Jesus in a DeLorean

Another Sunday in the south was coming up so we started looking for churches in the area.  If you are Baptist you have plenty of choices!  And it seems like they all have Sunday School at 9:30 (sometimes 9:45) and worship at 11:00…which makes it easy to plan your Sunday no matter where you are!  But we wanted to try something a little bit different.  Once again, the churchs’ presence on the web was almost non-existent.  But there was a Methodist church just a few miles away that had a web page that informed us that there was a contemporary service at 10:30.  Bingo….that’ll work for us!
Church

On arrival there were lots of people milling about outside and a table with some pastries…the kids loved this church already.  We were overdressed a bit and a couple people commented on the boys’ ties which led to us explaining we are from out of town.  Once again people were very welcoming and friendly.  Once we got in and situated the music began.  Drums, lead electric, rhythm electric and bass plus about 5 singers.  Let’s get some contemporary worship on!!

Contemporary: belonging to or occurring in the present

Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble?…late 90’s early 2000 maybe.  Hrmmm….Not what I had in mind for contemporary.  But I like the song and I love the singing part of worship, so I belted it out for God to hear.  The singers had a confidence monitor so it was good to see their eyes.  There was a young girl, maybe 14 or so, who clearly knew the lyrics well and was looking at and connecting with people instead of staring at the monitor.  She’ll be up front leading the congregation some day very soon I hope!  The band struggled but we all sang out and filled the room with worship.

At one point the worship leader asked if there any first time visitors.  Now, being in worship leading circles I’ve heard the debates on this question.  You want to know who the visitors are so you can welcome them…but at the same time, this can be off-putting to those who like to just blend in. But the five of us are not shy and raised our hands…I think we were the only ones.  She looked right at us and gave us a very sincere welcome.  During the meet and greet time lots of people came over and gave very warm and genuine welcomes, “Hi, I’m so-and-so, we are sooo glad to have you.  Where are you from?  What brings you here?”

The preacher man gets up there and….wait a minute, I know that guy…he’s the drummer!!  Yup the preacher and the drummer are the same guy!  They are in a series in John relating to light.  Today he was talking about the seven I Am statements.  He reminded us of the importance of the number seven and how it is associated with completeness…including the 7 holes in our head.  I thought that was funny except he didn’t finish it off by saying something like, “that is proof that God made us holey”.

Why did I title this post Jesus in A DeLorean?  Oh yeah, so at one point the preacher makes the analogy between Jesus and the movie Back to the Future.  The premise of the movie is that something in the McFly’s past has made their present crappy and probably spells disaster for the future.  So Doc and Marty go back in time in a tricked out DeLorean to try to fix things.  Jesus is a bit like that.  But instead of riding in a DeLorean He carried then hung on a cross to cover all my past (and future) crap, make my present awesome and give me an unimaginably amazing eternal future with Him.  I liked the analogy.  If Jesus could pick a form of transportation today though, I think he’d certainly pick the bicycle.  In fact, had God decided to make 8 the number of completeness I’m pretty sure He would have created the bike on the 8th day.

The last slide the preacher had up on the screen was this…
Trust and jump

If you know me and/or have been following our adventures on this blog you will know that my word for 2015 was TRUST and my word for 2016 is JUMP.  The slide spoke to me in a different way than it probably did for others!
JUMP!

So, after we got home, ate lunch, changed clothes and got haircuts, we spent the afternoon at the pool.  And yes, I JUMPED in!

Worship in music

Trust and jump

Dacen and the dingaling

Pretty braid

Church

Dacen the haircutee

Going to the pool

JUMP!

Svim time

Swimming

Punchline

 

2 thoughts on “Jesus in a DeLorean

  • April 15, 2016 at 3:50 pm
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    Loved this post. We have been to several churches on our journey but our favorite was the Methodist church in Fort Davis. We went several times and they welcomed us with open arms. Jay… Their cowboy preacher… was a wonderful teacher. People were great. Isn’t it exciting to see what’s out there? So great to be able to praise and worship our Abba Father with

    Reply
    • April 15, 2016 at 9:05 pm
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      It is great to meet with other believers. There was a time when I’d not have any interest in going to an unfamiliar church. But now I look forward to seeing new buildings, hearing new music, experiencing different styles of worship, hearing different deliveries of different messages. Its been really great and ALWAYS we have been welcomed very warmly!

      Reply

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