Easter Sunday!!

Easter morning started out like Christmas morning....Emily couldn't wait to get up and see what she got from the Easter Bunny. Her "big" gift was the 101 Dalmation movie. She was very excited about that.


We had a great morning at church. It started with an all-chruch Easter breakfast. Very yummy and a great turn-out!! Church went well as we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We had a great attendance in service and it was exciting to see so many faces - both old and new.

After service, we all rested and allowed Aaron to get a good nap and then we met my parents for Easter dinner. We had a nice day and it was nice to be around family on Easter...something we haven't really had in the past.

The kids opening their Easter baskets from Bunca and Papa.

Aaron loved his new Easter tractors and Easter Thomas trains!!

Thanks mom and dad for a nice dinner and the goodies!!

Decorating Easter Eggs

One of Emily's favorite traditions is decorating Easter eggs. Once she sees Easter decorations in the store....it's all she talks about. We finally found time to do our eggs and she had a great time. The hardest part was waiting on the eggs to boil and then cool!!

Easter Egg Hunt

Lots of fun things to share about...

About a week ago, we participated in an Easter Egg Hunt at the local YMCA. It was a fun event for the kids. Aaron was in the Age 1-3 hunt and he walked away with about 6 eggs...not too good. Emily was in the 4-6 age group and she did very well. She definielty knew what she was doing and got lots of eggs. It was a fun time with crafts, face-painting and even the Easter Bunny. (Notice Aaron is not in the picture...he wanted nothing to do with the Easter Bunny.)

"Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ, my God.
All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood."
-Isaac Watts

Hmmmmm...

I have been on a fantastic reading spree. The last three or four books that I’ve read concerning professional or spiritual things have been tremendous. It figures that eventually I would run into one that I am not so high on.

The book is called Return to Worship, written by Ron Owens. I actually bought this book way back in Kalamazoo where I was the worship leader. Yeah, five or six years ago… and I’m not even done with the book. I picked it up initially because I liked the format. This guy writes each chapter like a letter to worship leaders, pastors, worship band, etc. It was a neat concept and he has some great thoughts about worship in general at the beginning of the book…

I decided to start reading it again because I am tired of being in the middle of a hundred books and never finishing any of them. It’s starting to drive me a little nuts… so I’m trying to polish this one off next. Here’s the problem… I’ve read chapters 27 through 31 over the course of the last couple of days… and I’ve disagreed with or questioned at least one point he makes in each chapter.

For instance, in chapter 27, he suggests that the style of the music can cancel out the lyrics. His premise is that if the music is too rocky… it diminishes the message of the song. I guess he is warning worship leaders to be sensitive to use appropriate music... which is good advice… but in doing so he illustrates his faulty premise with an example OUTSIDE of the context of a worship service. (in the world of radio) He faulty premise? That if it doesn’t ‘sound’ Christian… it doesn’t matter what the lyrics are. Look, I’m not a fan of metal… in fact, I hate it. I can’t listen to it and I don’t want to… but if Christian artists are using that music to reach out to people whom I could never connect with… go for it! Who am I to stand in the way of that?

In chapter 29, he centers his whole letter around the issue of not allowing non-Christians to play on the worship team. This is a sensitive issue, to be sure… and for me it probably comes down to what context I am serving in. My problem wasn’t that he was raising the issue… but the reasoning he gives behind it. He writes: “According to our Lord Jesus, the first and greatest commandment is ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ The second was like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ We have reversed the order."

Another faulty premise has been exposed… he suggests that churches which put non-Christians in a worship band are choosing the second command over the first command. Here’s my problem with that: He makes it seem like we have to pick one command or the other… and that we couldn’t possibly be accomplishing both commands together! Regardless, who am I to judge the motives of churches that decide to go this route? Most of them would probably say that they are trying to minister to the non-Christian… which seems to be something that Jesus would really like to see happen. I don’t know. Again, I don’t have a problem raising the issue… I just have a problem with his reasoning.

In chapter 28 he criticizes repetition in worship… even though repetition is constantly used throughout scripture as a devise of learning and remembering. In chapter 30 he makes a case for stifling applause during the worship service. In chapter 31 he basically suggests that we should not talk with each other before the start of a worship service… but we should be preparing our hearts to worship. He makes some good points… but he approaches all these issues with what I perceive to be an 'all or nothing' approach. He strikes me as being very boxed within a certain mold of worship and if something doesn’t quite fit within his box… he rejects it altogether.

Okay, that’s my rant for the month. If you’ve read this far… thank you for humoring me. G’day.

Bread

So a couple of weeks ago... I was feeding Emily lunch. She asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I made it for her and then started to do something else.

About five minutes later she comes up to me with little while balls of rolled up bread that she had torn off of her sandwich.

She proceeds to hand one of them to me and say: 'Take and eat... because God loves you.'

She was serving me communion. It was a priceless moment...

Long Time

Well... Melissa has pretty much carried this blog since the beginning of the year. I figure I'd better post a little something something here. Just some random thoughts from my very scattered head right now.

-I'm really happy that baseball is back! I don't think the Cards are going to be stellar this year... but it will be interesting to see how some of the younger players we have pan out.

-It's been hard to stay disciplined in blogging. I think it's because I write a sermon each week that is equivalent to a seven page paper... so it makes it tough to want spend any more time writing anywhere else.

-Went and saw U2-3D in late February. It was spectacular! Can't wait to see this same technology applied to Star Wars... mostly so I can take my kids to the theater to see Star Wars. That's something I've wanted to do for a long time!

-Still love being here in Wheaton. Things are very busy at the church right now. Seems like I've had meetings at the church 3-4 nights a week since early February. We continue to work our way through Natural Church Development. We are just getting to the stage where we take some concrete actions. It's exciting and intimidating at the same time.

-12 people signed up here at church for Fantasy Baseball League. I couldn't even get enough for eight person league down in St. Louis! Had our draft on Sunday and it was a blast!

Okay... that's all for now. I'll try to get more regular in posting... but don't expect anything heavy for awhile...

Just Plum Wore Out!!

This is what happens when you play really hard at church!!

He was so tired!! He still had his coat on and his snack in his hand!! He walked down to his room and collapsed right in front of his door. I guess we just didn't get him in his bed fast enough!