Time

We have officially entered the season of Lent and many in our community from young to old are fasting beverages or facebook or sleep or any other number of comforts the Lord has impressed on hearts to sacrifice for more of Him.

Throughout these weakness-revealed 40 days, our Sundays' Worship Gatherings bring a heightened sense of celebration and relief as we break our fast for 24 joyful hours and thankfully acknowledge God and all that He has done for us.

It is in preparation for tonight's celebration that I find myself ruminating on a passage from Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts...

Thank God for the time, and very God enters that time, presence hallowing it. True, this, full attention slows time and I live the full moment, right to outer edges. But there's more. I awake to I AM here. When I'm present, I meet I AM, the very presence of a present God. In His embrace, time loses all sense of speed and stress and space and stands so still and ...holy.

 I have been fascinated with this word "present" as I find it quite elusive in my day to day life, yet it is a discipline He has called Noah and by association, myself, to pursue this year. Being present-minded for our children's sake and friends and family's sake has been a good and healthy endeavor, but it is also to encounter God at every turn....and it works. It's practicing the presence of God and it stretches and tames the unruly and running time, like God making the sun to stand still. 

Each time our church family gathers to worship, I pray for focus, for present-mindedness. For time to slow as we lay our burdens down and bow ourselves to our Creator. We will be singing these words of surrender tonight:

Lord as we turn to You, come free us from our sin.

We only have today, so let us now begin.

Lord as we give You more, Your Spirit swells within;

Cause You are Holy, Holy Lord

From dawn to dusk we're waking up...

Tomorrow's freedom is today's surrender;

We come before You, lay our burdens down.

We look to You as our hearts remember: 

You are the only God,

You are our only God.

-From Dawn to Dusk

Come ready to celebrate. Come ready to encounter Jesus. Come ready see time stand still. 

The Train

There is something powerful about taking part in the unity of a crowd...

It's riding the wave with uninhibited concert goers as the music sweeps through and everyone sings the chorus at the top of their lungs. It's the members of a choir, breathing together and phrasing together and enunciating together, locked in to the conductor's swinging arm from the piece's start to it's finish. It's sitting at a desk in a classroom having a light bulb moment, connecting the information to reality, the teacher to the student and the students to each other. It's the poignant experience of the grieving crowd at a funeral who watches a life played out in a slideshow or the crowd in the waiting room as they celebrate the newest addition to the family. It's the room's response to Jesus after the prayer that seems to come from the heart of God Himself, touching each individual heart and the church as a whole.

This kind of captive, empathetic and participating audience always gives me the feeling of being on a train, headed to the same place, everyone sitting in the same car excited about the journey and engaged in the same conversation, viewing the same scenery albeit with different vantage points, and arriving at the same time. For those moments, everyone is present. The experience becomes significant and the unity gives a sense of strength and community. For those moments we are not alone.

This got me thinking of our Sunday Worship Gatherings...

Oh how I yearn for each moment we are together to be authentic encounters with Jesus, not just as isolated strangers but as a whole, as members of a family.

In singing, in giving our offerings of praise and money, in praying and listening and reciting Scripture, in setting up chairs and volunteering in the kids rooms, in advancing the slides and dimming the lights, setting out coffee and emptying trash cans, in greeting and handshaking and hugging and responding- in everything let us be of one mind and one heart. 

Jesus said (in John 17):

20 “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

The unity that Jesus speaks of transcends time and space and stretches to the days and places in between our weekly Sunday meetings. It's a unity of mission and beliefs and relationships with one another but I'm not sure we realize we should continue to pursue unity in our Worship Gatherings too! 

Let us resolve together to be unified in worship, fully present and fully engaged. Let's turn off our phones! Let's take every thought captive! We're singing a new song tonight about zeroing out distractions, focusing on God and letting down our walls.  The lyrics are simple,

"Come on my soul, 

come on my soul

Let down the walls 

and sing my soul

Come on, come on, 

come on, come on

It's time to look up"

Let us be unified so that Christ may be glorified and our brothers and sisters edified by our active participation in worshipping and responding to the Risen Lord.

...Come hop on the train. :)

Psalm 133:1

1 How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!