Sat. 3-25-17

Good morning! As I mentioned in last week's blog I was going to go to the church that Harriet and I were married in. I'm going to include a picture taken at Harriet's and my wedding and then show you pictures taken last Sunday, so you can see the change in the sanctuary.

I added the second picture because it's in the same folder. It's Harriet's and my engagement picture taken in the basement of the same church where they have their fellowship hall.

 The picture below is taken from the balcony and you can see the drastic changes. Please note a couple of things. The pews and carpeting are removed. They're replaced with folding chairs side tables fully upholstered chairs and fully upholstered loveseats. (Let's all take a nap at church)

 There used to be a large placards on both side walls with the names of the missionaries that were supported and those placards are gone.

 The above picture is of Bill Stoll's his wife and myself.

I could not help but wonder how much churches have changed in the last 10 to 20 years. It used to be a place of worship. Worshiping the Creator of the universe and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now it's become a place of entertainment. The audience watches the performance on the platform. I won't go into a whole lot of detail except for the fact that I was very surprised at the changes. I guess you can tell. It's one thing to use electronic means to help during the service, worship and presenting the message. It's another thing when the people on the platform no matter how well intended, perform and the music is so loud that you can't tell if anyone else in the audience is participating in song.

(Sorry the formatting has changed and for some reason no matter what I do it does not want to change back into the normal margin on the left-hand side.)

The message that the pastor had was very good. The senior pastor was not there and I found out he will be preaching tomorrow. I've known the pastor since we were in our early 20s so that goes back a ways. I'm going to go back to church there this Sunday so that I can greet him. He's a good guy.

Harriet's parents and all the relatives went to church there. It's a good Bible believing, gospel preaching church. I guess I'm just sorry to see the changes not just in this church but generally speaking most Christian churches.

(I was able to fix the formatting on the above to paragraphs but the previous paragraphs will not submit to changes)

I'm heading down to the beach this morning to take some more surf videos. My friend Larry and I went yesterday morning and did some videoing. Here is the link if you want to check it out. If you subscribe, you'll get all new videos that are posted.

https://youtu.be/8YbH87xbfQA

If you copy and paste the above link into your Internet browser you can check it out. I'm leaving this morning about 5:40 AM to down to the beach. Some of my surfing friends will be there and it's fun to see them and video there rides.

Then I come home and I go over and pick up the grandkids and take them to a new movie that just came out is called "Power Rangers". We always have a fun time and I enjoy being with them so much. I wish Harriet was here to enjoy them to. She love them dearly.

Then this afternoon I am meeting Andy and Autumn, yes the same couple that were in Hawaii at the same time as I was there. Really nice friends. Mexican food of course.

That's about it for today. I hope you have a great week and don't forget......... Maranatha!

Frank