Easter

Happy Easter! Yesterday we made our first new-church-visit since moving to Sacramento. We really liked the church we went to and we plan to visit there again in a couple of weeks.

Those of you who know me know that the singing/worship is one of my "pet peeves" with many churches. I just think that if you're truly worshipping, someone looking on should be able to tell. Standing with hands shoved in pockets, barely mouthing words along with the music and never smiling just doesn't look like worship to me. And it is very hard for me to worship if I feel like I am the only one trying. Sometimes not even the worship team/songleader seem like they care. Before getting married I went to a church where the music was fairly loud, relatively upbeat and it was not unusual to see a few people in the congregation jumping up and down during the singing. I loved it. I know it's not to everyone's taste, but to me, it was just so good to see people enjoying God and excited about giving Him glory. (Plus, you have to realize that I have been in several churches where worship was just not a priority, so I'm a little jaded.)

My darling husband is not "down" with the whole jumping up and down thing. :) He finds it distracting. So our church in Portland had much more "conservative" worship.

Now we're trying to find a happy medium. :) The church we visited yesterday was great. Good songs (i.e., meaningful lyrics), good balance of contemporary and traditional music, and people were actually singing! At one point the worship team stood up to perform the song "The Voice of Truth" as special music. The congregation wasn't supposed to be singing along, but around the middle of the song, when the words said, "The voice of truth tells me a different story; the voice of truth says, 'Do not be afraid.' The voice of truth says, 'This is for My glory.' Out of the all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth," this old gentleman in the very front row just stood up and lifted his hands into the air and started singing. Soon others in the congregation were standing and singing along. It was the coolest thing. :)

The other highlight of our Easter was that it was the first "holiday" since we've been married that we got to celebrate alone! I think it's great that we have always spent holidays with either Dan's family or my family, but it was really fun to be able to plan and cook my own special holiday dinner for a change, and to celebrate, just the two of us.