to home and went to dinner at Simply Asia that night. i watched tv all day basically. i watched a couple of my saved shows and a couple movies on tv. i watched the HBO Bob Saget show - awful! rarely do i think this, but that is an hour of my life i'll never get back. i also watched a new Highlander movie on the SciFi station - terrible! two hours i'll never get back..... i also watched the season finales of Monk and Psych - great! i like those shows. and Dr. Who has been very good.
Sunday church was good. Stefan was out of town, so Dwight did another good job with his message. he spoke from/about Psalm 103. and Wayne was back home, that's good. our pastor has been gone most of the summer! how many churchs could handle that? but it's good to have him back. he brought up our Wednesday meetings and wanted to kinda explain that we're looking into the "fate of the wicked." and talked some about eventual reconciliation and Christian universalism. he told me later that he wanted to bring it up on Sunday morning so that the rest of the church knew just what we were studying on Wednesday so that they could come if they wanted to, but also so that it didn't seem like a secret kind of thing that we were veering off into.... i told him it was good that he brought it up and what he said about it was good. easy to understand....
i did get to ride on Sunday afternoon/evening. Aneirin was playing in Frederick that night so i rode down to the show. i expected the show to start about an hour before it did, but once they got going they were awesome. they have a new guitar player, Dalton, and he fits real well with the other guys. they really were on fire that night! which was good because riding home it was dark and cold! i had a jacket and gloves so i wasn't all that freezing, but it was cold going home up Rt. 15.....
well, speaking of work, i guess it's time to start my day....... ttyl
so i had a good birthday week end. after the cake at work (see below), i went over to Sean's and hung out there for a while. he put a bunch of songs and video on my external hard drive that i still have to check out. then i went to pick up Linda at the airport. she took me to Bobby Vans in DC. it was one of the best meals i've ever had. the sirloin with gorgonzola cheese was like nothing i've ever had before. from the salad to the chocolate cake, it was a fabulous birthday repast.
the next day we hung out at Sam's Club most of the morning and ate food samples as we walked through just about every aisle. we got Linda her own member's card too. after shopping we took the groceries i'd bought back to the house and started to think about the rest of the day. we were supposed to have dinner and then see Spiderman 3 with Stefan and Judi and their friends, but they wanted to go to a late movie and we didn't. so we saw a matinee and then met up with them for sushi at Matsutake restaurant. that was a good time and the film was good. i'd seen some bad reviews, and i was a bit worried through the first third or so of the movie because it had a few corney bleah scenes; but after all it was very good.
Sunday was nice. Linda and Stefan had a disagreement during church though and so, of course, that discussion continued after service until Stefan felt like they'd kinda got it all out.... Stefan said something about the historical church being less then Christian in the way that it forced other people and nations to repent, visa-vie the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and other such events. Linda got defensive of the Church, because she feels like there's too much bad mouthing of it already and it's not accurate... if you look closely at how i wrote those "church"s you'll see what i believe was the basic disagreement. Stefan was talking about the church, little c, and Linda was talking about the Church, capitol c; the bride of Christ - all true believers. Stefan was talking about a dark ages, historical, often violent church that did wrong things in the name of Christ. after the conversation was over Linda and i didn't talk anymore about it, so i don't think it was a big deal to her... after church we bought lunch at the Weis market and took it to the park to eat outside, since it was such a nice day. we finished the day lounging around the house and went to bed early because we had to get up at 3am to get her to the airport.
all in all a pretty relaxing, nice birthday week end for me. thanks Linda. :-)
