5 Months to Post a Blog???

Yep, I'm behind. I know. Time gets away from me sometimes. Hmm, what's happened since August? Wow, lots. Most of our time has been consumed by the Christmas play Shawn and I put together. It turned out rather well I think. We've posted some links to it on youtube.

Here's a song I wrote a couple years ago that I performed during the Christmas play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TovZ-Nbk9Ts

And here's one that Shawn and I did that night. Hard song...don't make too much fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECqQvMWOPhI

We had a lot of fun; this is the first year we've ever done any kind of Christmas play type thing. We had a lot of good participation and a great crew to work with. Now we're moving on to the new year. I'm sick. Wishing I could see a doctor that's worth a dern. But those don't come around too often.

Shawn and I are still working on our weight loss. I've lost 45 lbs. Shawn's lost 35 lbs. We had switched over to Weight Watchers in November, but I think Jan 1st we'll be switching back to the low carb. We're too impatient to watch the weight fall off slowly. We're ready to get it off. But Weight Watchers was a good way to reboot our systems from being in the rut of not losing anymore weight with the low carb. So hopefully our systems have been jumpstarted and we'll start dropping weight again.

Summer's Almost Gone...

How has this summer gone by so fast?? For real! I need another vacation, haha. On this diet, not easy in the summer time. But we're doing really good. I've lost 30 lbs. since the start of June and Shawn's lost about 27 lbs. I'm 1/3 of the way to my goal. I'm really motivated to meet it, for lots of reasons. So I really believe I'll achieve it this time.

Next weekend, me and mom are going to get a body wrap done. Never done that before but they say it sheds water weight and sometimes more. Pretty excited about that. Then the Daugherty girls have their birthday party. Can't believe Regan will be 4. All our girls are getting grown. Makes me think its time for another. NOT!! haha

We've recently started attending a church in Anderson, SC. And we LOVE it!! Just sayin : )

Great Sunday

So we visited this church that is needing a worship leader; their ad pretty much advertised me and Shawn to a "T"...upbeat contemporary praise and intimate worship, 30-45 minutes every Sunday morning, dress casual and relevant, 1.5 hr services, no Sunday night services (hallelujah), etc. So we were like, we're just gonna pop in on Sunday morning and check it out before we inquire about the position. Cause usually if you call and let them know your interested and that your coming, they pull out all the bells and whistles on ya, and we just wanted to see the real deal. So we got there 30 minutes early, not planned, so we sat in the parking lot and pretty much created our own pictures of what we thought service might be like, and what queus we'd walk out on, lol. You know first impressions, they're always bad, lol. So we were a little nervous as people were pulling up, not to mention the church is not exactly on the main highway. You know those boondock churches; they can be a little scary at first thought. So anyway, at 10:30am, we got out and headed in.

To our surprise, everyone was sooo nice. They were right; everyone dresses down. I didn't go in my pajamas like I told Shawn I was going to do originially. I actually dressed up a little. But anyway, as soon as we walked in, it felt like home again. We haven't felt at home in a church for a long time. And I think everyone knows by now that if the church passed my expectations, it must be a pretty dern good church, lol. But we had people walk up to us as soon as we sat down. It was good, almost too in our space, but it was good : ) ...then praise and worship started. The current worship leader is really good; he can SANG. He led by guitar, and the praise team can SANG...they're "Brad/Kendall" good, lol. And the band was off the chain, to me anyway. And it was LOUD in there. And you know we like it loud, but I was like oh my gosh, it's loud. But nobody seemed to care; I didn't know that world existed anymore, where nobody cared. They just worshipped. I kinda almost think it was a dream, lol. Oh, and the current worship leader is leaving to pursue his calling in youth ministry.

After worship, they did a little prayer at the altar which was cool. A couple people came up for prayer. Then the speaker came up. And he did an illustrated sermon...I LOVE ILLUSTRATED SERMONS. Otherwise, I get A.D.D. real quick and I end up thinking about lunch, or Shawn, or take out my novel and start reading. I can actually tell you what he talked about. The title of the sermon was "Change is Growth...or is it?" He had an electrolux vacuum talking about taking it to the store cause the cord was messed up. Anyway...he went on and on. But the point that really jumped out at me was he gave reasons why people don't do what they say they'll do (cause the vacuum man said he could fix the vacuum but knew he really couldn't and tried to make something work that really didn't work after all). The two reasons he gave for people basically not keeping their word...that stuck out to me was, they have integrity issues, or they're just pure liars. That's such a great point. And then they didn't do an altar call; they have different people speak each week off this elder board thing (that's how the church is set up) so its not so monotonous and the same person speaking all the time. And the guy that spoke yesterday pretty much taught instead of yelling. I really liked that; I feel like I could follow him better. Oh, and their media was totally cool too. As soon as the first song started, they had a video playing on the screen, you know like some churches play constant random videos that go along with the song. It was through the whole set; it was totally cool.

So anyway, after all my blabbing, we talked to the guy in charge of inquiries for the position after service, and they seemed very interested and really liked the fact that Shawn and I are a husband/wife team that work together with the praise and worship, that we both lead, etc. We were involved with a conference call with their board last night, and we have a meeting in two weeks with them. So we'll see.

Church in SC

So I really had fun this morning although we only went to this church to hear the worship, then left to enjoy some Golden Corral. Its a church in South Carolina that I've never heard of before and is in the middle of nowhere but its like huge and their worship is off the chain. We waited in line for parking for only God knows how long. People were coming out of the woodworks into this place. They have screens outside the auditorium where you can watch from the lobby couches and drink from their coffee shop; and when we walked in, I thought they were playing a music video, but they weren't. Worship had already started and it was live on the tv's.

I know people seem to think that we shouldn't draw people by entertaining them, but it sure draws a crowd so you can at that point minister to them and feed them some Jesus. Although we barely made it in the auditorium to find the last seats available while they began pulling out chairs to fill the lobby because of the large crowd, it was pretty cool. I told Shawn to add some lead to his foot while we were driving there, but his mouth was too busy running to the rest of the car that he couldn't focus on them both, so we of course were late.

It felt really different going into this church than others we've been in lately, even more similar ones. I actually for the first time felt the desire to "want" to get involved. Yeah alot of things here lately that come into my mind sneak up on me...as if I'm not expecting those thoughts or feelings to arise. It came as a surprise to myself that I kinda actually wanted to get involved. For those of you who haven't been involved with my life in the last couple months, I've come to the realization that I don't really want to be involved leadership-wise with a church. Too much for me. Before, I never understand why people don't like church or church people. I have now come to that understanding. I'm glad I can relate so well now...lol... But its no reason to give up on church or the many downfalls of church people. None of us are perfect. It's just picking yourself up and making it up in your mind that you won't be like those who've been "not Jesus" to you. Quite simple : P

Where we're not going to church...

It seems like the more and more people I talk to, have been told or simply just assume that Shawn and I are attending Redemption in Greenville or that we're involved with their music department. But I just wanted to clarify to anyone and everyone that we haven't even stepped foot in Redemption. We're not involved with the church there, nor do we attend there.

We are enjoying traveling for the most part, so we are not a part of a home church at the current moment; however, there are several options, visiting, etc. just to have a covering. But Redemption is not one of them. So, I just wanted to clarify that for those who have been fed wrong info or for those who like to use their mouths to spread incorrect assumable information : )

Thus, reminding me of my new favorite quote (that I made up):

"There's two sides to every story. A wise man seeks both sides to make a quality trustworthy belief; a foolish man puts full trust in one side while neglecting to hear the full story." -Lauren Cox

It's completely messed my life up in several areas, so I've learned to live by this quote, and its proven to be very eye-opening. Just because someone seems to be very close to you doesn't mean they're truly trustworthy.