A Fun Night...

Today was a day to focus on the work at the church and get ready for worship team practice which is on Thursday nights from 6:00-10:00. Actually there is a small group study which is from 6:00-7:00pm and it's a great time to just bond with other team members and "do" life together. Sometimes it's a Bible study, and sometimes it's worship, and sometimes it's just praying and talking about our week. Tonight it was just people sharing their week, but worth every second of being there.

Practice went great because the people that came were ready and wanted to be there. I absolutely love playing in singing with some of these people. We had a great time goofing around, but also got the work done that we needed to do, and got out early. The church is so blessed with many worship team members who are great at singing and playing, but also have wonderful positive attitudes. I bet the services Sunday will be excellent.

That brings up a point. Every once in a while someone will come into rehearsal with some baggage from their week away from the church. They usually rush in late and you can tell they have other things on their mind than going over the worship sets for this week. I can TOTALLY relate. A few weeks ago I had to come and lead the rehearsals after being in real estate continuing education training for 8 1/2 hours and rushing to get to the church. I was beat before I ever came in, so I made a concious effort to check my attitude at the door and get my focus on God and worship before I went into that sanctuary. It's was and is hard to do, but necessary.

Attitude plays a serious role in how effective we can be as Christians and as ministers. Nobody is perfect. We all have those times where we need to "check" our attitudes at the door. I think that plays over into everyday life. People that have a negative attitude seem to have a cloud around them and you can sort of sense it. That effects our witness. It's better to try and look at life from a positive viewpoint, and approach things that come up in life that way. Believe you me, we have had plenty of times within the past year and over the past 12 years in our marriage where that philosphy was tested. I can name a few - Hurricanes on our Honeymoon, Stolen Van on Our Vacation, Flooded House and Losing Practically Everything We Owned, Physical and Financial Problems - Tell you what, I've had a few times where I seriously got over into that negative arena (seriously), and it just made me more miserable. I guess that's it...Negative attitudes are just that...Negative and miserable! Put it to the test...Try to stay positive, and see how that effects you and others around you.