When our pastor at Bridgton Alliance Church is away, I am often asked to provide 'pulpit supply'.  This is a church catchphrase for substitute preaching, and I was asked to fill in recently.  While this has happened often, this last time was uniquely special to me, and hopefully to the congregation as well. 

First of all, our 22 year old daughter, Naomi, was home for a belated Christmas celebration so she was in church that morning.  It was the first time in a while she's been home on a Sunday, so it was a sweet reunion with a lot of families who watched her grow up. 

Also, my friend, Alan, who is the worship leader of our church, has recently put one of my poems to music.  "The Lord's Day in the Park", which is on this blog site and in my book "A Piece of Bosco" is about seeing Christ in the homeless; more precisely, missing Christ in the homeless.  It came out really well as a song, and Ron, who sang it, has an authentically folky-Leonard Cohenesque voice.  He fit it well. 

Then, before the sermon, I did the children's sermon.  I performed "Creed", a juggling routine based on the Apostle's Creed.  I used my new spinning ball the Rose gave me for Christmas to open the routine, and it worked well.  Finally, I Did a sermon on the Lord's Prayer.  As Naomi told me afterwards, there's entire semester courses on this topic, but I wanted to do an overview, as this will be the theme that Pastor Mike will do a series on when he returns. 

Then, being the fifth Sunday of the month, we had a luncheon in the fellowship hall, which gave Naomi some more time to catch up with her old church family.