I want to send a big thank you to Pastor Tony Searles and the congregation at Windham (Maine) Assembly of God for welcoming me and my 11 middle school students to a Sunday morning service recently.  After a rousing time of worship, LOL took what would normally be the sermon time to share the Gospel through  juggling, drama, illusions, tumbling and more.  

This service/show was challenging in that, trying to stay within a somewhat flexible but real time limit, I was cutting routines and rearranging the sequences on the spot.  It's not altogether unusual for me to do this in my own shows, but to get all 11 middle schoolers on the same page without disrupting the overall flow brought new challenges.  The students, however, handled it flawlessly, and I only wish they were that attentive to me when I try to explain the difference between dependent and independent clauses!  

Highlights included Malakai juggling three tennis balls and the can they came in, Grace juggling machetes while sitting on Lillia's shoulders, and Jordan's diabolo work.  We ended with our traditional "Beautiful, Scandalous Night" where students are called to the cross by Jesus (played by Malakai) and place bandannas with words like "fear", "sin", "shame", etc. on the cross, kneel and pray, then rise up juggling.  After the kids performed this as usual, we opened it up for the congregation to follow suit by writing a burden on a post-it note and come forward, placing it on the large wooden cross as well (minus the juggling).  The response was huge as young and old, male and female, came forward. Some were teary-eyed.

It is such a blessing when God uses these young tweens and teens in such a big way!