45 MPH services begin

On Wednesday night we had our first mid week service of the Fall. we are calling them 45 MPH services. I stole the title form my fried Rev. Michael Crane at the Essex Baptist Church. It stands for 45 minutes of music prayer and hope. That's what these services are about. They give us a little dose of worship and encouragement in the middle of the week.

This Fall we are trying to keep them to 45 minutes beginning at 7:00 p.m. each Wednesday. Our singers weren't prepared for the first week so we sang some old favorites to get us warmed up. Then we spent some time in prayer. One of the things we will be doing this year is praying specifically for individuals and families in the congregation at random as well as focsing on those who have needs. We want to make sure that prayers are said for every family in the church. So each week we will lift up seven families or individuals and prayer for them even if there is nothing in particular going on in their lives. Then we will send a card to the family alerting them that we were thinking of them.

This week we lifted up the Tag & Joy Griffin and the family, Harry, Dot & Chelsey Calkins, Curt & Mary Brockway, Steve Contois, Adele & Harts Cofer, George & Lois Strouse and

We also kicked off things by watching a short video by Rob Bell. He is a pastor of a church in Minnesota and he has received national acclaim for his Nooma Series of short, thought provoking videos. I offered the first in a series of these videos titled, "Rain" and then made a few comments on what Bell said. We are going to use these videos as the starting point for a Bible study on Sunday nights in October and November.

The service ended at 7:46 p.m. with people already excited for the next Wednesday night adventure.

Cal