20 Years

I'm a firm believer that honor should be given when honor is due. So, when our children's pastor's daughter (also one of my good friends) approached me about helping her plan a celebration for her parents 20th year of ministry, I knew we HAD to do it!

This weekend was busy, it was full of activity, it was fun, it was exhausting, and it was 100% completely worth it all. I seriously had one of the best weekends of my life!

So, our church has a thing. It's called the "DREAM Team" and it's a junior high and high school ministries team, that help lead children's church, perform at various services and community events, compete in festivals, attend and host summer camps, and the list goes on and on. Our children's pastor's have been with us and have overseen the team for the past 20 years - so, we made our event a "reunion" of sorts - to honor our children's pastors as well as bring back old team members to celebrate with them! 

We were blown away by the response! Over 20 years, we've had over 100 DREAM Team members and about 90ish former team members and spouses registered for our reunion dinner! 

The room was decorated with the intention of stirring up old stories and memories over the past 20 years. Each table was full of pictures, "candy grams", and the entry table had a tshirt from every single genre of team members.

At each function we attended, our children's pastor's wife would give us candy grams each day, so we incorporated those into the decor!

My "baby" was the video that was played during the reunion. I worked weeks on that thing - going through old VHS footage from the early 2000's as well as DVD performances that were more recent. It was so much fun to reminisce and put the video together. I'm not a master at it, so I was incredibly nervous, but I LOVED how it came together!

Our gift to them was a tshirt quilt, made out of all of the team tshirts and polos over the past 20 years!

Seeing everyone from past and present so warmed my heart. The entire evening was perfect and everything flowed so smooth! I love these people dearly and can't wait for the next one!

 

On Sunday morning, we also had the entire church service to honor our children's pastors!

I also mentioned on Friday that I was asked to help host our "announcements" segment that plays during the Sunday services. Well, I was super nervous as to how it would turn out but it wasn't bad at all! (I was mostly worried about my super "magic" hair that grows with the humidity!) Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as my mind made it out to be, but isn't that how it always goes?

We also performed a song that was a complete surprise to our children's pastors. We picked a song that almost every single team from the beginning of time knew (Testify by Avalon). The current team started out on stage to perform and as a surprise, the old team joined them midway through the song. I LOVE the visual it made, showing how far and wide of a reach our children's pastors have made over 20 years! It turned out so well!

This weekend made me cry, it made me laugh, and it definitely warmed my heart. Sometimes we need weekends like these to remind us of where we've come from and just who helped us get there.

Happy 20 years, Pastor Darrell and Mrs. Gwen! I hope the weekend was all you dreamed it would be and more! We love you!