Yesterday was a good day and we had a wonderful first as well. As for my musings …

-At my 10:30 church we had live instrumentals for all our music. That was a first in my 3 years here. We have had to rely on tracs almost exclusively with an occasional song with someone playing an instrument.  We had the piano, a bass, a guitar and drums for all the music. It was great. All the people who were playing the instruments have begun attending within the past year and a half.

-In January sickness crushed our attendance at both churches. Today we bounced back a little in our attendance. We saw some people who haven’t been able to attend for a few weeks. I think seeing those people back encouraged everyone.

-On Saturday I did the funeral service for a man in my 10:30 church. He was such a great guy who loved people and didn’t just have personality, he was a personality. He is going to be missed by many people. The visitation on Friday evening had hundreds come through to pay respect and encourage the family. Our church really stepped up to support the family and provided food for, and served over 100 people for a funeral dinner. With many of the extended family bringing food I think we could have fed 200.

-It humbling and encouraging to see several people from the church work in set up, serving the food, and clean up afterward. Some of them were there for 6 hours. What a joy to see people exercising hearts of a servant.

-Last week we had 20 people show up for discipleship training!

-What an exciting game for the Super Bowl.

-I am once again sitting in another state as I type my musings. I am here to visit with my Dad, stepmom and hopefully see a few other family members. This will be a very quick trip. Your continued prayers for him are appreciated.

-I was fired up to preach the message yesterday. It was part of the series “Powered By God”. Learning about God’s power and how we can live in this power daily. Yesterday was about prayer. About connecting to God’s power through prayer. We looked at Ephesians 3:14-21 and how it shows us the direction, posture, purpose and power of prayer. People seemed engaged at both churches. I am encouraged that there has been a growing number of people who are getting serious about praying. We have 2 new prayer times that were started and are being led by laypeople.

Here’s hoping that you will spend some time in prayer and sense God’s presence and love.

Dennis