Weekend

Saturday we attended a wedding. A friend of Jane's' daughter was getting married. It was at Emmanuel - a fairly large church. I believe this was my first "themed" wedding. It was a Purdue Boilermaker wedding. Everything was in Purdue colors, they had the Purdue train - which is how the wedding party left and traveled to the reception (in Huntington), everything was about Purdue. It was also the first time I had seen the wedding party walk in and stand together on the stage in pairs instead of in a line. They spread out in various spots and looked back at the audience. It helps to have a big huge stage to do this. And the bride's father stood with her for probably half the ceremony. The pastor did all the vows and everything first, and then gave his message at the end. That seemed kind of different. This was also the first time I had seen anyone do the 'pouring of sand' thing instead of a unity candle. The wedding went fine, and things were going ok at the reception... We didn't really know anyone, but a young couple sat beside us who also didn't know anyone, so we chatted a bit. The place was full, and we were one of the last tables to eat. After we had our meal we went to check out the dessert table - we were only gone a minute - and the people who had been serving the food sat down in our seats! We still had our cups and silverware there, and they just sat down. Jane went to get our stuff and they were like, "Oh, is this yours?" But they never offered to move or anything. I was a tad unhappy, but I felt especially bad for the young couple, because they'd kind of been arguing anyway, and as soon as we came back and saw them sitting there the guy just walked right out the door. We kind of stood around a bit and looked for a seat, but finally we felt a bit awkward because we were the only one's standing, so we left. When we went to the car we saw the girl wandering around the parking lot - apparently looking for her boyfriend. Weird, and not just a bit rude.

Saturday night I stayed up way too late watching USC come back and beat Ohio State right at the end. Dang. I am not an OSU fan, but I'm a Big Ten fan. Same old thing year after year.

Sunday we started our Sunday School classes again (or Life Impact Groups, or Small Groups, or whatever they're called). We had a fairly good turnout for not making a big deal about anything. Some of the teachers changed, and some of the classrooms changed. We still have 3 adult classes, and this year we started a 'young adult' class (for twentysomethings); then a high school class, and just one class for everybody from middle school on down. We don't presently have any middle schoolers attending Sunday School, so it's mostly younger kids. Jane's adult class moved up to the old high school room, and they are watching and discussing the 24 Nooma videos.

Yesterday was an ok day. Not a big crowd, but for some reason I felt pretty good even though I didn't get much sleep. The music seemed natural too. I wish I knew what made the difference from one Sunday to the next. I also made a change at the last minute and decided to show the 9/11 powerpoint slideshow I made following the 2001 terrorist attacks. I had a bunch of pictures taken from newspaper headlines, and interspersed Scripture verses, and put it to the Rich Mullins song "Bound To Come Some Trouble." I don't really want to prolong the 9/11 thing, but I like that song and whatnot, and thought it suitable what with all the other troubles our little church has been dealing with lately.

After church we had a preschooler hit her head on the playground and her dad came running inside with blood all over him and her. It made for a tense few moments, but she ended up just having a small cut by her eye and on her lip. She was ok.

Jane and I did lunch by ourselves. We stopped and got Subway and went to Jefferson Pointe and ate outside. It was nice. Then it was home to nap to some football.

Now it is Monday again.