This morning we did two shows at Mapleton Baptist Church in the small town of Mapleton, Maine.   I love doing church shows that have both the adults, teens and kids, which was the case today.   This is a regular stop in our summer performing while we’re in the northern part of the state.  By the way, you would have no idea we were in the northern part of the state based on the weather.  It was in the 90’s by mid-morning, and the sweat was dripping off of me during my first routine.

That notwithstanding, both shows went very well, and the first one, for the Sunday school hour, was one of my best shows technically in a long time.  By the second show, I was getting pretty worn out, but the performance was still fine.  I emphasized Christians’ responsibility to the poor throughout the world, but ended discussing grace.  I did my routine based on the woman who burst into the Pharisee’s party and ended up washing Jesus’ feet with her tears.  I borrowed a quote from Frank Peretti’s  book  the Visitation (Check it out here:  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17324.The_Visitation ).  A burned out pastor sarcastically describes his walk of faith as “Salvation by grace, Christianity by performance.”   I talked about how we need to stop the 'performance' - trying to convince believers, unbelievers, and ourselves that our faith is perfect without doubts or trials;  We need grace as much now as the first day we believed.  As the song goes, “Through many dangers, toils and fears we have already come.  ‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”  (Hear an awesome version of this song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoJz2SANTyo )

Today will go down in Supreme Court Jesters’ history for the first time we used my new Father’s Day i-pod for all of our show music.  Yesterday Naomi taught me how to load the songs onto it, and Naomi’s boyfriend David ran the sound for us.  It’s so much simpler than CDs.  I can’t wait to use it again.