Thursday, July 31, 2008

Loaves Abound!


Here we are after a whirlwind of wonderful worship: Sean was lector, assisting minister, usher and communion assistant (whew!) and I preached and assisted with communion. None of it would have happened at all without my dad, who designed and produced a handout (Gospel text on the front, Fan Pu's paper cutting of the Loaves and Fishes on the back), gathered loaf-looking pretzels and goldfish snacks for the after-worship fellowship, and made a DVD of a MOSAIC segment on Slovakia for us to use as part of our presentation after the service (he also ushered and assisted with communion ... Super Dad!) The Thursday night service is more informal--the sermon is usually dialogue-style, so I was able to use some of my teaching techniques. Sean's working on editing the audio file now to post on our website--I'll add a note here when it's up.

I'm tired and happy, looking forward to getting a good night's sleep and a good day's work in on Sunday's sermon. I've gotten great ideas and input from people, from the many insights of the folks at the service tonight to Carmen, who gave me a haircut this morning. She had me retell the story in my own words and narrow down what was most important to me about it--so helpful!

The presentation we gave after the service tonight went really well and I found myself reflecting on how nice it was to have a partner-in-mission to present with. Sean was great: very well-researched and knowledgeable as he talked about the Lyceum and the ELCA's relationship with the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia. It felt good to put some of that orientation training to such immediate use ... and it is good indeed to be a team.

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