Busy weekend

This weekend was full of activity...Southeastern Minnesota Synod assembly and a wedding, along with a few other things. My supervisor and I covered about 350 miles over Friday and Saturday.

Because of the wedding, I was only able to attend part of the assembly, which was held at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester. I was glad I got to be there for opening worship, which started with bagpipes.





Bishop Harold Usgaard preached. It's always a pleasure to see 500+ people from various congregations gathered in one place to make a joyful noise to the Lord.





Friday afternoon and most of Saturday were occupied by a wedding and rehearsal at The Wilds Golf Club in Prior Lake, a Minneapolis suburb. It was a beautiful setting, and I was told that a bald eagle circled overhead throughout much of the ceremony.





It was a valuable learning experience, since weddings at locations like this are very different for pastors than weddings at the churches they serve. The rehearsal was held at a different location, for example, so we didn't see the space ahead of time (common scenario, from what I hear). It requires a good balance between anticipating obstacles and going with the flow.

The only glitch was a sound crew that showed up late and delayed the ceremony a bit, but everything was beautiful anyway.





And we got to enjoy the lovely weather! Nice days have been in short supply this spring, so it was great to get outside.