Well...this turned out to be quite the weekend.  There probably is not another two days of the week that creates both anticipation and anxiety.  I have no idea how normal people spend their weekends.  Sunday is a work day for me.  Some believe that my big day of the week should not be work.  My view is that it is a day of labor even though dedicated to God.  Now that song leading is added to my list of duties it seems the day can get even longer.  Don't misunderstand me here.  Everything done is enjoyable for the most part.  Talking about lessons learned in study really is fun.  Even leading hymns has a certain level of happiness even though my voice does not translate well to the hearer.  Anyway, my original point was to talk about the weekend with all of its unique facets. 

Friday night was another long drive to yet another high school playoff game.  Our guys won the game but did provide some heart trouble for the fans.  We live to play at least one more week.  My favorite part of the evening was the great food in the press box.  This is why I did not stop to eat on the way down.  Saturday turned out to be the day for transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Yes...I realize we are not finished with the turkey but it was a good day to begin decorating.  You need to understand that there are almost a dozen buckets in our garage solely devoted to Christmas decorations.  I know this because the arrangement of said containers is of my doing.  There are also buckets for fall, summer, Easter and Valentine's Day stuff.  You can imagine that this means Saturday was long with unpacking and reloading all of the odds and ends.  My body hurt upon awakening today.  It was all so much easier when I was younger.

Now back to my day of work today.  I knew with school out this week that the crowd would be fairly thin this morning.  You learn to see these things coming ahead of time at my age.  All seemed to go well despite the attendance.  Getting in my afternoon run/walk was possible since the weather cooperated.  Temperatures are back to early May standards for another day or so.  Odds are good that my next operation will be replacing one joint or the other.  It was still good to get out though.  The night ended at the annual community Thanksgiving service in our town.  My role was to bring the message so let us hope it went well.  I always enjoy these gatherings with people from other congregations.  Seems as if we don't have them near enough.

Why is it we allow more things to divide us as churches than we do bring us together?  Pointing fingers at other believers seems like our number one interest.  We talk well about all of us being part of God's church then begin our list on why we are right.  We do not suffer from separation anxiety for the most part.  My view is that whatever other churches do is their choice.  I do not have to always agree but neither is there a call for criticism if the differences are minor.  Minor is when those unique qualities do not affect the biblical truth of the saving gospel.  Those who live in the light of salvation by faith may do other stuff different but that is their decision.  Our call is not to spend our time debating what is right or wrong with how other congregations operate.  The mission is still to focus on telling the good news in whatever packaging our church has.  Doing that will leave us very little room for pointing those fingers.  It may even work to defeat the selfishness of our faith.  God knows we could use more of that along the way. 

Bro. Trey