Positive...and Negative Reinforcement

I might be one of the youngest people at church, and I am certainly the youngest pastor that most people in the church have seen...and I may get comments that I look like a teenager sometimes, but I have never seen so many adults act like teenagers in my life- welcome to the church!  These "teenagers" that I speak of are members of the praise band that I am trying to lead and make changes to.  Our practices are filled with tension between the drummer and the music director on the keyboard, and sometimes it comes out for all to see and hear, and sometimes it literally fills our huge sanctuary with its silence.  This week after practice, our drummer crumbled a CD in his hands  due to his frustration- real mature.  This was after the keyboard player snapped at the drummer for a comment/question he asked about the song's ending.  And today during one of our songs in worship, the keyboard player got so frustrated by something the drummer did, that he actually STOPPED PLAYING!  Luckily, we kept going and it was fine, but I didn't dare turn around to see what had happened to cause something like that.  Ridiculous.  Meanwhile, I am getting positive comments from the head pastor and many others about how great the praise band sounds and that the service is coming more alive and more exciting- so all of this is good- but underneath it all is still this mess of immaturity, tension, and the inability to communicate.  The music director "forgot" to tell me that he stopped sending the words to the media person who outs them into the computer, so that piece has struggled since I've taken charge- and I just now found out about this.  So this continues to be a challenge, and I knew it would be, but I've been told that most people are behind me and there have been a lot of good things that have come out of all of this so far.  I'll keep pushing...gently!

Corey's birthday was Friday, so we celebrated with some of our normal friends and had a delicious ice cream cake, and we went out for Japanese food on Saturday night.  That's really about all that has been going on since we are both busy with church life- we are officially old!  I am preaching at church next week, so I'll be spending this week preparing my sermon and worship planning, going to meetings, trying to keep the praise band from killing each other, and hanging out with Corey and Kole of course.  I've posted a recent picture of Kole and I playing :)  He's a lot of fun!  And the fall weather has finally come to Indiana, and it is beautiful.  I forgot just how much I love fall in the midwest!