first Saints Sundays

We had our first Saints Sundays today at Vieux Carre' Baptist Church. It was quite the experience!

We moved our worship service from 11am to 10am, and this confused the mess out of our regular participants.

We opened the service with "When The Saints Go Marching In," who dat style, singing and chanting "who dat" throughout the song. Anyone familiar with Saints football will know exactly what I'm talking about.

As I was looking around, I noticed I was worshiping with a variety of people. Drug addicts, families, homosexuals, homeless, students, black, white, wealthy, poor, basically any type of person that comes to mind. (I even met a transvestite named Cookie at our church on Friday night and we had a fantastic conversation.)

It dawned on me; this is how church should be. This is what I want my family to look like. I'm not asking for perfection, I'm not even craving any sort of organization or structure; I just want to worship my perfect Savior amidst imperfect people craving to be perfected by Him who makes all things new.

So we watched the game after worship. Probably 50 people, which was more than we could handle. We ate Popeyes chicken, drank homemade sweet tea, and ate factory made brownies that come in a brown cardboard tray (still delicious).

The Saints were horrible. I stand by my team and still hope for the best, but currently I believe they are the worst team in the league. Hopefully that'll change next week since I am going to the game!

Our afternoon was crazy, unconventional, and at times felt like it was really lacking in vision and direction. But this stuff doesn't really matter to the family of Vieux Carre' Baptist Church. What mattered the most was the opportunity to spend time together. Saints Sundays was just another opportunity to hang with my family, and I'm glad that we did it.

I'm especially glad I got to hang out with Stephan and Priscilla, who aren't from America. Although they live in the French Quarter, they have no clue about football because they didn't grow up with it. I was glad to explain the game in between my yells and cursing (j/k).

I was also glad to talk with Will. Although we didn't talk as much as I wanted to, I'm still glad he hung around amidst the chaos to watch the first half with us. That was his second time visiting Vieux Carre' and I hope he'll come back again.

We had to kick two people out of the church after repeatedly telling them to only begin with two pieces of chicken until everyone else had a chance to eat. This one particular lady fixed herself three plates, then grabbed an empty Popeye's box to fill it with food for later. We warned her once, then she yelled at us, so we kicked her out. We still let her have the food, but she was just being stupid and inconsiderate.

To be honest, I enjoyed that, because everyone saw a visual example of how family is top priority at Vieux Carre'. Everyone else agreed. We can't have people around who repeatedly only think of themselves. That's just not who we are.

This was also the same lady who asked to sing at the end of our worship service. I told her no.
She said, "Well you just missed out on a blessing."
I said, "No I didn't."
She said, "Hell yes you did!"
I said, "Oh no you didn't! (pause) By what authority do you come wanting to share a song with this church?"
She said, "By the Holy Spirit (with lots of attitude)"
I said, "Good answer...But is this your family?"
She said, "Say what? (confused)"
I said, "Is this your church? Do you consider this to be your church family?"
She said, "No."
I said, "Well then, I reserve the right to say who's gonna sing to my family. Join us for a few more Sundays, then we'll think about letting you sing."
She said, "Well I guess this church must be all about the money, not about JEEEE-SUS!"
I said, "Shut up woman, you don't know anything about my family. I'm going to watch the game."

That was a fun conversation...

So basically it was a strange afternoon, but what afternoon's aren't strange in the French Quarter?

Maybe next time you can join us for a crazy afternoon filled with worship, Saints, and chicken...