Oy vey. What a day Sunday was.

Sunday morning I decided I was going to try the Selah service at First Methodist on Lavaca. I hadn’t been to a contemporary service in awhile and was looking forward to it…. Until I walked in and there were like, 75 people. Who all knew each other. Oh no.
I’m terrible at being inconspicuous (it’s the hair) and I really kinda wanted to hang back and observe, right? Participate, sure, but observe. Take it all in. And I was immediately greeted by people who were fully aware I was new and they were VERY kind, very sweet people, but I was really scared. I hate being in situations where I obviously don’t know anyone. They made me feel a lot better though.
The service was shortish, about an hour. The band was very good and I knew the words to the songs, but they were up on the wall for those who didn’t. The sermon was given by Rusty Teeter from the Wesley Foundation at UT and I really liked it. We had communion and sang some more, and that was that. A very simple service, very peaceful. They asked to pray over me if I needed prayer and the entire time I was there I felt cared for. Like they looked after each other. It was very nice.

Later that afternoon I went with a friend and her fiance to Austin Stone. Let me say something first that’ll give you a little background info on me- where I come from there’s a few gigantic churches, but there is nothing like Austin Stone. I know scads of people who go there. Dozens. Stone is held at Austin High and when we walked into that gym I was floored at how many people were there. By the time it all got started I counted only three empty chairs that I could see in the whole place. That gym was stuffed with people.
I haven’t gotten to worship like that in a long time. I’ve missed it. The music at Stone is one of the main draws- Chris Tomlin’s a pretty famous Christian artist and he holds the office of “lead worshipper” there. It’s big and loud and beautiful, very powerful stuff.
At 7 I went to my home church, University Methodist, for our college group meeting. My college minister, Bill Frisbie, isn’t the amazing one on sabbatical, he’s the amazing one still around. (BTW, the one on sabbatical’s Carl Rohlfs.) This is the group I come home to every Sunday night. This is my family. While I’m looking around to see what I can see, that won’t change.
I’ll actually be writing about the rest of this project on Metblog and will probably be speedier about it- it’s been a crazy week.

So, onward and upward!