Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Last Christmas, one of my gifts from Mom was a nifty little travel alarm. I set it last night and it faithfully, dependably woke me up at the correct time. I actually arrived at church at the time I wanted to get there, which was 6:30 AM. Consequently, the morning went pretty well. We were doing one fairly unusual song with some funky minor chords (which I love, but which I had to pay close attention to the lead sheet on), but I think it went okay. I really like it, and I hope we can do it again sometime.

Today was the Sunday when they honor all the graduates, which was kind-of cool. Not only do they recognize those who are graduating from high school, they also recognized all the kids in the 5th grade who are "graduating" up to the youth group -- which includes my Martha, who's loving it in the youth group already -- as well as the little kids who are going into kindergarten next year and are "graduating" up into the Children's department instead of the church nursery. I am impressed with the quality of kids who populate the children's ministry there at FCC, and I think it's going to be a very good move for the three younguns God entrusted to Rick & me.

I spent a bit of time this morning chatting with Pastor Rob's wife Lisa and their daughter Anna. Anna's in the second grade and is a very articulate young lady. I asked her about her pets and her extracurricular activities; she seems to be very energetic and bright. I asked her whether she was taking any music lessons and she said that her grandma had been teaching her piano on and off. She was thinking about starting it back up again. "What do you want to do with the piano? Do you want to play just to have fun, or would you like to be able to lead worship someday with it?"

"Probably just to have fun. Or maybe just to go to the nursing home and play the piano for those people there. I did that with my grandma once, only she played and I sang."

A-ha... we have a singer. I'm keeping my ears open. I'm always on the lookout for someone to train to replace me! I consider it part of the responsibility of having a gift -- to replicate myself, so to speak. Hoarding all the fun and blessing of getting to lead worship would just be selfish. In my far-off dreams, I'd like to establish a fine-arts academy through the church, where people come on certain nights and take piano, guitar, percussion, song composition, art, calligraphy, etc... all of those are things that can be a particularly winsome means of honoring God, and it's incumbent upon me to spread it around if I can.