Summertime is officially here!! As you may have noticed, quite a few of us were not here last week. That is because we were on the Music and Mission’s Trip. We loaded up the bus and headed to the small town of Ahoski, North Carolina. We worked on a community playground that meant a lot to the town. We pulled weeds, sealed the playground equipment, washed everything, and did a little landscaping. We got the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of wonderful people, and just in case you didn’t know, we got to see how much of a rock star Danny is! Everywhere we went, people were coming up to hug him and welcome him back. It was a truly great experience. Then we packed up and headed to McLean, VA which is right outside Washington D.C. Here, we split up and did some needed cleanup around the church and also went to a community clothes closet and cleaned up there. All in all, we really got a great chance to serve two different communities in a variety of ways.

The theme of our trip was surrender. We looked at defining surrender and the different ways that it could look if we applied the idea of surrender to our lives. That is what we are going to continue to look at over the course of this summer. We will have many different opportunities to serve and surrender to the will of God. The verses we looked at in North Carolina and Virginia were 2 Corinthians 12:9 “ ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me…For when I am weak, then I am strong.” If this seems to go against human nature to you, you’d be right. It does. It usually doesn’t sit well with us to think about deliberately being weak. We usually come up with our own plans, our own agenda, our own methods, and then resort to asking God to bless those. So this will more than likely be a challenge for us this summer… learning how to surrender. Learning to give of ourselves to serve a greater purpose. Learning to be in the place where the words to this old hymn become powerfully alive in our lives: All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in his presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

Kristy

In Memory…

Everyone longs to leave a legacy. Have you noticed that? We all are striving to ensure that once we are no longer here, someone will remember us. We will have had an effect on someone else that causes them to remember us long after we are no longer here. It’s interesting. This characteristic of human nature is as old as well, human beings are. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt inscribed their images onto walls and other things so that once they were gone, they would be remembered. People had portraits painted, statues erected, later photographs were taken, diaries and journals are read, scrapbooks are made, family trees are traced, and so many other means of remembering are taken up by people of all generations. We are creatures of memory. And so, on this holiday that celebrates remembering… let us take some time to remember those who fought and died for our freedom. 620,000 Americans died in the Civil war alone. Keep in mind that after the Civil War, we participated in so many other wars, and countless more lost their lives in the fight for freedom. (more…)

Congratulations seniors!! Today is your day- you made it! I’m sure by now you’ve all received Dr. Seuss’s “Oh the Places You’ll Go,” eaten lots of cake, shared pictures, reminisced on the beginnings of high school, said good-bye to the halls of your high school, and are dreaming about the future. You deserve it! Today, we want to honor your hard work and effort. We want you to know that you will always have a church home here. I was thinking back to my high school graduation and I remembered how I thought the summer wouldn’t go fast enough. (more…)

Thank you to all of you who filled out my Getting to Know You surveys. They were really fun to read, and needless to say, I feel as if I got to know you guys a little better. Therefore it’s only fair that I answer some of those things myself: (more…)

Have you ever noticed that we live in a loud world? It seems that we can’t go anywhere these days without being bombarded by noise. Most people can’t even ride in their cars in silence. We have cell phones, computers, IPODs, MP3 players, DVD players in our cars, anything to fill the silence. We have music in elevators because you can’t ride them in silence with strangers…it’s just too weird. (more…)

Have you ever seen those Magic Eye pictures? Where supposedly if you look at it the right way you can see picture underneath the pattern? I could never see those. Some people said that if you crossed your eyes and moved it slowly away from your face, you’d magically see it. I never did. If you’ve ever taken the time to mess around with a camera, you may have discovered that things look a little different through its lens. You can zoom in, zoom out, and change focus. If you really get into photography, you’ll learn that you can do even more by manipulation lighting and shutter speed. (more…)

The year 2006 saw the launch of the now very popular MTV Overdrive. Why? Because MTV recognized that so many teenagers were watching their programming that they could make even more money by connecting audiences to their internet site and offering exclusive web clips and promos. Brilliant! (more…)