1st joint Sunday school of 2009!!!

Well...

This past Sunday I had the privilege of leading and teaching our first joint Sunday school of 2009. Bear, our fearless leader, was speaking in the Contemporary service for our annual "Youth and Children Sunday." He had a ton of responsibility to tend to so he left me in charge of Sunday school... Oh, the potential for mayhem and adventure!

First things first...

I contacted my good buddy Joel Hurst to see if he could lead us in a couple of worship songs. Not only did he agree, but he also recruited Mr. Ricky Blanchete, a wonderful young man and exceptional guitar player. They came up with 2 songs to play for that morning, "You are God" and "Marvelous Light."

So...

Sunday morning arrived and so did our faithful students. It was an incredible sight, both Jr. High and Sr. High students mingling, interacting and preparing to worship together. We began with announcements and then I read a portion of Scripture (Psalm 57:1-3; 7-11) to prepare us for singing, praising and making at least some kind of noise to the Lord. Joel and Ricky then lead us in the 2 wonderful worship songs which, hopefully, allowed us all to express our hearts to God through song.

After the music we opened the Scripture together to see what God had to say to us all. We looked at Philippians 3:1-11. The question we raised was "where is your confidence?" We discussed how the apostle Paul noted that confidence in the flesh (the Jewish way of doing things) is of no value because it opposes Christ. In fact, he refers to it as "rubbish," counting it all a loss for the sake of knowing Christ. We talked about how his confidence was now in Christ alone. Therefore, we concluded that to put our confidence in any thing other than Christ is "rubbish;" it's absolutely worthless. Thus, to put our confidence in people or status or things is utter futility and in the long run, a loss.

We ended a bit early because a bunch of the students had to help out in the service. So, the rest of us just hung out, chatted, goofed around and enjoyed one another. It was a genuinely amazing time!

Also, Bear totally rocked it from the pulpit!!! The students did great passing out bulletins, taking up the offering and performing special music for the service. I am so proud of all our students as well as Bear, whom I respect and admire greatly. May the Lord continue to bless the ministry of Gangway and use us, His lowly servants, to touch the lives of students and families here in this place.

For His Kingdom...