Coffee smoffee.....

Sundays are our family lazy day. We attend church on Saturday nights, so Sunday mornings are for sleeping in, or waking early on purpose 'cause you know you'll have the whole house to yourself for a few hours. Sometimes if we feel real spunky and special, we'll go out for brunch somewhere, but mainly it's coffee and grab whatever you can find in the fridge.

This morning though, I was up at 5:30 baking biscuits. I had a catering job to provide breakfast at my church. Hope Community Church is opening two new satellite churches in the next month. One very close to where we live and the other on the 'north side of town'. The one close to us had it's first service this morning! It was a grand opening of Hope--The Sequel, as I call it, in a new part of the county and in a new community. We need these satellite churches because our current church attendance is over 4000 and grows every weekend! There are currently four services--2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday and there is still not enough room to seat everyone who wants to come. Pastor Mike should be proud! It truly is amazing the draw this church has.

I was bleary eyed driving to the new location this morning at 6:45. I needed coffee in a bad way. But I was wrong. I didn't need coffee at all. All I needed was to walk in the front doors of that high school as Hope worker bees were transforming it into our church for its first Sunday service. There were familiar faces and those I'd never seen before. Each one greeted me with not tired eyes and grumpy attitudes, but with big, bright smiles and 'good morning'! From the auditorium I heard the band warming up with a rap song. There was lots of laughter and many excited nerves that everything would go off without a hitch. But most important, there was the feeling of all the possibilities that bringing our church to another community and a whole new group of people would bring. It took about 5 seconds of being in that tornado of infectious energy to wake me up.

So this is what I'll be doing every Sunday from here on out. No more sleeping in, but I am more than ok with that. I am honored that I've been asked to bake for these amazing volunteers, but I am more excited about yet another day every week that I can feed my soul with my wonderful church. If you live in or near Holly Springs and want to attend, click here for the info. You'll love Hope!

the right 1/2 of our sanctuary at Hope--yeah, it's big!