Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

This morning's worship was pretty rewarding, at least from the perspective of those of us who were leading. Pastor Rob had pretty much given us the list of songs, which he normally doesn't do, and one of them was a traditional hymn that we didn't really have a peppy update to. So on Tuesday night when we were rehearsing, someone suggested we do it a capella, in four-part harmony, so we tried it and it felt right... you know, how when even though something is out-of-the-ordinary, it's still right? This was like that. The other songs were fairly recent contemporary numbers, and the hymn would've seemed out-of-step if we had tried to do it in an updated manner. This way, it was intimate and yet corporate all at the same time -- a room full of several hundred people, singing from their hearts... it was very fulfilling. It was "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," and we led into it straight from Matt Redman's "Heart of Worship."

Tonight was the community-wide Thanksgiving service. It was held in FCC's building; it had originally been slated to be held in the new Catholic church building, but it's not quite done, so we'll do that one next year. Music was by another church's worship team, but I didn't get to hear all of it because the youth exited after about two songs and went upstairs to their own meeting. Tonight we met the guy who, in all likelihood, will be our next youth pastor. He's from the Minneapolis area. He seemed okay; obviously, I can't pass judgment on one hearing, but I'll hold out cautious optimism.

This morning I woke up in the wee hours and couldn't go back to sleep, so I went ahead and got up, took a leisurely shower and got ready for church. I arrived before 6:30 AM and sat in my van with the heater running until Jeff arrived. I couldn't stand the idea of getting out! Pastor Rob was already there, in his office, but I would've had to walk all the way around to the front door and wait for him to come unlock... BRRRR!

I needed to arrive early this morning because today was the Ministry Fair, where each ministry team (worship team, youth team, cleanup crew, children's team, missions team, prayer team, et. al.) had a booth to display some of what they're up to and to recruit new team members. I took my laptop and had a slide show running with cool music. We had several new people sign up to participate, including one guy who plays the bass -- which we needed VERY much. The whole thing made me think of a year ago, of me signing up to participate on a worship team I didn't know, of how I felt: intimidated, honored, exhilarated, humbled, grateful... a whole range of emotions. A year later, and I'm still experiencing all those things to varying degrees. I'm obviously more aware of the conflicts and difficulties, but I knew those things existed even before I knew what they were, and I've been able to put them into perspective in a way I couldn't have before. God has been gracious to me... overwhelmingly so... and I want nothing more than to encourage these people who've really never experienced working with any other church or worship team. If I can serve them... if I can bring peace, comfort, wisdom, kindness... I want to be an instrument of God's grace to them, if I can.