Home from church

The service today at St. Peter's was full of zingers. First the congregational prayer zapped me:

I have struggled to walk faithfully with You and I have not made friends with the foolish, nor do I socialize with the deceitful.... You ask us to love one another and show each other honor. You tell us to be zealous, faithful and serving You in all things. But You know me, O God. You have heard my spiteful words, my judgment of others but not myself. You know how selfish and stingy I have been with money, time and talents. 

Ouch.

And then the second lesson was from Romans 12.

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor... Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.... Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.

More ouch.

And then the sermon, which you can hear for yourself if you want to here.

And finally the hymns. Like Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross and Rock of Ages.

I felt like the whole thing was meant to grab me by the scruff of the neck and give me a little shake, because I am not accomplishing these things. I'm so glad I went to church. I'm not glad every week. Sometimes I feel dragged down, not by the service but by my conflicts with a very few of my fellow church members. Today's sermon turned me back toward looking at what I am doing wrong, rather than what they might be doing wrong. I needed that.

In other news, over at Christ Community Evangelical Free Church, our friend Rinda (name altered slightly to protect the guilty) drove the church car on a ladies' outing. And bumped it. Just a tiny bit. Anyway, this week, she opened her bulletin and followed along with the printed hymn lyrics in the bulletin - and then came to this neatly printed addition:

Our pastor drives a beat-up car
Just an old tin-canner.
Worse today than yesterday
Thanks to Rinda Danner.

In closing, I'd like to ask you to pray for my cyberfriend Felisol. Last I heard (which was last night our time), she was waiting at her mother's bedside, as her mother completes her days in this life and moves into the next. She has faith that her mother is saved and will move right into the arms of the Savior, but goodbyes are still hard, and she needs strength for the vigil. May God bless Felisol and her whole family.

Christ Community EFC to have open house

Christ Community EFC to host open house

Church building progress: Basement floor

This photo was taken from an upstairs window in our house (through the screen - sorry). Church basement floor was poured today.

Those guys walk confidently around on the wall all the time, carrying tools and supplies around. It scares me to even think about it. They are easily 10-12 feet off the ground.

Groundbreaking for new Evangelical Free Church next door

With no fanfare at all, construction began on the church next door.  No gold-plated shovel, no fuss... just digging. It's going to be an exciting summer!

If it weren't for the warm and early spring we have been enjoying, I doubt they would be starting this project in March.

I'll take a picture and add it after I get some coffee down my craw.

* Later: * Here are some pictures.

I guess that counts as the gold-plated shovel. Just bigger than most.

The robins are having a big party picking bugs out of those lovely piles of fresh-turned dirt.

Here you get some perspective on where the new church will be, as that is our house beyond the hole.

That's the digger and his son, I believe. They took a break to do some bottle-picking. Lots of interesting stuff turned up from past decades.

I found these myself and plan to go back and look some more as long as I can stay out of the way. I bet there are arrowheads in that dirt if I only knew what to look for.

Demolition in Progress

The Evangelical Free brethren began tearing down Loretta's house this weekend. They are doing a very careful job, not just knocking it down with a backhoe or something. They're taking it down board by board. First came the asbestos shingles, then all the windows. It's now wide open to the weather. From what I understand, they don't actually own the property yet, as there is some law that says you can only tear down one house per year, so they are tearing down this house while the property still belongs to the Yeomans, and tearing down the other house as their own property.

Since Darlene and Gene Yeoman had already given us permission to be on the property and to take anything that we could use before the house came down, we went over there yesterday afternoon and saw the basement of the house for the first time. It's a wonderful basement, very deep, nice high ceiling - and poured concrete! The beams look good, too. We feel kind of sick about it. Had we known the foundation was so solid, we might have been willing to pay more for the property. Too late now. Now it'll just be filled in and eventually will be a parking lot.

Oh well.

Loretta is not very pleased with us. She wanted us to buy the house and we disappointed her when we did not try harder to do so. But this really is going to be ideal for everybody involved (everybody but us, that is) - Darlene and Gene get more money than they would from us, Loretta has her nice safe apartment, and the church will have a permanent home. And we'll end up with some pretty nice neighbors, so we're not doing too badly either. It's just... well, I hate to see old houses torn down, and I had such hopes that we could buy the property dating back to before we ever bought our place. Plus the church is taking down trees. They had mercy on a couple of them when I looked stricken at the thought, but now they are murmuring that the rest will have to come down, too.

What's a churchyard without shade trees?

*sigh*

Oh well. Again.