DUET - E.T. - ROSES - DANCING

23 years ago today (May 23rd) I was standing at the front of a church watching the most beautiful woman in the world walk down the aisle to become my wife. This morning, 23 years later, I again stood at the front of a church – this time simply to preach. Yes, our anniversary fell on a Sunday this year but Laura was not expecting anything special due to the fact that we went away for 3 days earlier this week for our anniversary. But I couldn’t let this opportunity go by without publicly honoring my wife so I planned some special surprises for all three morning worship services.

First service went as planned by our design team – until right after the message. The song that was scheduled right after the message was a decoy. Though it was practiced, David Felty, our Worship Arts Director, knew it would never happen. Instead we replaced that song with David and his wife, Jen, singing the duet that was song at our wedding 23 years earlier, “Household of Faith.”

I’m sure that my wife was expecting the same for the second morning worship service but for this service we shook it up a bit. You see, our very first date back in 1986 was going to see a movie on campus. The movie was “E.T.” So this service we added an element. Before David and Jen sang, I talked about our first date and we put up on the screen that very popular picture of ET in a basket on the front of the bike pedaled by the boy in the movie. At that time, one of the boys in our church came pedaling in a bike with a basket on the front. In that basket was a 25” plush ET holding 23 roses. I gave ET and the roses to Laura and then David and Jen sang.

But the third service was completely different. There was no duet. There was no bike. There was no ET. There were no roses. This time I did something really off the wall. I do a lot of weddings today and in our culture almost every single wedding reception includes the bride and the groom having their first dance as all the guests watch. Well, Laura and I never had our first dance at our wedding reception. We got married in a pretty strict Baptist church and any form of dancing was taboo. So after the message, instead of the duet, David sang a love song from our era – Dan Fogelberg’s “Longer Than.” As he did, 23 years past due, I had my first dance with my bride on the stage as everyone in the third service watched. Now granted, I have no idea how to dance, but we did it anyway!

So why do these special things? There are several reasons:

I love my wife!

I want to be an example to my son of what it means to be a romantic husband!

I love my wife!

I want to be an example to all Grace Church husbands and husbands to be on what it means to honor our wives!

I love my wife!