I think yesterday may have been one of the very best days of my life so far.
We started out sharing breakfast with Mary Anne, our new-found friend who recently came into our lives, and our house church, about a year ago. She's recently had a brain tumor removed and is doing much better, but still not out of the woods yet.
About 10am we all drove down to Soul Survivor Church in Costa Mesa and had a wonderful shared worship celebration. It was so awesome to look around the room and see my family from the Mission House Church and my family from Soul Survivor all together in the same place.
I got to preach on a subject that has been burning in me for weeks now, all about the Church Jesus Built, who He made us to be, and our identity as the new Temple, the new Priesthood and the new, daily, (living), sacrifice. (The Podcast will be loaded soon).
Afterwards we went together, nearly the whole group, to eat lunch across the street at Rubio's Fish Tacos (yum!) and then after running home for a bit, and to drop off Mary-Anne back at the home where she's living now, we dashed over to continue the party at The Rehagen's house as our house church celebrated the Baptism of our own Mollie Wright. Our First Baptism!!! It was so beautiful. We sang a song of worship together ("Lord I Lift Your Name On High") and then Mollie and I, and her Dad Jason, walked down into the swimming pool. I asked her if she had made up her mind to love and to follow Jesus all the days of her life, and she said, emphatically, "Yes!" and then her Dad and I baptized her in the pool.
After she came up we laid hands on her and prayed a blessing over her. And then we had a swimming pool party! Yes!
It was SO UNBEARABLY HOT this whole weekend! The time in the pool was amazing. I think every single person from The Mission was there who could be there (we have one family out of town) and the party was really sweet and fun and refreshing.
Wendy made an awesome ice cream cake to share and we all chowed down on this luscious cookies and cream ice cream slice of chocolate cake and heaven. Wow. My wife really needs to do more of this...
My vote was to have next Sunday's house church in the pool, floating in the cool water and singing worship songs, sharing together, maybe re-baptizing one another spontaneously, etc. Especially if this heat continues.
After our little pool party and baptism celebration the party continued for our women as they gathered at 7pm for Women's Ministry Night and prayed for one another and ministered to one another.
What an awesome day!
It was so incredible to really "Be The Church" and be a Family together and share this amazing day with everyone.
Am I blessed or what?!
God, you are too good to me. Keep it coming!
Love,
Keith
1 comment:
Sounds like what Jesus had in mind when He started all this. Thanks for sharing these encouraging words about what the church is, could be, & should be!
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