Beyond the Norm

This past Saturday was a very busy day for us. At one of our local churches we participated in a children's minstry conference called Beyond the Norm. (do click the link...it's oh so much fun!) It was a Friday evening/all day Saturday event, but we only were part of Saturday. We opened the morning music with the Half-Notes and our entire band (save for myself & hubby) were under 17. They absolutely rocked!

After that first session, hubby & I spoke for two of the teaching breakouts. Our topic was "Elementary Worship." Which isn't exactly what we spoke on, but that's because we are pretty technical and really it's all a matter of semantics. If we were to choose the title (since we didn't get that option) it would be more like, "Stuff we do when we lead music with elementary kids and why we do what we do and the best ways that we recommend doing all of that stuff as well as a few places to find the good stuff." Or something really profound like that.

We had colored pencils for our stellar bubble-letter handout and gave out prizes for the best note-taking. We also made our participants sing along with us and a do little bit of jumping around. It's good for the soul. Besides they're used to it--they work with kids!

We also made a plug (or two) of shameless self-promotion and sold a few of the CDs we brought with us. Not that we make any money off of them, but we are proud of the stuff we've done and want to be able to make it available to other churches and kids' workers.

I have to give huge props to my husband. I consider myself a good speaker. I took classes and competed for years and even won a few awards. But he is a natural. He usually hates speaking in front of people, but this was something he has a passion for, knows what he is talking about and he was amazing. He actually did way more of the presentation than I did and I just let him take it away! I kept just watching him in awe at his knowledge and ability to let truth and solid advice flow right off his lips. He never ceases to amaze me. And my heart is so full of him.

In the afternoon, hubby had to take off to play at a wedding and I stayed and rehearsed with a different set of folks for our afternoon singing. I don't usually get to sing "adult" worship music, so I really had a good time and was able to focus more on my harmonies than on the motions or trying to keep my headset mic attached to my head like I have to do with the kids' songs! (I bought a whole roll of bandaging tape for that thing...and it was stuck to my head like glue, until I sweated it off anyway...but I only had to use this for the morning with the kids. Very hard to do motions with a regular mic. Trust me.)

Here is a picture of me apparently prayerfully singing. Not that I wasn't prayerful...but it's just such a weird thing to be photographed like that. The guy was just wandering around taking pictures and took way more than I thought was really necessary. Especially the 20 he took during rehearsal. (Um, excuse me, we're busy rehearsing.) It was disappointing to see there are no pictures of the kids in the morning. I'll get those soon. I'm sure someone somewhere had a camera on those kids! I'll get on that. (Parents? Anyone?)