Church Timings

As I've mentioned before, most church services here are on Fridays.  There are some on Saturday, even a Thursday or Sunday service, but most have their service on Fridays.  So after making it through the school week, instead of sleeping in the next day, we get up just a little later at 7:30 (okay, that's quite a bit later than my normal 5:45).  Or, as today happened (thanks sun), I still woke up at 5:45.  The good news:  church day still translates to nap day in my head.  So here I am at 1:00, and I've gone to church, come home, had lunch, and napped.

Another timing note is that church services are shorter.  We are not going to a Sunday school class and a service.  All we have on Friday mornings is the service.  So the service starts at 9:00 and is done by 10:30.  In fact, last week's service went long, and they asked the parents to head out to get our kids from their classes during the last song.  This is why I can already have finished my nap at 1:00 in the afternoon.  I have so much day ahead of me!  The kids have already gotten bored and been taken to the pool.

As I've mentioned before, timing is everything.  The services need to run smoothly and on time.  Today they had two special announcements.  One was about the women's conference next weekend.  The other was about the new building they are planning on building.  It's already been approved, but they brought an update about where we are in obtaining the permits and having the required money.  So Pastor Chris, who was the one delivering the sermon today, probably had a little less time than normal.  Stephen mentioned afterward that he was surprised at how quickly he was getting to this final point.  As a former pastor of ours, Jackie, used to say, "There's no such thing as a bad, short sermon."


Then comes sleep in Saturday.  We don't always get to sleep in if we have outdoor plans.  We don't tend to sleep in much (thanks again, sun).  But sleeping in the day before going back to the school week throws me off.  Come Sunday morning, I'm looking for another nap.

Now some tangential thoughts from today:

View of the mountains from the church complex.

I talked to the head of the visuals group to get on the volunteer list to help run the computer during the service.  There are already 4 others on the rotation, so it will be a little while before I'm where I belong behind the computer during the service.  I'm pumped!

During the service, they sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" as an offertory song.  The words were not on the screen during the first two verses (something that makes me want to head back there and fix the problem myself).  We knew the first verse thanks to the Chris Tomlin version that had rejuvenated this hymn.  But this was not the version they were singing, so things got a little off after verse 1.  I found this amusing.  We also enjoy typos in the songs when they happen.  And words that are pronounced incorrectly (chasm, victory, etc.).  Let's just say that "v"s are often pronounced as "w"s.