What a great morning we had this past Sunday! We celebrated two years of God's blessing and faithfulness to Crossroads Community Church, and I believe that God was honored by our time.
Our special guests Majesty shared their wonderful music ministry with us, and encouraged us by reminding us of some of the incredible attributes of God. They reminded us that he is faithful, even when we don't understand his plan, or when we encounter trials of all kinds; we are to count them as joy!
Pastor Todd preached God's Word from Matthew 5:7, teaching us what real mercy is, as exemplified by the life of Jesus.
We closed by singing "Mighty To Save" and I just wanted to share a little bit of what went on behind the scenes regarding that.
As I talked and planned with Majesty early last week, we had decided to have everyone sing "Blessed Be Your Name" together, and as Friday rolled around, I really wanted to have another song that we all sang together to close the service. So all day Friday, and Saturday I mulled over the number of songs we currently do at Crossroads, looking for that "perfect" song to end the service with. It normally doesn't take me two days to pick one song, and it was somewhat frustrating not to be able to decide on one.
Sunday morning came and I still hadn't picked that song, but this is what DID happen. I woke up in the morning still fretting about what song to do, when all of a sudden I realized that what was keeping me from picking the song was pride. Pride had subtly crept in to my heart as I kept thinking about what song to end with. I wanted to craft the perfect ending to what I hoped was going to be a great service, and I wanted to do it for my own gratification.
Sure, I wanted everyone to share in the awesome worship experience I was hoping to facilitate, but as I reflected on the past two days, I realized that most of all I wanted to feel good about the service, and I wanted God pat me on the back for being clever in my planning.
So I gave up my desire to find the perfect song, and asked Majesty to just end the service with a simple hymn medley that they'd told me they had, and I confessed my pride to the Lord. It was such a relief, and I felt perfectly confident that the service would be a blessing to our people, and most importantly, to the Lord, without my perfect song.
Then, the Holy Spirit sprang to work!
As Pastor Todd was preaching about mercy, I began to think of the song "Mighty To Save." I had considered it during my search, but had concluded that it wasn't the perfect song I was looking for. But Pastor Todd continued to preach, and it even started to seem like he was quoting lines from the song as he spoke! I felt that the Holy Spirit was directing and leading in a way I hadn't felt before, and so I asked Majesty if they'd be willing to change plans and sing "Mighty To Save" with me as a closing song. They were very flexible and accommodating, so I went and loaded the slides, and grabbed my guitar.
I checked my heart for pride, and went ahead and led "Mighty To Save" after the sermon, and I think that the Holy Spirit had gone ahead and picked the perfect song after all! It gave us the chance to corporately respond to the truth we had just heard, and to connect our minds with our hearts and emotions, and respond to the greatest mercy of all: Christ on the cross.
So I wanted to share that story to show how God had lead and directed through his Spirit, and how in spite of my sinful pride, his name was glorified and lifted up in an amazing and powerful way. We as leadership often would claim that we want to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, but it's not often that such a dramatic chain of events conspires the way it did Sunday.
Praise God for his faithfulness, and for his forgiveness and mercy. He showed his greatness when I was able to let go of my pride and seek his will, and I think our service, and our people (me most of all!) benefited greatly.
Thank you Lord!
No comments:
Post a Comment