When you're a part of church leadership, or any type of group that takes care of the logistics of making church happen. There's a certain degree of "programming" that takes place. Not the "seeker-driven," "7 ways to live a blessed life," style of programming, but the programming that makes sure communion cups are filled, PowerPoint presentations are put together, and tries to make sure the service begins and ends on time.
For me, every once-in-a-while, the millions of synapses that have to happen in order for those programs to all work together, fire a little slower than usual, or don't fire at all, and that's not always a bad thing. The point I'm going for here, requires some set up, so stick with me...
This is yesterday morning from my perspective:
First of all, the rain. Setting up church each week is hard enough, but pulling stuff out of our little trailer under a mist of rainfall is just plain annoying. Our "Temple Building Team" serves faithfully each Sunday, rain or shine, and we thank them for their commitment.
As we set up chairs, and curtains, and sound equipment, I'm constantly fighting the urge to cough, and popping cough drops continually.
As the worship team begins our pre-service sound check/last minute rehearsing, I break one of my guitar strings. I don't have a spare set with me because I just changed them this last week; frustrating. Frosty Gray graciously volunteers to go pick some up from my office where I keep my spare sets.
We continue rehearsing, and discover that my iPod has a wrong version of one of the songs' drum tracks, rendering that track unusable; frustrating.
Frosty returns, bringing two sets of strings. I change the broken string. We take a breather and a cough drop before service begins.
Service starts, and we all worship together; glorious. Towards the end of our newer song, "From The Inside Out," I break another string; the SAME STRING. Ultra frustrating.
I go out into the lobby and change the string again (good thing Frosty brought two sets!). By this time, we've cut Pastor Jeff's preaching time down considerably, and as a speaker that always a little frustrating. (Sorry Jeff!)
As we approach the end of the service, we're forced to cut our last worship song "O Great God," which as a worship leader, is always a little frustrating as well.
We sing "This Is Love" after taking communion together, Pastor Todd prays, and we are dismissed. Phew.
Here's my point:
The first thing I realize after the service ends, is that no matter how much we feel we've messed up in the programming aspect of church, God's will, and his Word is not frustrated by our mistakes. His Word says that his strength is perfected in our weakness, and some mornings, I feel especially weak, and that's when I really see the Lord's strength.
As I fellowshipped with people after service, and they thanked me for leading them in worship, I thanked God that the morning was not dependent on our putting together a flawless program, and that his Spirit was still at work in the hearts and minds of his people.
Does this mean we shouldn't strive to honor God with careful planning and execution? No, of course not. But it's a good reminder that God's will, and the moving of his Spirit is not dependent on us. He is a good and gracious God, and when his people gather together by the blood of Christ, and corporately worship him and seek him through his Word, he is faithful to bless, encourage, convict, and as we sang together: "draw us close" to him.
Thanks Lord!!
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