Today, September 16, 2012

Today’s project = Church Pop Quiz

After yesterday’s intense party-throwing excitement, I wanted nothing more today than to stay in the bed, find a Perry Mason marathon somewhere on TV and make my sweet hubby bring me Pop Tarts for breakfast.  Or maybe one of those McGriddles from McDonalds. 

Those things are pure evil. Seriously. Which explains why they are so FRICKIN’ GOOD!  My healthy-habits friend has suggested I make one of my projects designing a “healthy” version of this decadent breakfast treat.  Although I can see this as a thinly-veiled attempt at making me eat better, I confess that I think it’s a good idea…but that will have to wait. Until I can figure out how to inject maple syrup. YUM!

Usually she’s much more direct, ensuring her place in my list of ‘true friends’.  You know, those ladies (and gents) who will prevent you from leaving the house in the unforgivable combo of leopard print and sequins, no matter how adamant that the judges on Project Runway were that it’s the latest trend everyone will be wearing…soon. Or those who remind you that it’s time to get your roots done by taking your phone and calling the salon for you.  That is the kind of friend I count myself as lucky to have. Because I’m one of those rare women who really want to know that my butt looks huge in my fav pair of pants.

She needs a 'true friend'. I'm just sayin'

Why 'true friends' are so important:

Anyways, back to today’s project…

So even though the last thing I wanted to do was to drag myself out of the comfy, snuggly sweetness of the bed, I arose, showered and poured myself into the car to go to church. 

My husband and I attend a church several miles away (a 45 minute drive) because he is the choir director.  It’s a job he had before we got together, so I’m an add-on to his position there.  Frankly, it took me a while to get used to the idea of serving there; mostly because I was very involved at my last church where I felt like part of a glorious caring family.  They helped me through some really tough times and it was hard to hear the message (from God) that I was being called to serve somewhere else. Especially when I had my hands over my ears saying, “LA LA LA LA! I can’t hear youuuuu!”

But once I finally read that memo (and the accompanying TPS report), God has ensured that I have had plenty to do there.

The current church membership has been dwindling, and the leadership asked my husband (who then asked me to help him) to come up with ideas, suggestions, and recommendations of what they could do to improve their worship service.  They are looking to move forward in to the future and yet maintain their strong history.

Fortunately, I have an extensive background in performance (been a professional actor), marketing (helped run 3 theater companies, planned advertising and such for other companies I’ve worked for) and fundraising ( ran events for several different non-profit organizations).  Also, I helped out with a lot of the programs and ideas at my last church that I thought could translate well to my new church home. Enough about my resume. Sheesh. Although, if anyone sees something there that makes them want to give me a job, I’ll take it!

Today, across the denomination and others, was “Back to Church Sunday”, a day to focus on starting the church year in earnest, which tends to mirror the school year.  This time of year is when Sunday school classes, bible studies and other programs begin their cycles and we wanted to encourage people to invite friends and neighbors to participate.

For our version, we embraced a ‘back to school’ theme.  I do a power point presentation for each service that projects the lyrics to the praise songs and hymns that we sing and functions as a program of events for the service, letting the congregation know what’s coming next. An additional slide show runs before the service with general announcements for the church. I applied this theme to all of the slides with pics of chalkboards, books and teachers.  This is one of my favs that announced an event earlier in the month:

This morning, we interspersed our regular songs, welcome, children’s message, etc. with ‘pop quizes’.  These slides had questions about our church and our pastor that the people of the congregation may or may not know. 

I had a kid from the congregation serve as my ‘lovely assistant’ passing out prizes to the people who answered the questions correctly.  I gave her a back pack (that I snagged from one of my girlies) and filled it with little dollar store items and some Rice Krispie Treats for good measure.  Because who doesn’t want a little snack during the middle of the sermon? My healthy-habits friend is currently rolling her eyes, I’m sure.

Overall, the idea seemed well received.  The worship committee (the group of people in the church who plan the worship services) has wanted to liven things up– to let the congregation have a little fun, but really to present our message of service to others and God’s love in as many different ways as we can.  Hopefully, we can get them to hear the important bits and not even realize that they’ve heard it.  That’s right, sneaky preachin’.  That’s what we are after. ;)

Important lesson that I learned from yesterday that I was able to apply to today:

Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be!

I originally wanted to wrap each of the prizes in a ribbon that had some kind of label with a sweet welcome message on it.  Something like: ‘Welcome to our church. We are glad to see you. Blah, blah, blah.’

But, of course, I left the prep of this particular event to the night before. DANG! I’m GOOD at that! *pat on the back for doing something so well* (Note on last thought: embrace a positive outlook to turn problems into opportunities…or some feel-good crap like that. Ahem)  So, after the self-induced stress of the party and such, I gave myself a break and opted to just put the stuff in the bag and be happy about it.

Oh yeah. I planned it that way.  That was my original idea. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Well, dear reader, that’s it for today.  So off to the next adventure – on the horizon: steampunk, banners, and lunches.