At Anchor, we’re working with several Presbyterian churches in a Habitat for Humanity project. Only need to raise another $1000, and that should be easy with the Nelson’s BBQ event in a couple months.
Yesterday, I heard that a family and location have been chosen. Can’t remember the location (I think I heard a Paulding reference), but the home will be for a family of seven from Somalia. Cool.
L-r: Me, Terry, Joe (drums), Tom, and Tim.
The Anchor worship team played for two hours last night at The Grind coffeehouse, over on the east side of Fort Wayne. I’d never been there before. Nice place. The smell of wonderful coffee overwhelms your senses as you enter the front door. In the photo, it looks like I’m playing the keyboard with just one finger. I was probably punching in a setting.
Sunday night, some mischief-makers broke into the church. We couldn’t find anything that was stolen, though I understand some things were, indeed, taken. They also:
Someone was also in the church Saturday night. Pat, the administrative assistant, noticed that stuff in her office had been disturbed. The worship team, always the first to arrive, noticed a downstairs door open.
Last night at music practice, I couldn’t figure out why my usual piano setting sounded so sharp and loud. Then I noticed that all of the sound adjustment nobs were maxed out.
Pam couldn’t get the monitor working, which means the worship team won’t have the benefit of lyrics this Sunday.
I just learned that the culprits, two boys, were caught and will be doing community service. Such is life at Anchor.
Five churches in our neighborhood have developed a good working relationship, and we’re doing some things cooperatively. Two years of doing VBS together. A picnic in the park. Last year, for each Sunday night during Lent, we met in a different church for a soup supper and getting-acquainted. We’re doing that again this year. And last night was Anchor’s turn to host.
Pam and I ate with some folks from Grace Presbyterian. The Grace people are incredibly fun. (I brought two crockpots, one with vegetable beef, and other with minestrone.) After the meal, we all moved to the sanctuary. The worship team did two prelude numbers (the people applauded after each one), and then led the congregation–or pieces of five congregations–in four of our favorite songs (“Not to Us,” “Lord of Everything,” “Everlasting God,” and “Never Let Go”). The sanctuary was packed, and standing up there pounding the keyboard gave me a high.
Pastor Tim took his turn leading a lesson from Phil Yancey’s “The Jesus I Never Knew.” He had us discuss questions with people seated near us on the subject of temptation. I happened to sit with several folks from Trinity United Methodist. In particular, I interacted with a 15-year-old guy from Trinity who feels called into the ministry and is anxious to get started. A real solid young man. I greatly enjoyed talking to him. Excellent spiritual insights.
In June, these five churches are cooperating to host a Walk Thru the Bible seminar. I’m juiced about that.
I’ve attended United Brethren churches all my life. Churches in four states (Indiana, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and California). I’ve never attended a UB church that actively, regularly cooperated with other churches. We don’t like cooperating with other UB churches, let alone non-UB churches. So I’m lovin’ this ecumenical (a bad BAD word to many folks) stuff, being part of the worldwide body of Christ.
You can’t pull this off just anywhere. UB churches aren’t the only suspicious ones. But in our neighborhood, we had five churches with pastors who were open to the idea, and synergy happened. More power to us.
Pastor Tim wrote about last night on his blog.
Before the 9:00 service on Sunday, Jesse came running into the sanctuary and beamed a big smile at me, seeking reaction. Jesse is three years old, the son of a very young single mother, Lee, who attends regularly. The two of them came to the Super Bowl party last week at our house. Standing there in the sanctuary, smiling, he looked a bit wired. Like he’d had too many sugar cookies.
He was still wired after the worship team finished the song package. I sat down in the back pew, and could see Jesse being very fussy, didn’t want to sit still. Lee stood up to take him out, but I rushed over and opened my arms. “I’ll take him,” I told Lee.
I’m certainly no child-raising expert. But I thought I knew what Jesse needed. He needed to run. Burn off energy. So we went down the hall toward the offices and Sunday school rooms, and for the rest of the service, we mostly did the “I’m gonna get you” mock-chase game. He was in high heaven, loving the attention of a guy and someone willing to play with him. Sometimes he screamed in delight, and I had to tell him to be quiet, which never worked.
About a half-hour later, I heard Pastor Tim ask the worship team to come up for the final song. That was my que. I had to get to the keyboard. So Joanna, who was in the hall, said she’d take over with Jesse. And I rushed into the sanctuary.
There really is something to this “it takes a village” stuff.
Seventeen people, all rooting for the Giants, attended our party on Sunday night. I took some photos, but only got some of the people. Anyway, here’s some of what I snapped.
Two photos of pretty much the same people.
Here’s Connor. It’s been two months since he and his parents moved from our home into an apartment, after a year at our house. He’s changed so much. Two months, at that age (he’s now 16 months old) make a big difference.
Here’s Carolyn with Connor and Dennis, who was born in mid-December. Dennis doesn’t seem very happy at the moment.
Pam and I hosted a Really Big Bowl Party (need to avoid trademark infringement) last night. Had 17 people, all from Anchor. All rooting for the Giants. So bedlam erupted in the last minute, as you can imagine. We’re all on our feet, fists pumping the air. Loving it.
I’m sure ad agency creatives are going nuts imagining clever campaigns using two brothers/Super Bowl MVPs. Hope this shuts up Tiki Barber, the crybaby.
One of my goals for 2008 is to master the crockpot. Last night I had all three of our crockpots going–meatballs in one, sloppy joes (Pam’s homemade recipe) in another, and cheese dip in the mini-crock. Chopped four onions for the sloppy joes. Man, that’s hard on the eyes!
Favorite commercials: the eTrade baby who barfs at the end; the carrier pigeons; the Rocky-inspired Clydesdale, the Doritos monster mouse, the Pepsi Max ad with the people nodding off (which is exactly how I feel right now, after a late night). And I just love that jumping robot guy, who got beat up a few times by a Terminator.
Met a really nice family yesterday, visiting our church for the first time. Five kids. I usually ask first-timers, “How did you find us?” Because Anchor isn’t exactly located on a thoroughfare. We’re on a secondary street in a residential neighborhood.
“The website,” the mother told me. “I was on for about an hour last night.”
Being the webmaster, comments like that always make me happy.
The Anchor worship team has a gig on Friday night. We’re playing for a couple hours at the Grind coffeehouse in Fort Wayne. I’ve not been there before. Interestingly, we’re required to do only our own original music. The Grind doesn’t want to purchase the BMI license needed to legally perform live music written by other people.
Fortunately, Tim (left) and Terry (right), our guitarists, have written gobs of music, most of which we’ve done at Anchor. Some songs are part of the regular song-package rotation, others we’ve done as preludes. We’re also doing a few songs written by Chris Kuntz, our former worship leader. And then you can throw in a few songs using someone else’s tune (like “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and “Mustang Sally”), to which Tim and Terry have written their own lyrics. I even contributed a song in this category, writing new words to Coco Montoya’s “Clean Slate.”
Put it all together, and we’ve got two hours of original music. Pretty impressive. I’ll be there, along with Terry’s son Joe (drums) and Tom, our outstanding bass player.
Tim and Terry are very talented. They recorded several songs. I’ve included them below, along with cord charts. I think you’ll enjoy them. I particularly like “I Don’t Believe in Luck,” perfect to accompany any sermon dealing with gambling or money in general.
| I Don’t Believe in Luck | |
| Chord Chart .doc | .rtf | |
| Party in Heaven | |
| Chord Chart .doc | .rtf | |
| I Wanna Be Like You | |
| Chord Chart .doc | .rtf |
Last year, on the Sunday prior to Martin Luther King Day, we showed a clip from the “I have a Dream” speech in church. That was really neat. We’re not doing that this year, but last night at music practice, we pulled out a song from the 1960s that goes along with the Civil Rights movement: “Get Together,” by the Youngbloods.
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now.
We decided to play it as part of the service. So we practiced it last night, and it came together real nicely. A fun song to do.
And yes, it took me back…back to my days dropping LSD, smoking weed, the constant sex, cruising the country in a VW van, sticking flowers in soldiers’ guns, wearing hideously unmatched (and probably tie-dyed) clothes, getting wasted at Woodstock while Jimmy played….
Oh wait, I must be thinking of somebody else. I didn’t even wear my first pair of bluejeans until 1972, a radicalizing turning point which left me awash in euphoric sensations of counter-cultural rebellion. Wearing bluejeans and listening to the Carpenters (my first album, “Close to You”), are about as rebellious as I ever got. I sure missed out on a lot. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for raising such a boring kid.
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Copyright © 2013 Steve Dennie | All rights reserved
