A Full Weekend

This past weekend was incredibly full and I want to highlight a few events:

Umans Home Makeover...We had 50-60 Graystonians spend their Saturday giving Mike and Christi Umans' house a huge makeover. I cannot possibly list all the things that our church did for the home renovation but here are a few: cleaned and organized the inside of the house (kitchen, bathrooms, clothes, closets, etc.), pressure washed the outside, painted the garage and front porch/wood trim, replaced an old broken hot tub with new patio furniture, stained the deck, landscaped the yard, built a cool tree house for the kids, and MUCH MUCH more. I was so encouraged to see so many people using their gifts, abilities, time, resources and generosity to serve God and a needy family. This is what Christmas is all about and this is how the body of Christ should come together to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I am so proud of Graystone Church and have to say that this is one of the best things that Graystone Church has ever done...to God be the glory. I want to thank all of you who participated in various ways. Of course, everyone gave me a hard time for not doing any work on this project. How could I? We had at least one supervisor for every worker. Question: How many Christians does it take to build a tree house? My answer would be 2 but we had at least 8 men on the job with another 4 or 5 standing around giving their opinions and commentary. I'm just glad no one got shot with the nail gun. Jason Hairston is quite the maniac when it comes to power tools.

Christine Sherlock Passed Away...Early Sunday morning at 4:00 AM with her daughters (Kathy and Mary Ann) by her side, Christine Regina Sherlock passed away. Christine, better known to all of us as "Chris", was 92 years old and lived a long, full life. She was the oldest member of Graystone Church and the first to go home to be with the Lord. She will be incredibly missed by ALL but we are happy that she is now is heaven with God without any pain or sickness. We will have a Memorial Service on Wednesday night at 6:00 PM at Graystone Church. It will be a time of sharing, celebration, and worship. I'm sure that Kathy and the rest of her family would appreciate any of you coming to honor Chris' life and celebrate the fact that she is now at home in heaven with God.

A Family Christmas Worship Experience (a.k.a. Children's Christmas Program)...Sunday morning at Graystone we had our annual Children's Christmas Program. We had close to 500 people show up for this special event and several people told me that it was my best sermon ever. If you missed it, I did not give a sermon. The children and children's workers did an incredible job leading the entire service. It was so neat to see the stage full of kids singing about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I'm a little biased but I think Graystone has the best looking kids in the entire world (and the most beautiful Children's Pastor for that matter)! I'm not sure if anyone has noticed but our children's ministry has grown by 75% this past year. On Sunday mornings back in the children's area, there are over 100 kids under the age of 10 years old. When you get a chance, especially if you have kids, please take the time to thank all of our children's workers for all of the hard work, care and love that they give our kids each Sunday morning.

Well, many more things happened this weekend that may or may not deserve a blog. So, check back in a couple of days for: Howes Family Christmas Picture, Body by Johnny Update, the best gift exchanged at the Staff Christmas Party, Mississippi Mullets are BIG LOSERS, and much much more really important stuff. One more note, the Christmas Eve Services (4:00 and 5:30 PM) are going to be incredible and I want to encourage EVERYONE to invite your friends and family. Christmas and Easter are the two times a year that people are most likely to attend church. So, let's do our part and trust God to do His part.