February KOFFEE House Karaoke

We had a pretty good turnout for KOFFEE House Friday night at church. We've been doing this once a month for a couple of years now. It's unbelievable to me that there are still church members that have no idea we are doing this. It used to be the 3rd Friday of each month and we recently changed it to the 4th Friday, but it is always in the bulletin and newsletters.

KOFFEE stands for: Karaoke Outreach For Fellowship, Entertainment and Evangelism. The original idea was that people could invite friends or neighbors, (that may not otherwise go to church), for a fun night of karaoke, to give them an chance to check out what our church may have to offer them. We also wanted to provide a fellowship opportunity for our members, and there is a core group that pretty much comes every month, and we've all gotten to be very good friends because of it. We're all very happy to see new people each month too though, and most people have a great time, whether they are there to participate in the singing, or just enjoy laughing at watching, or visiting with others. We also have had some great snacks, mostly provided by Jody and Lindsay, (Thank you soooo much, ladies!!), but anyone is welcome to bring food to share if they'd like.

I think I counted 34 people there last night. There have been some karaoke nights with as little as 8 of us there, but it seems to be catching on.

Noah and Denver (very bravely) started us off the karaoke for the night,

But, we ended up with a true "Coffee House" atmosphere. Besides karaoke, we had Eric Miller play his guitar while he blessed us with the new song he wrote (that day), I believe it was called "Jesus Will Make A Way." A little later, his wife Padma joined him and they a song that she wrote the lyrics to, and he put to music. Such talent we have in our church!

Awesome job, Padma and Eric!

Here's Anna and her niece, Tami Jo singing a duet

Our numbers increased greatly when the Jerry W. family showed up, well at least PART of the family. Christina must have stayed home with the youngest 3, but Jerry and the other kids all sang more than once. The kids seemed to especially enjoy singing with dear old Dad. Their oldest son decided to get up and play guitar and sing the original song that he had written himself. He did a great job too. The song was called "Remission:

Then, Jason entertained us by using his singing and piano playing abilities, with his rendition of "Piano Man". Jason, you are a very talented young man.

We also had a few couples karaoke duets; Donnie and Lisa sang "Summer Nights", Terry and Sarah did "Love Shack", and Ray and I did our old standby, "Let Me Be There". I got the others all on video too...but my computer is in major MELTDOWN mode at the moment.

Eventually, even the little ones get in on the act. Jody's husband Dan couldn't be there Friday night because he was out of town on business. When he is there, he sometimes sings, "Hey, Good-Lookin'." His sons, DJ and Charlie have now learned the song and sang the first verse for us. The boys appear to be developing very different singing styles already! DJ also sang a "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" with my grandson, CJ.

Little Maddie chose to sleep right through a lot of the commotion, though. But isn't she cute?

All in all, I think everyone had a great time. We won't be having a karaoke night in March, because we're doing our women's retreat at that time, but if you're in the area, drop in next time, which will be April 24th. See ya there!