There are days where things flow and there are days when they don't, where everything goes smoothly and where everything goes roughly...today was one of those days when things seemed rough. I don't know exactly why, and there were many positive things about the services, but overall, I felt like we were tripping and sputtering in the presentation of it all. So because I record what happens in each service, let me give a little of the good and bad, and then we'll move on to next week.
First, the good news was that we had our highest attendance ever at 132! The Lord continues to add to our numbers, and we are excited to look back and see that in one year's time, we have doubled our growth. Fantastic.
The spirit in the services was good - people are excited and seemed to genuinely participate and absorb what is happening. I am glad that the spirit is where it should be.
But some of the bad things: the sound system continues to give us problems which causes major distractions. It's not the sound tech (lest anyone think that), but sound systems have glitches that come and go, and make it impossible sometimes. Plus mics were crackling, monitors were acting up, and SIGH...oh well.
It also seemed that our music team was distracted, and that there were several other distractions that just managed to interrupt any kind of flow in the music...sigh! I was glad when the music ended as it didn't seem to flow.
The message went across fine, but it was a hard message to preach. Sometimes my sermons are full of joy and laughter, but sometimes they are full of hard truths that people have to digest. This was one of those days when people were digesting.
But some other points of good stuff - Ray carrying the Christian flag around the auditorium...a little out of my comfort zone, but I love his zeal. I am just glad that he didn't break a light. We had a few visitors, which we are always honored to have.
So everything didn't flow. We will have days like that. But I love the fact that in our weakness, He is made strong. These kinds of Sundays remind us that it is the Spirit of the Lord that we must continue to rely on and seek. We cannot do it with our own hands or our own power. May the Lord be magnified in our midst and may The Journey continue to advance the kingdom of God in this area.
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3 comments:
Hi rob. it's kate. I went to a bluegrass show once and had a great time. the songs were awesome, the music was great, and When it was over I heaved a big sigh because the group was a much higher caliber than I was and I wished I were that good.
As I was leaving I passed a musician walking out to his car and complimented him on how great the show was.I was suprised to hear him say that he thought it was one of the worst shows he had done and went on to list every flaw right down to the wrong chords that were played in what songs. so....
I thought sunday was great.You carried on smoothly despite the sound difficulties and the message was awesome. I am glad you are human. I can FEEL the spirit of god in your church on sundays...thats why I come.Please don't be discouraged!!!!!!
Hey all, I received permission to share an email from Stephanie about this service.
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I agree that there were some rough spots in the service, however your message touched me and Scott and broke us free of a chain we have been lugging around without even knowing it. This may be long, but I pray you feel encouraged by it. Here goes.
First off I have never heard discipleship preached the way you did. Our warped view of discipleship was this:
1. Be involved in every and any ministry that you can, afterall we are all told to "preach to the nations"
2. Tell everyone and everybody about Christ whether they want to hear it or not and constantly assert your position on Him and any other matters that you feel disagrees with the Bible.
This is how we feel about it now, through Bible study and your message also confirmed much of this:
1. Discipleship is becoming like Christ, which means among many things, being humbled and LED BY THE SPIRIT
2. Going into a ministry is a call from God. Don't go into a ministry because there is a need. Go into it because it has been laid upon your heart from the Holy Spirit. If there is a need in a ministry, the Spirit is already working on someone to meet that need. When God is in it, who can be against it.
3. I believe you do need to tell people about Christ (of course) and stand out from the world, not conform to it. HOWEVER, the Spirit needs to go before you and prepare the peoples hearts to hear the message. And then the Spirit will give you an open door, and opportunity to tell all about Christ. And we don't win people to Christ with legalism and religion. It is with His grace and love and humbleness that leads people to Him. Wait on the Lord, Be Still and realize who God is. And then let Him lead the way for us.
Okay now that I got that out of the way and am feeling Oh So Holy and Righteous, here is the part where you beat us up, kicked us around and picked us back up again. It is so crazy, it was so obvious we have to look at it and laugh now. Ok, we went through some problems at our previous church and were very hurt. We weren't bitter, we were no longer angry, we were just glad to be released. We didn't like what happened, didnt want to go through it again, but hey, it happened lets move on, right? Well we never did the obvious. WE NEVER GAVE FORGIVENESS to all who were involved. We didn't forgive them, not one iota.
Why didn't we? I don't know, isn't that a basic Christian doctrine, foundational thing? We didn't think we needed to, I guess. Why did we need to? We have moved on, and we are ok with it all. DUH! Well they never asked for it either, as far as they are concerned they did nothing wrong. Oh my......are you getting this? We never gave it cause they never asked! Hello, forgiveness isnt for them it is for us. We dont have to wait for them to ask.
How many times have we heard " you forgive seventy times seven"? Well, we boxed up forgiveness with a little bow on it and decided they had to ask for it. How it happened I dont know. But it did. Scott and I walked out of service Sunday feeling pretty much like we could fly. I felt such joy, so HAPPY! All for that simple little act. We didnt know that it was holding us back, keeping us hostage. Didn't even know it. We knew something wasn't right but thought we had it all figured out, that all in due time we would feel less heartbroken about it.
You know time heals the pain. About two weeks ago I was up during the night thinking, Why cant I pray for that church wholeheartedly? I thought maybe I was bitter, but no I really am not. I don't hold any hard feelings. I know God has been in it all the way. I cant be bitter, God protected me and saved me and made me stronger. Well, the reason is because I hadn't forgiven them. That would have told them it was all okay I guess. We are still shocked that we never thought of simply saying you know what I forgive them, all of it, I forgive it.
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Just wanted to share that even though things weren't the smoothest, God was working. Thank You, Lord.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God,these are sons of God, (Rom 8:14) It's so exciting to see God removing the chains of religeous works off of His people.Setting them free to walk in HIS perfect will. Finally we His children are putting away the childish things and maturing into sonship and He is giving us the keys to the Kingdom. Great comments!
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