A Sunday to Remember

Sunday was a historic, memorable day in the life of our church. It was the installation (induction) of our youth minister. He is our second minister at our church, our music minister having come in February. You can see him seated to the left of João. I forgot to take pictures, or I was involved in the most moving parts of the service, so I didn't get many photos. This photo shows the president of the seminary, who preached at the service. There were many touching elements during the worship service. The whole service was based around the theme of God's sovereignty, which was important as a basis for ministry. It was a very worshipful experience, as contrasted with a mere formality. We sang contemporary, but beautiful music and one of our young adult groups sang. When we called all the youth up to the front for a commitment, there must have been about 300 or people. We commented that his flock of youth is bigger than many churches!
Two especially moving moments were when his father prayed, the whole church on their knees and Junior (yes, it does seem appropriate that a youth minister would be a "junior") slightly inclined is head on his father's shoulder. His father is also a pastor. His father's prayer was very moving. At the end of the service, Junior and his lovely wife, Juliana, spoke a few words and they were well thought out and I felt very appropriate when they both read their commitment to the ministry, based on God's word. It was very meaningful to us all and the church is very happy, as they already know and love Junior, who has been the chaplain of our school for about two years.
Just to add some fun into the mix, we had a baby presentation service. That is done a little differently here in Brazil. It usually happens the first time a baby comes to church, and there is no previous planning. It is just a spontaneous event. We give a Bible to the family, a letter for the child to read when she/he turns 12. João holds the baby and prays for the family. Sometimes there is one than one baby, so I get to hold one. Once we actually had TWO sets of twins on the same Sunday. Now we all had our hands full that day.
To close our service, João called up all our ministers and directors of departments, as well as the coordinators, to "install" them for another year of service. There are 12 in all, but only one was really new, as that was the new coordinator for Religious Education. His father also prayed for him in this task. The young man who accepted the position (volunteer) is a third year seminary student, and grew up in our church. I couldn't get everyone in the photo from where I was sitting, but you can see in the photo, from right to left Youth minister (Junior), Music Minister (Eduardo), Evangelism and Missions (Marcelo), Administration (Fauzita, full time position), Deacons (Mario), Religious Education (Felix).
You can imagine it was a rather long service... lasting almost two hours. (Good luck to our communications department that has to reduce the service down to one hour for our weekly radio program.) Still, we all left gloriously happy. It was, for sure, a Sunday to remember!