Shedding the Darkness

A very sweet weekend, featuring a good men’s group meeting, a trip with the family and our pal Spencer to the Adler Planetarium, a visit with my siter Karen and her kids, and a successful first-ever (for me) lay preaching sermon at my church, Redeemer Lutheran in Park Ridge. I spent far too much time preparing a simple ~15-minute talk, but it went great, and I got alot of good practice editing and zeroing in on a point without going off on ten separate tangents. God really showed up throughout the process. It was well-received by the congregation, too. I’ll post or excerpt the sermon material here soon enough. For now, I’m just giving thanks.

Also, I wanted to point readers toward the guest worship leader we had for yesterday’s church service, Maron Gaffron. She and her band really complemented perfectly what the sermon was trying to get at: the whole idea of humility, service and staying out of the trap of envy. She also performed the powerful “Housewives Song” that she mentions in the above promo video/testimony. Maron’s involved with Jesus People USA, of Cornerstone Festival fame, but stands up creatively just fine on her own, too. Really good singer-songwriter instincts, great voice. Here’s a YouTube music video of one of her songs:

Good stuff! Also good to catch up with Mike Choby of Greenchoby, another Chicagoland favorite. Mike was playing bass with Maron on Sunday. Hey Mike!

Now I’m bound for Wisconsin with my son Graham for a couple of days, a good chance to take inventory of God’s grace this summer, and start on plans for the fall (all while mowing the lawn at the cottage, or fishin’, or laying down tile in the shower… all that mundane stuff…)

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1- Blast off!