Miss Nelson is Missing!

My Sundays are normally spent creating relationships with people.  Often we will put on a faith-building video such as the Matthew or John videos or a teaching of some sort while breakfast is happening, then we'll go meet someone who, like us, isn't in church on Sunday morning.

This morning we are visiting my parents in Spangle, and it's a Sunday morning. So we're "in church."  The pastor is gone today, and it is a pleasure to see the church taking on the responsibilities of doing church without his guidance.  "Um, I guess it's time for announcements. Did someone get asked to do the announcements?  No?  Well, are there any announcements?"

Same story with prayer requests.  The worship leader with the mic seemed entirely uncomfortable taking prayer requests, but she did a fine job.  The church organized itself into the morning's sequence with marvelously little intervention, and the missing pastor was hardly missed.  He had asked a friend to come and give the sermon, which fit just fine into the sequence of the morning.

I'm impressed. I want to create a culture that carries on when I'm missing.  Not in any very similar way to this Sunday-morning culture, but it is absolutely my goal to create a self-sustaining culture of being church SGF-style!