While I Was Away . . .

While I was away this weekend (more on that trip tomorrow), we showed this in Sunday’s worship:

Rebecca Grayson then followed that with a killer sermon called “The Love Laboratory.”

Something else interesting happened in worship yesterday: we received an award from Adam Neal of the United Methodist Church’s General Board Of Global Ministries for giving the most money to Haiti relief of any church in the Western North Carolina — just under $60,000.

We had no idea until they called us.

Our Missions Pastor Ron Dozier then took the opportunity yesterday to remind the people of the church: We don’t have fund raisers. We don’t take up special offerings. We don’t hold bake sales. We simply receive the Sunday offering and because the people of the church are such phenomenal givers — and perhaps because they appreciate not being “nickel and dimed” with special appeals — we had the money when the need arose in Haiti.

So it was good to be recognized, and to have yet one more occasion to teach the people of the church why we do what we do.

It’s nice to be able to leave town and know that the church can manage just fine without me.