Recognizing The Hour of Our Visitation

I am working on a sermon for next week. Several things have come together that seem to be God’s direction for that message. I told you about a couple of them last week. I had been thinking about the message when I first heard Keith and Meagan Cook’s album, Narrow Road. Then I watched through the week as the video from the Sunday PM service kept getting more and more hits on YouTube. I watched it a few times, and during each viewing I felt the deep sense of anointing that it projected. Finally, I read 1 Corinthians, chapter twelve.

These events have made me think about how we do church work. I think we might have it backwards. The leaders of the church plan, organize, and assign responsibilities in order to focus the people towards a common mission. Our intentions are good, and we accomplish some notable things that way. However, 1 Corinthians seems to point in another direction.

In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul seems to view the work of the church as being accomplished through the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit pours out gifts upon the people and then calls them to specific works. For these works, His gifts are able to serve as ‘power tools’. If this is the case, then the work of church leaders should be that of discerning what God is ‘up to’ in the congregation, and acknowledging that work. We then should champion the people and their gifts. We should organize to accommodate their callings, and train and care for them as they do God’s work. This makes leadership a matter of running, in order to catch up to what God is doing!

What God seemed to be saying to me this week is that He has already poured out the gifts on the people. He has already called them to do specific missions, and He is waiting on us to acknowledge His work. We just need to organize ourselves to accommodate it.

This is why I have been watching the Sunday PM video – because God is in it. He is telling us what He wants us to do and how he wants us to do it. He wants us to worship in ways that connect people of our times to Him and to one another. He wants us to make time and space for Holy moments. He wants us to find ways to communicate these moments to the world. He wants us to cherish and help the ones He is using to do this work.

Jesus came to Jerusalem and was ready to fulfill all that the prophets had promised. Unfortunately, the people of Jerusalem did not recognize the hour of their visitation. So, the Lord wept and went away for a season. We have to pay attention when He is among us to do a special work.

Now is such a time.

Next Sunday, Keith and Megan will sing for us. We will also view this five-minute video from the Sunday PM service. I will talk about ways of paying attention to what God wants to do among us and about ways of spreading this word to others.

Please pray, and come expecting to receive some word about God’s gifts and callings in your own life.

Something is happening among us. Let’s not miss our hour of visitation!

Narrow Road

Monday mornings are slow for me. I usually attend three services on Sunday (sometimes four.) After I get home at night, I just want to drink a cup of tea and read. (Although last night I played a video game - a totally useless, unproductive and slothful way to spend one's time.)
Mia culpa; mia maxima culpa!

Anyway, Monday morning is my Sabbath, a time to stop and allow my soul to catch up to my body. That's what I'm doing this morning. So although I have tons of stuff to do today and will have even more to do the rest of the week I am just not ready to tackle it yet. I'll get to all that stuff in a couple of hours. But I need to ease into it. Some Mondays I just don't have that luxury; today, thankfully, I do!

I have been sitting here listening to a CD by Keith and Meagan Cook. Its called Narrow Road. Both Keith and Megan grew up in Christ Church and I have known their parents forever. So wow,am I surprised. Their music is wonderful; I am amazed at its texture and serious playfulness. ( I really like #6, Casting Out Devils!)

So I was just thinking, sitting here listening to Keith and Megan's CD, about what I need to do to become a good pastor to this church.

I was voted in as senior pastor a few weeks ago and since then have been trying to listen and learn about how to serve this community.

Last night we celebrated communion in the PM service. I watched as people came forward to receive the wine and bread. I watched the servers take their time to pray and minister to each communicant. As they prayed and served, our musicians allowed the Spirit to play through them. Song after song, they kept going deeper into worship and soulful connection to God. Soon, the air was filled with glory and wonder. After the benediction, no one wanted to leave.

I am sitting here reflecting about all of that. I'm thinking about ways to encourage and strengthen our leaders and church workers. I want to find ways of releasing the gifts of our people and focusing those gifts toward the redemptive work of Christ in this city and in the world. I am asking for grace and wisdom to lead this flock to be what God wants it to be.

But listening to this CD -- Narrow Road -- marveling at the grace of God on the gifts of a new generation of Christian leaders -- it strikes me that all I have to do is stay out of God's way. If I do all I can to shelter vision when it is small, encourage talent when it is tender, recognize a calling when the voice of God is still faint to the young ears that hears it; if I can just say "yes" to the desire of people who want to make a difference instead of protecting my turf then God will help us stumble together into the plan God has had for our church for a long, long time.

Keith and Megan represent hundreds of our children who grew up in the middle of bad stuff and yet somehow managed to love God, forgive my generation for its many sins and not resist the call of Jesus to serve the world. Its a miracle.

Its also a second chance for us to obey the call that God has on our community. We are anointed and appointed to offer ourselves as servants to one another and to the world. When we do, God pours grace and creative gifts through us. That astound us as much as it does the ones to whom we minister.

We are well aware that "we have this treasure in earthen vessels" and that the gift comes through us but not from us.

When we realize how all this anointed grace stuff works, we get up off "our blessed assurance," as Keith and Megan puts it, and start walking the Narrow Road!
Even Monday mornings!

A Kingdom Day!

Were the Sunday morning services great or what?

Many of us were tired from the Music & Worship conference. It had been especially wonderful this year. Our visitors were refreshed, the concerts were graced by God’s presence and old relationships were renewed. We were ready for a good but not especially charged Sunday worship service. God had other plans!

When a prophetic word from the congregation erupted in the middle of the sermon – almost never the right thing to do – God’s glory poured out over everyone. That word filled the air with faith. Many of us are still feeling the effects.

I had been preaching on “The Now and Future Kingdom.” I developed the thought while reading N.T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope. (I recommend it. The book’s teaching on the resurrection soaks into your heart and rearranges your thoughts.) As I was talking about drawing circles around our areas of influence and declaring the space within the circle as “kingdom space,” I asked a few of our leaders to walk around the church. That’s when the word burst out from the pew.

We are hearing all sorts of testimonies now from the congregation about what is happening to their businesses and homes as they “draw the circle.” If you have a testimony, I hope you will share it with us.

I am into my third week as senior pastor of Christ Church. Today, I am at work on the other part of my duties as corporate president. Tonight we have a board meeting and I am trying to grasp all the fiscal and organizational information I need to work with our board and corporate officers. We want to manage our earthy resources as well as we can so that God’s work is not hindered in any way.

We do what we are supposed to do and we keep watching for the Lord to do what only He can do. Sunday, God showed us that He still calls the shots and remains the real head of the church. That’s what it means to be a church in line with the Lordship of Christ – doing our best to discover what the Spirit is up to and then doing all we know to cooperate with His agenda.
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