Believe it or not, the first thing I did this morning (even before getting out of bed) was pray surprise me God. I am proud of myself. The crazy part of it is, after I was done I almost had second thoughts, almost. I was a little scared of what I had just done. What was I doing letting God have permission to do what ever he wants in my life. I like things just the way they are. Does this mean I am going to have to *gulp* change....I'm Lutheran...I can't change! Can I?
Of course I can. So, rather than going back to sleep and pretending nothing happened I got up and began my day.
So what did Day 1 have in store for me? The morning was amazing. We had a fantastic storm start up around 8 this morning and the snow was big, fluffy and most of all reminded me of Colorado snow. As I left my apartment I looked out across the Mississippi River and took a moment with God to thank him for this moment.
My day went on very much like normal. I had to catch up on what happened in worship on Sunday because Heather, my wife, and I were up north in Two Harbors to celebrate Christmas with her side of the family. Over the course of this holiday season (which lasted almost a month and a half for me) I experienced Christmas with 7 different families. And all of them were vastly different. But what a wonderful way to form your own traditions, by stealing from the best of them. (due to the Christian nature of Dain's profession Dain wishes you to know stealing is wrong, but stealing traditions is ok, don't forget to make up ome of your own. ;) )
I did have a few other surprises today. Some good and some not so good. I learned that a brother of a member of our congregation died this past weekend in a snowmobiling accident and the funeral will be on Wednesday. The tragic thing about this is how we, as a church, have had at least one death like this each year for the past 3 years. I pray for their healing and understanding from this tragedy. Another side of this is the person who died is from the same town I grew up in, Littleton, Colorado and it is very possible they went to the same church as me growing up. This is unconfirmed, but would prove to be a big surprise if true.
As the day wore on I slowly began to lower my expectations as to how many youth were going to show up for tag, our monday night high school worship. The snow was not getting any better and reports were that the roads were not improving. But, I was pleasantly surprised to see an average size crew show up with a few people I haven't seen in quite some time. We talked about this experiment and I think it went well.
To close my night I went to the new part of our building that is still under construction and took some pictures of how people signed the concrete floor. We are getting ready to lay the carpet and as a way of blessing the building people wrote prayers, Bible verses and signed their name. My surprise was what was written on the floor. I was literally floored (yikes) by what most of the people wrote. I know that we have a spiritual bunch, but when we did a study of common church attributes we found out that Passionate Spirituality was an area we lacked. Consequently, this experiment is one way we are trying to boost our passion for Christ. But like I said, I was amazed at the wonderful prayers and Bible verses that were written on the floor. I spent 15 minutes taking pictures in all the different rooms while Derek (my brother) and Pastor Ron chatted in the background.
Seeing these prayers gave me a great sense of hope for this congregation. I have faith that God is doing great things in the community. But sometimes it is hard to see. People tend to store things like "God Stuff" deep down inside and never let them out. Why is that? What you have inside of you is beautiful and wonderful. You should not be afraid to praise God and tell the truth that God is awesome. I am excited to see how I can use these pictures.
I didn't expect so much to happen on the first day, but wow. This is fun and interesting. Let's hope that tomorrow is as well.
Blessings,
dain
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