Field Notes #17: Hymn Sing, Spaghetti and Dunking Booths

Today was a full day and a fun one, too. In church this morning, we had a hymn sing. In place of a sermon, the congregation threw out hymn requests. Fortunately, our music director is a professional accompanist, so this was no big deal, and the singers all did our best to lead the songs. It was a lot of fun. It was also educational for me, because there were quite a few songs that I didn't know. I feel like I have a pretty broad repertoire of music, and I know my United Methodist Hymnal, but we were getting old Baptist hymns--the kind that have a sort of swing to them and sound most natural on an electric organ--and although I knew some of them, I didn't know them all. But it was great to be a part of that sort of worship--spontaneous, heartfelt and uplifting.

After lunch, I sort of crashed...I took a nap by accident. I then tried to help clean up the old parsonage (now offices and my living space) for an open house this afternoon. So here's the deal: HCUMC tore down its sanctuary in February. This first picture is looking toward the Nelson Center (where there are Sunday School classrooms, a nursery, etc.); the grass and dirt is where the sanctuary used to be (and where the new one, pictured on the sign, will be). The second is of the Family Life Center, where worship is being held until the new sanctuary is built (the contemporary service was already meeting there). That's also where the offices used to be.

The parsonage is big; it had been expanded at some point to accommodate a pastor with 5 kids. The whole building has been renovated into new administrative offices, Sunday School/meeting rooms, and a living space for summer interns (like me!). I already posted pictures of my room, but today I walked around and took more of the rest of the building. It's definitely still a work in progress, but it looks great.



Anyway, a few people came by to look at the "church house" (the actual name is still pending), then we had a spaghetti dinner at the Family Life Center. Several music students from Lenoir-Rhyne University (where our music director teaches) came and sang for us. They were great--they sang one of my favorite choral anthems, Rene Clausen's "Set Me as a Seal" (a setting of Song of Songs 8:6-7, one of my favorite Bible verses) and a mash-up (heh) of "Danny Boy" and "Loch Lomond" (that's my twin brother Jay singing the solo!). Nice.

THEN (no, my day was not over), I went to the Gastons' house with the youth. They had a dunking booth set up (I forget why), so the kids had fun knocking each other in. John Gaston got a fire going, so they had S'mores too. It was fun.

Above are some of the kids gearing up to throw a ball at the target, and here's Alix preparing to get dunked.