My (not really) next-to-last Sunday

It has been a while since I wrote about church stuff, but today was a really good day, and I'm conceited enough to think that you guys like reading this stuff, so you're going to read about it.

I signed up to be the greeter at Water's Edge this Sunday a few weeks ago, when I thought this was really going to be my next-to-last Sunday. Turns out, greeter is like the best job ever. It would have been disappointing to learn that a week before I was supposed to leave. I wanted to get to church early, because I wasn't exactly familiar with all the duties and responsibilities of the assignment (I really have to stop talking like that soon... Maybe people will just think it's eccentric and faintly humorous...), and I wanted to make sure I was there when people started to arrive.

Nobody shows up at Water's Edge until the first song is being sung. That's not true, there are some punctual people, but by and large, they all come in within the 5-minute warning period. So I sat near the info/sign-in/name tag table and listened to the worship band rehearse, and that's always a good time. They were finishing up one song when someone said something that included the words "put your hand in...", and of course, that prompted the song "Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man from Galilee."

It made me laugh. I grew up with the oldies secondhand--the oldies station was the only thing that my dad would listen to in his truck, and his truck was our exclusive (almost) mode of transportation. And the first time I heard "The Man from Galilee" I wasn't in church, but in my dad's truck, with my ear pressed to the speaker, and in utter astonishment that the oldies station was playing a song about Jesus. That was when they were also playing "Puff, the Magic Dragon". I totally didn't understand American folk music.

I can't believe I'm old enough to be saying things like, "You know, when I was your age..." Yeesh.

Which brings me to the second service of my Sunday, 11:00 in the big room, where this year's class was being confirmed. I remember when I was confirmed, my friend Misty and I were the only two kids in the church who were confirmation age. We had to sort of egg the pastor on to hold classes. It was a weird situation. Anyway, so there I was on Confirmation Sunday, in all my acolyte-robed splendor, and I looked like I had a cleft palate because a few days before, I had taken the worst spill I've ever had on a bicycle. I faceplanted into the pavement. My confirmation pictures all show me looking miserable, because it hurt my face to smile.

Okay, back to the present. The kids did a great job. They're all middle-schoolers, and that's exciting, because I'm hopefully going to volunteer with the youth group when I get back to Cali after my trip home. So maybe I'll have a few years to hang out with them. It was kind of a cool, different, combined service, and it was hilarious (in my head) to watch the 11:00 regulars adjust to the out of the ordinary.

Oh, Methodists. It's not only a denomination, it's a way of life.

Today was also the concluding week in First Church's study of John Wesley (and the early movement's) three rules for living out the faith. This week was focused on "staying in love with God". I posted my reflection-essay on the rules a few weeks ago on this blog, and Molly quoted--paraphrased--from it today, along with the reflections of others. I turned bright cherry red, I know, because let me tell you, my ears were burnin'. This whole blushing thing really needs to go away.

I'm so super glad I get to stick around. I'm getting to know people, and they're getting to know me, and it's really starting to feel like home.

Supercool.