Independence Day

Today was a very fun, simple, yet amazing day for us. Our church ( The City Church) does services @ night so we thought it would be cool to be outside all day on this 4th of July, do service outside before the fireworks on the huge lawn infront of the building we use & then go watch the fireworks. We wanted to do service outside to reach out to our city as people are walking by and to the community that is around the church building. We tried to keep things simple set up microphones and speakers, so we could play music and be able to here Anthony speak as he gave the message. We pulled out a bbq and grilled up some hot dogs and handed out waters. It was really nice just letting the girls run around and enjoying the fresh air as we did service. I will add it was in the 90's so some of us were really hot. Hot or not though there's something awesome about being outside sitting on the ground listening to worship and doing service (w/ no shame), plus talking to random people as they ask for water or just came to enjoy the (worship) music. In our city (as some may know) church is usually not outside & is easily frowned upon if done in a different way than the norm. We have been blessed to have people help and join us w/ the church and are excited to see what God has instore for The City Church. Can't thank Him enough. So here is some of our service.



Mike

Larry

Our worship team (minus Sean) Mike, Matt, & Larry

Our view outside of the church, which is on 1 of the main roads in Springfield (State st)

Charlie checking out all the bugs in the grass.

Enjoying the their freedom :)

They picked flowers for their Daddy

After our service was over we drove around the block to a friend's house, which is also a house that does ministry in our city called the Nehemiah House, to watch the fireworks. They have a house that is on a hill that looks over downtown Springfield, where the fireworks are shot from. There were quite a few people I didn't know there, so once again it was great meeting and getting to know other Christians. There was food, face painting and they put a movie up on a projector while we were waiting for the fireworks to start, for the kids. It was really nice.
We stood in this parking lot (across from the house) to watch the fireworks. So this was our actual view. I took pics of the unset throughout the day, because God's beauty is to breath taking to me at time.

Although Alexa looks like she was being tortured she was actually really excited about the face painting.

This is the view from the house at the parking lot that we watched from.

I was really excited about taking pictures of the fireworks this yr. A friend from church use to be a photographer and told me earlier in the day exactly what settings and how to have the camera set up to take perfect pics of the fireworks. I think I was too far away & had a lot of lamp post around me to use the form he said but I tried and these were the best ones.

I love this one cause you can see the buildings in downtown infront of the fireworks.

There were fireworks that people were setting off in the street close to us too.

Happy 4th everyone. Hope you all had a wonderful day like me.