After the week long last Advance on Orcas Island for the D.Min I am getting, we spent a day in Seattle and went to the Space Needle. I learned that Elvis Presley had a scene in the Space Needle in the movie "It Happened At The World's Fair". So the whole time we were up there I was thinking of Elvis. We also went to the Experience Music Project and the Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame (where I got to see the actual robot used in the original Lost in Space series which was very cool. We also went to the Children's Museum and had breakfast at a cool place called Lowell's in the Pike Place Market.
Sunday morning, we went to the 11 AM worship gathering at Mars Hill Church. Becky and I went to a Mars Hill worship gathering about 9 years ago and had dinner with Mark back then. I've been there a few times since, but this was the first time as parents bringing children. Katie and Claire are now 6 years old and it is always interesting seeing how as parents, it is checking in children to a new church, how easy it is to find where to go and what to do etc.
I will say that we both felt this was probably the best experience we have ever had at a new church in terms of the children's ministry and staff. It's so interesting as before we were parents we didn't pay attention to these things, but now as parents these things are so important. There were signs that made it easy to find, there was even family parking, and when we got to the check-in area, the children's staff were more than friendly and helpful. Two staff came over and started talking with Katie and Claire making them feel more at ease and before we knew it they were off in a class. Normally they (Katie and Claire) may ask for us to go with them into the class and check it out a bit, but they were put so at ease by the staff we didn't need to.
Becky and I went into the gathering and sat in the back and Mark was preaching on the resurrection of Jesus and giving some apologetics for responding to some of the more common criticisms of whether it happened or not. During the gathering there were some words on the screen coming up letting you know you could text in questions about what Mark was teaching. At the end of the sermon, I think there were three or four questions he got to answer - which was great in terms of having some interaction from people even in a crowd the size this was.
After the gathering we got Katie and Claire and met up with Mark and caught up a bit. It really is quite amazing seeing what has happened over the years here at Mars Hill. I remember very well the first time I was here and the church was maybe around 200 people and now seeing the growth to over 6,000 people and multiple campuses. 
But whether 200 or 6,000 - this is what I know happened and what I valued as a parent. Katie and Claire started telling us what they did in the class, and started reciting the Shema from Deuteronomy 6. Not only that, but they unrolled a little scroll that they made in the class and were showing us how in Hebrew the letters go from right to left and Claire was pointing to the words in Hebrew and then telling us the English word written underneath. 
Several hours later in the day, they still could go over what they learned and even this morning a day later, Claire could say it again. So our daughters learned the Shema at Mars Hill Church and I thank the children's staff there for making it such a positive learning experience for them.
