Remaining Together in Mission

A few weeks ago, I was blessed to participate in a new event called "Together in Mission", TIM for short. Think TEDx, but for the church. Yeah. Pretty amazing! Not only were Greg and I invited to photograph the event, an invitation we accepted with pure joy, but even more crazy, I was asked to speak!

Shortly after I was chosen as a speaker, I went through the "speaker shock" progression, which I will describe below. (This was my first real, prepared speech in quite some time, so I had forgotten how it feels.)

[Initial Thought] Elation. Woo hoo! I'm awesome! Somebody really wants to hear what I have to say, and even record it on video so others can listen too!

[2 seconds later] Wait, this is going to be recorded? Oh jeez, I better come up with something really good to say. Let me think of some topics.

[2 minutes later] I can't think of anything!

[2 days later] I have too many topic ideas, how do I narrow it down?

[2 weeks later] Okay, I think I've got my topic, now I just need to find the right photos and the right words.

[2 months later] I really should get to writing that speech. But I'm not so sure of my topic anymore. Let me think on it a bit.

[2 weeks before the conference] I still don't know what to say! Okay, I'm locking myself in the office tomorrow and I'm not coming out until I have a speech!

Then came lots and lots...and LOTS of practice. My husband and the Bichon we were dog-sitting were such great sports!

Speech time!

I'm happy to say that the presentation went so much better than I expected. Partially because there was a technological glitch at the beginning with my PowerPoint, which gave me time to talk to the audience off the cuff. And that actually relaxed me! So perhaps I should do that before I start every speech from now on?

Here are a few photos to give you a glimpse of the talk. And yes, I promise that I'll post the video here once it's finished!