So, tonight was the Community Cookout/Corn-Hole Tournament/Concert at Rittman UMC.  This has occupied a large portion of my time over the last month and I really had no idea what to expect.

Thankfully the event went better than I could have hoped for.  We had a large number of people there from both the church and the community.  I met a few new people and had a chance to talk to some old friends as well.

We had 16 teams competing in the Corn-Hole Tournament and the winning team walked away with a pair of Brown’s tickets (which they then auctioned off and donated the proceeds to the Rittman UMC food pantry).

Josh the juggler performed for at least 30 minutes and entertained young and old while bringing the gospel message.  If you are looking for some fun for your next event I highly recommend him.

A group of the men – including current and former pastors – cooked a lot of hamburgers and hotdogs and we were all thankful as we ate a lot of good food.

There were games for the kids, face-painting and candy!

Finally, the Sunday Evening Connexions Praise Band had an opportunity to play for the first time – and they did great!  We have been working together as a team for the past month and tonight we did five songs during two sets.  The songs were:

“Come, Now Is The Time To Worship”
“Marvelous Light”
“All Because of Jesus”
“Holy Is the Lord”
“Open the Eyes of My Heart”.

I was so proud of them and how well they came together.  We definitely had our share of challenges today – from a guitar with a bad pick-up, a last minute Guitar Center run to pick up a cable, to a snapped string in the middle of the last song of the set (this is why I like to have two guitars).  In the end we made it through everything and I am looking forward to the new service kicking off on Sept. 20th with full confidence that they can handle the challenges of a weekly service.

Today was all about making Connexions with our Community and sharing the love of Christ with them – and I think we succeeded.  We shared food, fellowship and Christ with them and I hope to see them back in our doors at either our Sunday morning or Sunday evening services so we can continue to share the love and light of Christ with each of them.

I want to extend a huge thank you to all of the volunteers that helped out with games\cooking\clean-up\everything else today and especially to my amazing wife who helped out a ton and kept me sane.

Check out the other people’s reflections over at FredMcKinnon.com