Sunday Night Mind Dump

• Always always glad to be back at First Trinity when I’ve been away for a Sunday. Sunday is “Game Day” for me and I love love love it.
• Isn’t the banner above beautiful? You can check it out live in the Hall of Joy (leads into Celebration–the gym). The Kingdom Quest kids made it during welcome activities, led by Pam Jones and her daughter, Kelsey. The flying creatures are the outline of kids’ hands. New Life–one of my fav themes.
• My PIT Crew (Pastor’s Intercessory Team) prayed with me live and in person at 9:30. It feels luxurious to have that kind of prayer coverage. I am so grateful.
• I thought the choir sounded beautiful today at the 8:45 service–and Doreen Sutherland rocked the house with the organ on “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”.
• I love a congregation where we miss our Pastor when he is not there, but rejoice that he is with his family on the day his grandson is dedicated. Both are true.
• All this and Pastor Touloute, too. God is so, so good. All the tiem.
• Pirate Joe made a visit to Everyday Faith today (third graders and their parents working through the Scriptures…). Here he is:

Pirate Joe was looking for treasure and the kids helped him see that God’s Word is the Biggest Treasure of all. I crack up every time Pirate Joe talks about “Me stinky sister” and almost tear up with gratitude for the fun + solid Bible learning + parents and kids + Holy Spirit WOW that is Everyday Faith. My true favorite images are ones like this, where kids and parents (or grandparents) are bent over their Bibles, together:

• It seems that cancer is so many places at First Trinity…and the Prayer Gathering organized by members of Ginny Opferbeck’s Life Group tonight was the best part of a very good First Trinity Day. 75+ people showed up to pray for her in light of her cancer diagnosis and her surgery this Tuesday. P.O.W.E.R.F.U.L. There were many sweet moments, but hearing Ginny’s grandson Aiden’s chatty voice out in the narthex while we were praying silently for his Grandma was the most beautiful to me. It made me wonder why we don’t gather much more often to place ourselves before God on behalf of our hurting, suffering, scared and haunted loved ones. What I loved (one of MANY things I loved) about tonight, was the “grass roots” nature of the gathering–it was not written or led by staff. It was written, thought-of and led by Ginny’s life group (especially Karen Ruch). Body of Christ in action, baby. I love it!
• We had some women’s hoops tonight–it was a slow return with many people not able to make it at the last minute. I have a bum foot (made a Crocs mistake that is too long to tell, here–sore foot is the result), so I played “All Time Point Guard” for one team and Christine (hurt knee) played it for the other. I don’t know why playing hoops with friends is so restorative to me, but it so is. If you would like to join us, let me know!!!

 

Oh Say Can You Sing?

 

Went to the Nichols/Canisius basketball game last night. If you’ve never been in the Canisius High School gym, it is a beautiful setting for hoops. It was a great game, although I was rooting for Canisius and they lost. They overcame extremely sloppy play in the early part of the game to actually take the lead in the fourth quarter, then gave it away with some terrible turnovers and a missed wide-open layup.

Before the game started, the announcer said, “We have a special request tonight. We’d like to ask everyone to sing the national anthem.” I loved it! I always feel like I’m the only one singing the anthem and even though it wasn’t nearly everyone, a lot more people than usual sang. Especially, I noticed, the young men from Canisius singing out. I don’t know why we’ve gotten away from that in our culture, but I was thankful to be part of honoring our country in that way last night.

 

Ministry on the football field???!?

I love sports. I love local sports. The Bills, the Sabres, lots of high school basketball…and it was great fun to see the UB Bulls football team come such a long way these season: MAC East Champs and Coach Turner Gill was named MAC Coach of the Year. After watching two of his players play St. Joe’s basketball in the past couple years (Naaman Roosevelt and Dominic Cook) it is great fun to see a couple local guys do well for the Bulls.

Gill was in the running for the University of Nebraska head coach position and so had some national attention over the last couple weeks. The job went to Bo Pelini (currently on the coaching staff at LSU). Today, on WGR550, the Howard Simon Show featured an interview with Turner. You can listen to the whole thing here.

Simon asked Gill what his philosophy of coaching football was. He was so clear!

“I know that my purpose is to provide a positive environment which encourages excellence, growth and balance for each student athlete and my staff.” And later in the interview: “I look at this as a ministry that God has for me here in Buffalo.” This makes me do the happy dance right here in my office! A guy who understands the bigger picture of who God is calling him to be and what God is calling him to do.

If you think that “ministry” only happens in church, think again! Ministry happens EVERYWHERE! Home, workplace, neighborhood, school, playground, store, forest, field, boat, plane, dance floor, hospital, car, basketball court, bleachers, youth group, library, factory, restaurant…EVERYWHERE!

PS If you like high school basketball (dollar for dollar you can’t beat the entertainment!), there’s a couple good games this weekend:

First Trinity member Sil Dan is head coach of Cardinal O’Hara’s varsity team. They play Starpoint at home on Friday December 7 @ 7:30pm

St. Joe’s plays Niagara Falls High School at Niagara University, 8pm on Saturday December 8th.

 

Always Giving Thanks #7

Here’s today’s list of five things I’m thanking God for about First Trinity:

1. That we have a Thanksgiving worship service (tomorrow, 10:00am). I LOVE worshiping on Thanksgiving…to me, it feels right to be worshiping the Source of all the things and people I am thankful for on this great day.
2. For all the retired pastors that are members of First Trinity (Carl Streufert, Bob Klingebiel, Dave Brammer, Dave Young)…their experience and wisdom makes a difference around here! Check out the note Pastor Carl wrote to our Crossroads kids and a great example!
3. For our worship bands, who under the direction of Eric Fesmire, help our contemporary worshipers praise the Lord. They are awesome!
4. For OPUS (Old People Up to Something)…our seniors group and their fun, fun name!
5. For the beautiful Christian art that hangs in our building…helping visitors know this is a house of God. One coach from the Youth Advantage League (basketball) said to a ref, in frustration one night, “It’s a good thing this is a holy place, or I’d be telling you what I REALLY think.”