A Day of Firsts

What an interesting couple of day! I left home this morning (Sunday) at 8:00 am and I arrived home at 9:00 pm that night! So here are a few of the eventful moments in my weekend! 1.  We had our first baptism since my arrival in August. I baptized Helen, a 79 year old lady who had received Christ some time ago, but had never been baptized. She uses a walker, so she was not able to get into our baptismal. We were just about to start the baptism when Alice, the elderly lady who sits next to her, stands up and starts yelling that she is bleeding. (That is a first for me!) We were able to stop the bleeding, so we moved on to the baptism.  I Baptized Helen, which was awesome, and then we moved on to presenting our new members. (Which Beth and I were a part of) 2.  In the Brethren church, we have people kneel and then we pray for them as they commit to our local body of Christ.  That was a first for me as well.  My experience has been that we present people before the congregation, but "the laying on of hands," and "commissioning prayer" was not a part of that.  So, while everyone was being prayer for, I couldn't understand why one of the men I asked to pray was not praying specifically for the people he was designated to pray for.  After Prayer I looked up and kneeling at the end of the row of new member candidates was a man who was visiting for the first time.  I guess I did not explain our membership process well enough.  He thought he could come forward and join the church right then.  Since we have a membership process, I have learned to be painfully specific when asking people to come forward to join the church!!! 3.  Yesterday I preached on the omnipotence of God.  Actually, I preached on the suffering in this world as it relates to the power of God.  That is a first for me.  Well I guess it wasn't my first time in an indirect way.  We communicate what we believe about the power of God in many different ways.  I just choose to do it in a more direct way.  Fun stuff!! 4.  We had our annual business meeting after church yesterday.  At the meeting, we presented a new budget to the church.  The budget has been exactly the same for the past several years.  I didn't change it drastically, but I asked that we make some changes so we can better understand how our money is being spent! 5.  I also presented a plan to make some badly needed repairs to our property.  This was appreciated by all because it is long over due, but the price tag is daunting to a small congregation.  But like Rickey Bolden (my former pastor) always says, "it is all chump change to God!" 6.  Tonight, Beth and I are taking another couple to see Rob Bell in San Fransisco.  Not my first time to see him speak, but the last time was via a video feed...so it is my first time to see him live! There you go.  It has been an interesting couple of days!  I am excited to see what 2008 holds for our small congregation!