Doing Church as Family

On the way to church today...

Our church did things a little differently this weekend.  Last night, a group of nearly 100 met at the park and handed out cold bottles of water to people watching fireworks.  (We weren't part of it this time.) That's been a tradition for our church since before we officially launched.

Today, since most of the church was up late last night at the fireworks, it was a sleep-in-a-little day. Instead of having traditional worship and a sermon, we did church family-style and had a big picnic outside.  It was a beautiful day for it!

Each person who came to the picnic received a new PoC cup with candies and daily devotions for the week, introducing the new sermon series.

So happy my friend DeeDee and her family have recently joined our church! I used to give her boys piano lessons, and we have missed them all over the past few years!

This picnic was supposed to be non-stressful, so we just picked up a pie at Kroger on the way in--no prep at home!

There was a lot of food...

Youth group friends

More youth group friends

A few of the guys manned the grills. 

Lyndsey made these beautiful strawberry treats.

My family made it through the line before me.

 After eating, a lot of people gathered inside to visit play games.

 After the picnic we went to the pool--all 5 of us--because it was a gorgeous day! But, being a holiday weekend, there wasn't a single place to park!  People were parking in other areas of the park and walking a long way to get to the pool.  We knew that the pools themselves would be wall-to-wall people, so we just left.  We went to see Jurassic World instead.  

Then Jeremy took us to one of his favorite stores--donuts AND ice cream in one place!!  

We just had the ice cream part today.

A very sweet day.