The weather has definitely changed for winter - although there are still many leaves on the ground, the air is sharply cold. But we've actually found it fun to bundle up to go outside...the only thing we wish was that we had better heating in our home so that we wouldn't have to bundle up to be inside...
Tuesday evening Ken lead an art devotional evening where he read the story of Pentecost to everyone and after some prayer and meditation on the reading, we went in and painted what we felt represented the reading. It was a really neat evening, especially to see all the various interpretations of Acts 2. The pictures were displayed on Pentecost Sunday in the entry way to church.
The artists hard at work...
The end result!
Ken's Holy Spirit
Ken spent most of Wednesday in meetings - it turns out that the pastor we called to our parish declined. So we're going to extend a call to our second choice. Please pray that if this is God's will, he would accept. Otherwise, we start all over again, looking through names of possible candidates. Ken and I are definitely ready for a pastor to be here again. It is difficult to be the only paid employees of the church as everyone looks to us for pastoral care (which we can't give them).
Ken also is working with the children's ministry team to switch back to the original way Sunday school was done - for the past month and a half they had created the program so that the kids were more involved with worship, having Sunday school begin 30 minutes before the service and they would arrive at the service 10 minutes in. However, most parents did not like having their children in the service, so we're back to having the kids in for the first 10 minutes, then out for the rest of the time. Ken was a little disappointed, after all the research he's done (and learned) in university about the positive aspects of having children in worship. But if that's what the people want, Ken as an intern does not have the authority to do otherwise.
Some exciting news from the BCNZ - they've offered Ken another course next semester! He is prayerfully considering it. As much as he loves teaching, he's not sure if he has the time to dedicate to another course. This semester alone has been a difficult balancing act for him with all his activities and responsibilities at the church. But we'll see.
On the music front - I signed up to attend a music/worship leader conference called Noise, put on by Parachute. It should be an awesome three day event with leaders from the Newsboys, Hillsong, and Parachute there. There will be break out sessions to learn more about worship leading, instrumentation in a worship band, technical aspects to worship, and vocal training. It will be in Auckland from 12-14 June. So far there are three other members from St. Luke's going with me and we applied for a grant to cover costs - hopefully at least some of the grant will come through. I also recorded my first song Sunday evening with Tony (a friend from Trinity in Feilding) and sent it in to a competition put on by Noise - the winner gets two days in the Parachute studios to record their song! Wish me luck!
The past few weeks worship has been running incredibly smooth! There have been few technical glitches, the powerpoints have matched the songs, and everyone has been very pleased. However, this past Sunday two songs were wrong! The team on did not check my powerpoint and so it was a little awkward, but most of the congregation knew the correct words to be singing and things continued as normal. But even with these errors, people still came up after the service and said how the team sounded so wonderful, and that it was a very worshipful service. God is good - working through our fallible hands to create something wonderful!
Trinity worship went smooth - Ken was leading worship and preaching for the evening service as well as playing guitar on a few songs. The team sounded great. I was nervous because on our practice date, hardly anyone was able to show up and we relied heavily on cds. However, on Sunday evening, everyone arrived, we ran through the songs and it sounded great. Again, God is good! Ken enjoyed giving another sermon. This one was based on the parallel between Pentecost and Mt. Sini when God meets the people to give them His law. It was really awesome to see how everything, as small as the detail as the time of day when God met the people at Mt. Sini and when He came upon the apostles, was linked together between these two events.
It may be obvious then, but what Ken and I really felt God speaking to us this week is how awesome and in control He is. No matter what of our efforts, He takes them all and has His way with it. He is involved in our lives, to the smallest details. As shown in Exodus and Acts, He is intimately involved, creating us to be His people. Thinking that this is the God we worship gives me chills - I think we're starting to just grasp what His unconditional love looks like!
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