On Royalty

Well, here we are, {10 days} away from the Royal Wedding. As one who is obsessed fascinated with royalty of all kinds (but especially British), I've decided to tell you how I will be celebrating this "Wedding of the Century"...

1. Royal Movie Watching
Starting with the most historically recent movies and moving back in time...

We have "The Queen" which chronicles the days immediately following the death of Princess Diana in Paris. It's an interesting film and a great performance by Helen Mirren. I still remember coming home and seeing the news about Diana's car crash. Not the most chipper of movies, but historical nonetheless...

"The King's Speech" just happens to be coming out on DVD, so we move here next. If you haven't seen it, you MUST hit up your local red box and rent it the moment it comes out. You won't regret it. I promise.

Then, I'd move to "The Young Victoria". I remember being in London in 2009 and seeing posters all over for this movie. Since I was on vacation, I didn't have time to go to the movies there to see it. Upon my return to this side of the pond, I searched everywhere for it and found it didn't release here until SEVEN months later!! But, alas, it was worth the wait. It is a great movie and there is even a cameo by a true royal, one of Fergie's daughters!

I find there is quite a gap in royal movies after "The Young Victoria", so I move to "Elizabeth". One of the greatest Queens in history and certainly a great British royal...not to mention an excellent performance by Cate Blanchett.

aaand then there's this. Not royalty, but equally British and wonderful...and newly released on DVD (!).

2. Tea and scones
Since the wedding will be at odd hours of the night, I will probably need a pick-me-up with some tea (with milk and sugar, no less) and some scones. Ok, maybe not scones....ok, so I don't know what scones are exactly. But tea! There will definitely be tea to drink in my recently purchased pastel tea cups and saucers. Yay!

And of course to go along with my tea (and scones) I will have my commemorative tea towels!! (I especially love the second ones!)

Will you be watching?

On Church

So for the first time, I'm participating in another person's blog fun! I often visit Kelly's Korner because not only is she a believer, but she has such a fun personality and cute style! You should definitely check her out!

Anyway, I'm a little late on posting, but Friday was Show Us Your Life: Church. I know I'm behind on posting, but I couldn't resist talking about and sharing about my church, The Village Church here in Flower Mound, Texas (or Denton, or Dallas-I'll explain that in a bit).

My church is a larger church and it even has three campuses. Our pastor, Matt Chandler, speaks at the Flower Mound campus and then the video is fed live to campuses in Denton and Dallas. For a lot of people that might not make sense, and it didn't to me either at first. But you see, our little church has grown so fast that there wasn't anywhere to put all the people coming. People were literally being turned away because there was no where to sit. But God knew what he was doing and he opened up an opportunity in Denton where another church that was struggling GAVE us their building. This was truly a God send!! There were many people that were driving in from Denton, so now they could attend the Denton campus. About a year or two later, the same thing happened in Dallas. A church GAVE us their building, which meant all those driving in from Dallas could now attend the Dallas campus. I was one that was skeptical about the idea of multiple campuses, but each of these opened up only by the will of God. Each time our church sought the Lord through prayer and fasting and both times he literally gave us buildings! But that just explains WHERE we are. I want to explain more about WHO we are.

I have been at The Village since 2008 and I love it so much! Our church can be summed up in this way:
The Village Church exists to bring glory to God through lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do this by (1) actively proclaiming the gospel in our community to those who do not believe, and by (2) actively pursuing the ongoing renovation of our own lives through the grace of Christ.

We believe the Bible is inerrant. We believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the Trinity, three in one. We believe that Jesus Christ came, lived a perfect life as both fully man and fully God. We believe he died on the cross and three days later, rose from the dead. We believe in community, we believe in missions, these are just a few...

I appreciate that our pastor, Matt Chandler, speaks bibilical truth to us, even when it's stuff we don't want to hear. I feel like our pastors and elder staff are honest with us, they don't like to sugar coat things, which I appreciate! I love our children's programs, I volunteer in the preschool area every Sunday, it's called Little Village. And the elementary kids are in Kid's Village. In both Little Village and Kid's Village, the children are taught not only bible stories, but each story is linked to the nature and character of God. They explain who God is, God is Loving, God is Just, God is Merciful, and so on. They even begin the teachings as early as one year old! The youth programs are solid as well, though I haven't gotten a chance to volunteer there.

I love our music. We have been blessed with many talented musicians, lyricists, and singers. They even recently put out a new CD, so if you're looking for some good music, I encourage you to check it out here. I have been listening to this in my car all weekend, and it's good stuff!

I think the reason that I love my church the most is because we seek to bring glory to God in everything that we do. Just like everyone else, we mess up a lot. We don't always get it right. But I love the honesty and sincerity in our church. I've gotten to know people in the church and I've found a smaller community within the church that I can grow with. I feel so blessed that the Lord has put me in this place. The church (the bride, not the building) has been by my side in times when I needed encouragement and when I needed to be pointed back to Christ. I'm so thankful for this body of believers and if anyone is in the Flower Mound area (or Denton, or Dallas), we'd love to have you come visit!!

Overall, I think the things that have been engrained into my mind and onto my heart while I've been at The Village is that He is good and He does good, it's all for my joy and His glory. CHRIST IS ALL!