On Monday we went to Pastor Jeff’s memorial service.
It still seems unreal.
Just unreal.
HOW IS HE GONE?

Just a few months ago he was there – teaching about the seven letters to the churches from the Book of Revelation.

And now – he has moved on to Heaven. 

It is still so hard to believe it. 

The service was like no other service I have ever attended.  It was beautiful.  It was almost two hours in what was probably a 78 degree sanctuary at the end of a long day.  And yet the kids were all so attentive.  Little Tabitha started to fall apart the last 20 minutes from fatigue.  The kids [and John and I] hung on every word and WORD as we longed to know more about the man we won’t get to hear from anymore in our time. 

We heard from his aunt on behalf of his sister, and from his college roommate and fellow pastor.  We heard from his dear friend and pastor of Pittsford Community Church and from our own worship leader and youth pastor.  We heard from the daughter of an elder on his behalf, and from a dear friend and small group partner.  Scripture was shared from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, read by a friend and fellow worshiper and from our Pastor Emeritus.

And the message was shared by his long time mentor.

Music from a trombone ensemble and our own choir blessed our hearts.

A video was compiled from family movies and photographs.

And at the end of the night each family was invited to take a Scripture Balloon home.  The kids and I have different memories of what our scripture was.  But we were instructed to take it home and send it into the sky.  As soon as we got home we went out to the deck.  We prayed that if it pleased the LORD the scripture would find its way to someone who God  had prepared to read it.  We watched it go into the clear night sky.  Thousands of stars shone as we watched the balloon for as long as we could.  We could hear the coyotes in the distance [I choose to believe it was a GOOD distance].  Some of us cried. We continue to pray for the words to find their way to someone who wants to know more about God.  We know that is what Pastor Jeff would want, too.