Washing, Communion, and Baptism

It just keeps getting better, more blessings, more fun. Since this is Sunday, you can guess I'm referring to our worship today. We began a new start time today -- 10:30. Most of the people remembered. But it seemed we were very disorganized. The chorus CDs weren't cued and things like that which drive me nuts! But it was still a good worship. I preached about the time Jesus "cleansed" the temple by driving out those who were desecrating it. At the end we dismissed -- er, I mean we adjourned -- to finish the service at Longview Hills Clubhouse. Now, I need to explain. Quite a few of our people live in this modular home estate about a mile from the church -- across the highway and up the hill. They have a hot tub and we had people to be baptised. What a better place. So at the end of our church service we journeyed up the hill and had a hot tub service. Since there is not a whole lot of us (17 at this service, a few more at the church) we met in the hot tub room. I concluded the sermon there by reminding everyone that in the Old Testament they used ritual hand washing to indicate a heart and life that was right with God. So I washed the hands of anyone who had stuff in their lives that they were asking God to cleanse. It was a ritual washing but I think rather meaningful.

Then we participated in the sacrament of communion. Then... the baptism. Three people were baptised -- one was a teen boy and another a young adult lady. The third was a lady who just recently came to saving faith in Jesus. An interesting side note is that she used to live in Grants Pass and visited our church there in the middle 90s. She didn't attend long and we don't remember her (she doesn't remember us either). It was a great time! Love it!!

One picture is of the hand washing and the other of Austin just after being baptised.

at the parsonage. Got two pickup loads of old lumber and yard debris hauled off, power washed the outside (mildew collects easily here), cut a big hole in the living room carpet and put the piece in the room in the garage (office or spare bedroom), pulled the carpet in the smelly bedroom and discovered quite a few soft spots in the underlayment (moisture from ... oh no, not a dog!!!!). So the guys pulled that up and will replace it this week. The ladies re-stained some bad places on the kitchen cabinets and we did a few other odd jobs. The new carpet will be ordered tomorrow and will be installed when we clear out.

We have a man in ICU in the hospital. He had surgery on Tuesday and has a lot of recovery ahead of him. So, in addition to visiting him we have a lot of "getting ready to leave" stuff to do this week.

And that's what's in my world. What's in yours?