Last night, Dana, pastor of Embrace Church, texted the team and told everyone to show up at 7 a.m. today for set up.

“Eh,” I thought. “I’m not blessed with the gift of being a morning person. I’ll roll in sometime later than that.”

So I arrived fashionably late at 9:00, thinking that there’s no way that Dana and the team arrived that early. Remember that I’ve known his wife, Beka, since the 6th grade. The two of us were always running into homeroom seconds before the tardy bell. She’s usually more late than me.

As soon as I arrived, I was greeted by several griddles and toppings for pancakes. I smacked my forehead and remembered that we were having a pancake breakfast. After a couple of weeks of announcements, emails, meetings, Facebook events, and even a postcard, I had somehow forgotten that we were having a pancake breakfast. To make matters worse, I was recently appointed communications person.* It’s safe to say that I didn’t communicate the message of the pancake breakfast to anyone.

The cooking of pancakes commenced, and we enjoyed the bounty of refined carbs with sugary toppings. We fellowshipped over food and greeted one another. After a little while, the worship team headed towards the front and started the service.

My Sunday job is to run the slides for words to the music. It doesn’t take that much skill. I listen to the band and change the slides. It’s super fancy since we can change the background of the slides to a looping scene. There’s water, clouds, candles, the earth, etc. I like it since I get to play on a shiny MacBook Pro every week. I even try to match the background to the song.

Today, there was a problem with the sound. It was so loud that no one could hear the words above the music. Within a few notes, I was lost. Frantically, I scanned all the slides trying to figure out where we were in the song. That didn’t help. I had never heard the song before. I turned to MC, the girl running the sound and light boards next to me. She was just as lost and was trying to adjust the sound. Then she got a text from a someone in the front row saying, “It’s really loud!”

Somehow, I expected our fearless leader, Dana, to miraculously solve the problem. He is after all the pastor. I waved him over, but he was just as confused. By this point, people in the audience are turning around looking at us and gesturing that the sound was too loud.

After a short eternity of randomly flipping through the slides in an attempt to match the words to the blaring guitar, the song finally ended. The next two weren’t as bad since I was familiar with them. I effortlessly changed the slides and the background to moving clouds and turn around to say something to Dana.

Out of the corner of my eye I see MC start to laugh. I glance at the MacBook. A hand is stretching out of the nice serene clouds like it’s reaching into the audience. MC then started mimicking hand reaching out towards me. Red faced, I change the background to a safe, celtic cross. I need to post videos of the backgrounds. For a program designed to project the words to praise songs for churches, there are some scary background videos.

During the next song, the guitar, keyboard and half the lights randomly go out. The worship band was repeating the chorus, so it sounded like they had purposely gone acoustic. The lights tipped us off that something had gone wrong. The song ended and we took our usual intermission.

A flock of people soon surrounded our table. MC and I were laughing and mimicking the scary hand while several people tried to figure out the sound situation. Turns out, that two wires were crossed on the sound board.

Then Dana took to the stage and started his sermon. A few minutes later, the lights went out again. A smart member of the team, walked over to the wall and unplugged the griddles. It seems that three electric skillets use a lot of power. The pancakes were taking their revenge.

We survived the rest of the service without any glitches. When I arrived home, the first thing Maven Mom asked was how the pancake breakfast went. It helps to write dates down in my planner.

*Actually, I showed up at a meeting and was told that I was now the communications person. Apparently when you constantly talk about social media, people give you that responsibility. Yay for forthcoming Drupal experiments, err greatness!

Officially a full-time Chattanoogan again. Getting used to that will take some time.

Yesterday, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. (after 4 hours of sleep) and left Montgomery County about an hour later. Next time I make the drive to DC, I’ll have to remember to leave super early. By noon, I was already back in Tennessee and able to drive over 65 mph. (Hate Virginia’s speed limit!)

Last week, a co-worker and I were joking that packing is little more than 3-D Tetris (Hi Justin!). Ummm…packing my car with essentials was a work of art. There was literally just enough space for me to sit. When I pulled into the driveway at the Parental’s abode, they were shocked at the amount of stuff crammed in my car and raced to get the camera. I doubt that I could have squeezed a tube of toothpaste in my Accord.

It’s incredibly odd to be back in my parents’ house. I’ve been on my own for so long that it’ll be interesting. However, I’m grateful for this opportunity since I’ll be able to save for a down payment much faster. The Chattanooga housing market doesn’t even compare to DC. You can buy a condo here for under $80,000! No, I’m not missing any digits in front of that. The cheapest condos that I ever found in DC were around $200,000 for a studio. Not only is housing more affordable, but there’s no income tax in Chattanooga!!!!! Just by moving here, I got a raise.

This morning, I attended services at Lookout Mountain Pres and then headed over to Embrace. I’ve followed the church plant for so long that it was awesome to attend. I was blown away. The leadership team has done an amazing job with few resources. However, the best part is seeing the dreams of Beka and Dana come true. Count this as the first of many plugs for Embrace. If you’re looking for a new church home in Chattanooga, come by for visit. At the very least, you’ll get a free breakfast and meet GFTS.

Embrace meets at Loose Cannon Art Gallery on the Southside. Another reason I love Chattanooga–urban renewal. Why did no one mention CreateHere to me? What a great concept! It almost makes me wish I had gone to art school like I planned for most of my life instead of pursuing communications and politics. Well, maybe not. I was never that good and a steady paycheck makes me happy. The field of watercolors isn’t that profitable. (Neither is politics but at least you win some campaigns).

Tomorrow, my career transitions from social media diva to nonprofit fundraising and communications. There’s still some social media involved, but I’ll be returning more to my communication roots. I may even need to pull out my AP Styleguide! Time to change from public health policy to bleeding-heart nonprofit. Anyone willing to pull out their checkbooks?