how can I even put this into words…
Ok so it is official…We had our first worship service this past Sunday and I’ve taken a few days for it to soak in before attempting to put what happened that night into words. So for those of you who were there and those who couldn’t make it…here we go.
Sunday night was a beautiful experience for our community. I loved how natural it all felt. We gave up a long time ago on trying to impress people and do all we can to make sure the focus is where it is supposed to be. That focus being on Jesus, not our church. Don’t get me wrong, I really really really like our church, but I LOVE Jesus. Our church won’t change lives, but Jesus definitely will. So this takes a HUGE burden away from us as leaders, sure we’ve got to haul chairs around, practice music, write a message and all of the other things that go along with having a night like we did, but I will say this…I felt NO pressure when 6:00 p.m. Sunday evening hit. Pure WOW! Here’s how we see it. God’s got a plan…a really good one…we’re just privileged enough to come along side it and watch it play itself out in real life. As one of our own put it, “Jake, there’s a revival coming through this!” Man I love it!
As far as the night went, we met in the Atrium of my apartment, which was a beautiful setting with a glass roof. We were privileged to have Ty Caldwell lead us in worship. Ty has an incredible heart and is pretty dang good musically. Ok, he’s amazing. Side note…none of us knew until afterwards that he had never led worship before! Ryan Teverbaugh, or Coach T as we’re inclined to call him, welcomed everyone and talked about the beauty of the community that God is forming and what it has meant to him in the past few months. Laura Folsom got all the tech stuff figured out, not to mention the countless number of other things she rocks at with this ministry and her leadership of others. The Olingers provided drinks and communion, and of course Bethany had her very first children’s ministry. She’s amazing with the kiddos, and has been an amazing leader in this ministry. I’m laughing at how crazy it is that all of this is coming together so well. I tell people all the time, God’s planting this church in spite of us as leaders, not because of us. We’re just a group of people who’s motivation in life is having the overflow of our hearts be our the good news of the Gospel. We took a 10 minute break in between the time of worship, which gave people an extended time to get to know one another, and rid themselves of any potential A.D.D that comes with sitting still for too long. After the break, I had a message that basically spoke of our motivation for ministry is a “response” to being chosen by a God who is reckless in His love. Here’s what I loved most about the night. We get a group of people together, most of whom, don’t know each other at all, and somehow, it was instant community, which we’re a big fan of! No prompting, no secret “welcome” team. Just a room full of people who wanted to know, “How do you know people here?” I couldn’t have been happier. So, yep, it was awesome. So awesome, that I think we’ll keep doing it! We just got good news back from our venue, the brand new library downtown, that we have a place to meet, and for cheap too, they even threw in a couple of kids room for free!
Lastly here I’m pretty sure we ticked off Satan, because he was trying to kick our butt all week. People in the hospital, marital problems in families, cars breaking down, purses being stolen on two separate occasions, the Atrium that we used being double booked, you name it, we experienced it in our community the week prior. I guess that’s not too bad of a place to be in though…and we know that the great deceiver wants nothing more than for us to doubt.
I’m constantly reminded how beautiful of a God we have through the process of planting a church. There is a constant humbling of my heart and strengthening of my faith in seeing how Jesus changes lives. I can’t image what He has planned for us next!
