When the Spirit says move...

Today, sensing that my prepared sermon notes just weren't what the Spirit ordered, I threw them away and went with a different theme.  It was a gas - after all, it was our 5th Sunday gig - and all bets are off on these experimental Sundays.  To be sure, some of the real old timers didn't make it to worship today, but we had a GREAT house anyway and a whole lot of fun. The question for today was:  how does your faith touch an other's life in a way that deepens grace?

There was conversation in worship - again - lots of laughter and some smokin' music.  After a long dry spell Andy joined us again on guitar (and that was sweet), Carlton threw us a Caribbean "hallelujah" to jam on (that was smokin') and we did "Alleluia, He Is Coming" in a reggae groove.  About 10 am, I checked in the with those helping me with communion, only to find that somebody forgot to tell them to bring the bread.  So Lauryn and John took off for the local supermarket and just before the call to worship, the Body of Christ appeared in whole wheat form.

Two things are going through my head at the close of the day:

+ First, we've come a long way in a relatively short time.  Yes, there are some who ache for the old days of formal worship and all the rest.  But as one young man said when asked, "What do we have to do to live into the extravagant welcome of Christ?" - and he was dead serious - you have to LIVE in such a way that people know you can be trusted to BE like Jesus.  That takes time he said - and he knows becausee has it has been ages since he went to church. And after all, my text for this morning was:

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made.

+ Second, it is critical to celebrate the small blessings - and today was one of them!  The quest for a faith community that is real - and can be trusted - is a life long commitment.  It won't be accomplished in my life time and I know it.  As Rennie Niebuhr said:  “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.”  So returning thanks to God for the small signs of renewal are essential.

I love this community and give thanks to God that we can find ways to celebrate the joy of the Lord together.  We have our issues - and challenges - but the Spirit of the Lord told us today to move... and we MOVED!