Saturday was my mom & dad's 39th wedding anniversary. Instead of blowing out of town somewhere or something like that, they invited us and a bunch of friends over and had a big cookout! There were people who go to our church, people who used to go to our church, people who never went to our church, family, not-family, neighbors, not-neighbors... and the party actually continued on into the next day as people who couldn't make it Saturday stopped by for leftovers! We had to go home relatively early to get to bed for church the next morning, but when we left my mom had everybody playing Turbo Yahtzee. My mom is a gamin' MACHINE!
Sunday we had a great first service, and then the choir Sunday school class kind of took a week off and we went over to The Edge, our church youth building, to go have praise & worship with the teenagers. They've been really participating in the adult P&W service lately, and we wanted to go over and show them some love too. I think we had maybe a dozen or so adults go over there, basically walk in unannounced and without explanation, and just participate in their song service. We actually had to leave just as the music was ending, so Pastor Robb didn't even have a chance to address us at all. Everybody I talked to REALLY enjoyed it! It was loud and rockin', but honestly... our adult services have leaned that way lately too, so I think we were in our element.
Funny... I wonder if the teenagers wondered how self-conscious it made us feel to be coming into their element. I wonder how I would have felt as a teenager if grownups had come into the youth service? But that's hardly a fair comparison... our youth services were not very much like the ones they have now, and our "youth building" was a room in the back of the sanctuary that wasn't being used for anything else. :)
So we sang and sang with the kids (and I spoke to several people who almost blew their pipes out... I remember realizing partway through that if I didn't cool it I wouldn't be able to croak out a note in adult choir second service! Cathy was hoarse all the next day!) and then we went back over for second service. After all that singing (and standing) I was pretty pooped. Mikey and Hannah were off at Meme's house already, and a friend was taking Cathy out for lunch for her birthday (which was a month and a half ago... that girl KNOWS how to have a birthday!!) so I went over to Meme's for lunch. Guess what we did? We played UNO. Have I mentioned that my mom is a gamin' MACHINE??!?
Monday was Memorial Day. We have an informal family tradition for Memorial Day weekend... whatever else we do, we try to get out to Floral Haven Cemetery for their special Memorial Day activities. The main thing is that they have several thousand flags that go up every year, each one donated by the family of a serviceman and each one labeled with that serviceman's name. It's quite a sight to see. They have a replica of the Tomb of the Unknowns (the real one is in Washington, D.C.) and they have guys who reenact the whole guarding of the tomb and changing of the guard and everything. They also have a permanent display of historical American flags, and the flag in the middle of that display is positively HUGE. We may have to time our trip next year for the retiring of that flag Monday evening. (We missed it by about a half-hour this year.) Anyway, it's always a good thing to go to just to give us time and opportunity to talk about what Memorial Day is supposed to be for. It's not "for" going to the lake or whatever, although those things are fine, and it could be argued that liberty to do those kinds of things are part of what was and is being fought for. But the main point is to remember that liberty comes with sacrifice. So we take part of that one weekend a year and talk to our kids about it. Hannah's a bit young to understand at the moment, but she looked at the flags flapping around, anyway. :)
Footnote: while we were there we ran across the memorial (gravesite?) for Kenneth E. Hagin and his wife Oretha. The man has meant so much to Charismatic Christianity and specifically to Tulsa. Between him on the east side of town and Oral Roberts on the west side, Tulsa is a much different place than it would have been otherwise. It was nice to go sit out there and briefly talk about him to Mikey, too.
Sunday we had a great first service, and then the choir Sunday school class kind of took a week off and we went over to The Edge, our church youth building, to go have praise & worship with the teenagers. They've been really participating in the adult P&W service lately, and we wanted to go over and show them some love too. I think we had maybe a dozen or so adults go over there, basically walk in unannounced and without explanation, and just participate in their song service. We actually had to leave just as the music was ending, so Pastor Robb didn't even have a chance to address us at all. Everybody I talked to REALLY enjoyed it! It was loud and rockin', but honestly... our adult services have leaned that way lately too, so I think we were in our element.
Funny... I wonder if the teenagers wondered how self-conscious it made us feel to be coming into their element. I wonder how I would have felt as a teenager if grownups had come into the youth service? But that's hardly a fair comparison... our youth services were not very much like the ones they have now, and our "youth building" was a room in the back of the sanctuary that wasn't being used for anything else. :)
So we sang and sang with the kids (and I spoke to several people who almost blew their pipes out... I remember realizing partway through that if I didn't cool it I wouldn't be able to croak out a note in adult choir second service! Cathy was hoarse all the next day!) and then we went back over for second service. After all that singing (and standing) I was pretty pooped. Mikey and Hannah were off at Meme's house already, and a friend was taking Cathy out for lunch for her birthday (which was a month and a half ago... that girl KNOWS how to have a birthday!!) so I went over to Meme's for lunch. Guess what we did? We played UNO. Have I mentioned that my mom is a gamin' MACHINE??!?
Monday was Memorial Day. We have an informal family tradition for Memorial Day weekend... whatever else we do, we try to get out to Floral Haven Cemetery for their special Memorial Day activities. The main thing is that they have several thousand flags that go up every year, each one donated by the family of a serviceman and each one labeled with that serviceman's name. It's quite a sight to see. They have a replica of the Tomb of the Unknowns (the real one is in Washington, D.C.) and they have guys who reenact the whole guarding of the tomb and changing of the guard and everything. They also have a permanent display of historical American flags, and the flag in the middle of that display is positively HUGE. We may have to time our trip next year for the retiring of that flag Monday evening. (We missed it by about a half-hour this year.) Anyway, it's always a good thing to go to just to give us time and opportunity to talk about what Memorial Day is supposed to be for. It's not "for" going to the lake or whatever, although those things are fine, and it could be argued that liberty to do those kinds of things are part of what was and is being fought for. But the main point is to remember that liberty comes with sacrifice. So we take part of that one weekend a year and talk to our kids about it. Hannah's a bit young to understand at the moment, but she looked at the flags flapping around, anyway. :)
Footnote: while we were there we ran across the memorial (gravesite?) for Kenneth E. Hagin and his wife Oretha. The man has meant so much to Charismatic Christianity and specifically to Tulsa. Between him on the east side of town and Oral Roberts on the west side, Tulsa is a much different place than it would have been otherwise. It was nice to go sit out there and briefly talk about him to Mikey, too.
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