While I was away this weekend (more on that trip tomorrow), we showed this in Sunday's worship:



Rebecca Grayson then followed that with a killer sermon called "The Love Laboratory."

Something else interesting happened in worship yesterday: we received an award from Adam Neal of the United Methodist Church's General Board Of Global Ministries for giving the most money to Haiti relief of any church in the Western North Carolina -- just under $60,000.

We had no idea until they called us.

Our Missions Pastor Ron Dozier then took the opportunity yesterday to remind the people of the church: We don't have fund raisers. We don't take up special offerings. We don't hold bake sales. We simply receive the Sunday offering and because the people of the church are such phenomenal givers -- and perhaps because they appreciate not being "nickel and dimed" with special appeals -- we had the money when the need arose in Haiti.

So it was good to be recognized, and to have yet one more occasion to teach the people of the church why we do what we do.

It's nice to be able to leave town and know that the church can manage just fine without me.

This semester, we're dividing up our Passage classes into two different days meeting two different needs.

Wednesday nights are care-oriented classes and groups. We launch both GriefShare and Financial Peace University tonight. Considering that the bulk of my pastoral ministry involves helping people in their initial stages of grief and supporting folks through the many pressures brought on by financial hardship, I think these are two excellent choices.

Sunday nights feature four bible-oriented experiences. Staring on September 26, we offer high-level, content heavy classes such as The Bible For The Rest Of Us, The Theology Of Romans, Living Hopefully In A Shattered World (Minor Prophets), and Defending The Faith. It's a lineup of subjects and teachers that I think can't be beat.

We're walking together here. Which means we're growing together. Won't you take the next steps on your way to spiritual maturity?

You can get more information and register for the classes here.

We showed this before the sermon yesterday:



We had two purposes:

1) To emphasize the theme of the series: God designed marriage more to make us holy than to make us happy.

2) To put a face on at least part of my family. Because we have three services and because Julie, to put it mildly, is not a "typical" preacher's wife, most people in the church have not met her. (Instead of playing piano or accompanying me on pastoral visits, she's a vice-president of sales here.) The response at both the 10 and 11:30 services was full of surprise at the "reveal" at the video's end.