Sunday, October 19, 2008

Sunday Flashback


"What on earth am I here for?" There's a question that's been asked in every generation by every culture. So this morning as we kicked off 40 Days of Purpose we took a look at what the Bible says.

The Big Idea? If you're going to know your purpose in life you have to start with God. He's the Creator of life and had you and I figured out before the foundations of the earth were formed.

The songs chosen by Nate today all related super well with the message, pointing us to our Creator and Savior as the givers of life.

No more donuts! Our source for Krispy Kreme no longer carries them, so today there were bagels, brownies and sweet potato biscuits. No one looked hungry! In between gatherings I went up to the balcony (a terrible ignored hang out in our lobby btw) and relaxed for a few minutes. Then I stood and looked over the wall, watching folks coming in and those already in interacting. This is how church should be!

Pretty good response today with our memory verse for the week! Next week will even be better.

The fall settles us down into pretty much a home town crowd at church. And that's not really a bad thing. Now locals outnumber the out of town guests and we resemble more of a normal church congregation. Well, I don't know if we'll ever quite be normal.

Big week ahead with the Chowan Baptist Association holding their annual meeting at NHC. This association goes back to something like 1806 or something. Most of the originals are dead, however. Then Wednesday night is our once a quarter CREST gathering at church, where we get the opportunity to hear from our various ministries what God is doing in the church and through the church in the community.

After an early afternoon defeat of the dallas cowboys I'm settling in to watching the Washington Redskins hopefull resume their winning ways today. Then tonight, the final ALCS game will decide who goes against the Phillies in the World Series.

Next Sunday: The purpose of worship.

6 comments:

Megan and Company said...

Corn fritters. Those things are amazing and belong in every church. If you serve them on Sunday morning you should be all set.

I'd commute down there every Sunday for corn fritters.

Rick Lawrenson said...

They were good!

Unknown said...

What exactly is a normal church congregation? I guess I am kind of thinking perhaps my family and I should not crash the services there anymore when we are down here spending time at our beach house.

CFHusband said...

"normal" for us simply means October through April, which is the majority of the year...crash away! We love our out-of-town guests and wouldn't trade the summer Sundays for anything!

Rick Lawrenson said...

By "normal" I meant that this time of year our attendance is more local than non-local. The summer swell is a resort area phenomenon that we welcome and enjoy.

But when the "season" is over we get to turn our energies back to honing in on being a local church.

And as Nate said, crash away! You're always welcome.

Unknown said...

Thanks Nate and Rick,
we will. Since we escape to our house down there as often as possible, we will be "crashing" year round, in fact, since we started attending services there 15 months ago, we have felt like it is a church home away from home.

The last time we were there (post Labor Day) one of your greeters said "welcome back". You have to know that makes a visitor feel good.