half-way up the mountain

This was a rather action packed weekend here as I was leading our church's participat in Celebrate West Hartord, a large town fair and arts show, and then preaching the next day. We had a booth where we helped kids decorate plastic visors with all sorts of foam stickers. There were animal shapes, letters to spell your name, sports shapes and geometric designs which kids could attach to their visors. We also had candy, dog biscuts, baloons, and info about our church. It was a fun, but somewhat draining time. It was a hot and humid day which ended in a huge thunderstorm that blew over some tents and shut down the fair an hour or so early. We had about a dozen different folks from the church involved in manning our booth, and had a killer team of mothers come up with the ideas of what we would do at our booth. It was a good way to be out and simply deepen our connections with the community.

The second part of the weekend, that was both exciting and tiring was preaching on Sunday. If you are interested you can follow this link and listen to my sermon (just scroll down a little and you'll see it - our webpage is in the midst of being revamped). The sermon went well. People were challenged and encouraged, though I forgot some of the things I had meant to say. It is exciting to be able to communicate truth to others, and I felt a lot of freedom in offering my preaching as my service to God regardless of what people throught. It was good and a little scary that people were helped by what I said. There are ways in which I want to be used by God, but there is a real responsibility which is tied into it all and that is what freaks me out a little bit.

The rest of the way up the mountain will be a children's program and service trip with teenagers, both in the city of Hartford next week.