LOL, the middle school team of jugglers, illusionists, actors, singers and dancers, had their first Sunday morning gig last weekend. It's always hard to get all the class together on a weekend, and this was again the case. Three students weren't there. The biggest difficulty this created is we were left with only three boys for the performance. Since one of our skits requires four boys, we had to adjust. We 'borrowed' our new pastor's son, Joey (also an eighth grader) to fill that roll, along with adding some gymnastics to our opening razzle-dazzle routine. Joey is one of the top gymnasts in his age group in the state, and it was fun to let him show his stuff on Sunday.
this show was also special because two of my students - Zeb and Emilee - attend this church. I asked Zeb to share for a few minutes about what he has gotten out of LOL, and he did great. He said, "LOL has taught me to get along with a lot of different people. At the start of this year, I didn't really like a lot of these kids, but now we all get along. Ministry brings people together." His line about not liking his classmates, of course, made the congregation laugh, but I know, deep down, that any adult in the room who's been in church for any amount of time, knew exactly what he meant. People can be annoying, but, when we work together for a higher cause, factions become friendships.
Not to be outdone by her fellow congregant, Emilee juggled tennis rackets for the first time in a show. But it wasn't just BBBC kids who stood out. Rose went down into a full split while juggling machetes after she stole them from JK. Abby, Grace and JK pounded the floor with their gymnastics, and Adam did a great job filling in for the rabbit production trick. When we were done, the pastor used our final routine to call people for prayer and many responded to his call to to receive ministry. It was nice to be a part of setting the tone for this.
The congregation blessed us in return with a $350 offering that will help us a lot for our spring trip.