Nothing is more discouraging than having a great service one week packed to the gills and then the next week hardly anyone shows up. I suppose this is worse for smaller churches since you can easily know everyone. Our Easter service rocked. Then came the Sunday after Easter. It started at 7:30 am. I got a phone call from my worship leader, he wasn't coming. Unfortunately his wife was having some physical issues and had to go to the hospital. That ended well the other day. Thank God.
Then two minutes later I get a call from another lady who won't be able to make it to church. I'm thinking ok that's fine. Just a couple of people. I figured the worship team would do a cd and all would be well. That's what I thought until I got to church. Some people start trickling in around 10 am. That is when we actually start our service. So around 10:15 we decide we will get started. One of the lady's on the worship team expressed to me that she was discouraged because there was literally 10 to 15 people in church at 10:15. I just laughed. I kind of thought it was funny. I told her it's ok. Anyway, some more people came in between 10:20 and 10:30. We had a quarter of the people who came out on Easter. That was pretty messed up. To make things worse we needed a good offering to pay the bills this week. It was anything but good.
Can you see where I am going with this? Anyone would be discouraged with a situation like this. But alas I was not. Because I was too sick to even think about. What I didn't tell you was I woke up to the first phone call with the worst head cold I have had in years. Even now I am still fighting it.
So that was the down side. The upside is this, I slept for most of the afternoon. It didn't help my sickness but I needed it non-the-less. On Monday I went to NH for a PDC conference on small groups. That was cool, but I was still big time sick. And I did not sleep the night before. So I was a hurting puppy. But when I got home last night a box was waiting on my doorstep. I wondered what it was. So when I opened it, it was full of PDC Hawaiian shirts from my buddy Dan Southerland. That guy rocks. Although others would be discouraged about all that happened to me, I'm still kind of cool about the whole thing. Plus the sun is shining today and I get to wear one of my new shirts. Sweet. Thanks again Dan. And thank God for small pleasures.
Then two minutes later I get a call from another lady who won't be able to make it to church. I'm thinking ok that's fine. Just a couple of people. I figured the worship team would do a cd and all would be well. That's what I thought until I got to church. Some people start trickling in around 10 am. That is when we actually start our service. So around 10:15 we decide we will get started. One of the lady's on the worship team expressed to me that she was discouraged because there was literally 10 to 15 people in church at 10:15. I just laughed. I kind of thought it was funny. I told her it's ok. Anyway, some more people came in between 10:20 and 10:30. We had a quarter of the people who came out on Easter. That was pretty messed up. To make things worse we needed a good offering to pay the bills this week. It was anything but good.
Can you see where I am going with this? Anyone would be discouraged with a situation like this. But alas I was not. Because I was too sick to even think about. What I didn't tell you was I woke up to the first phone call with the worst head cold I have had in years. Even now I am still fighting it.
So that was the down side. The upside is this, I slept for most of the afternoon. It didn't help my sickness but I needed it non-the-less. On Monday I went to NH for a PDC conference on small groups. That was cool, but I was still big time sick. And I did not sleep the night before. So I was a hurting puppy. But when I got home last night a box was waiting on my doorstep. I wondered what it was. So when I opened it, it was full of PDC Hawaiian shirts from my buddy Dan Southerland. That guy rocks. Although others would be discouraged about all that happened to me, I'm still kind of cool about the whole thing. Plus the sun is shining today and I get to wear one of my new shirts. Sweet. Thanks again Dan. And thank God for small pleasures.
Comments
"small" pleasures???????