Day Eleven

What can I say but God is good.

If you somehow managed to miss the service this week you missed something special - I don't say that to make you feel bad, but how can I keep from singing the paise of a God who speaks to and through his people in such a profound and life changing way. If I don't say something I will be drowned out by the very rocks, so instead I will praise Him for what he has done.

This weekend I attended a board retreat in Regina with a wonderful group of men whom God has called and the church has appointed to lead our congregation. During that retreat we spent a significant amount of time talking about our times of worship at EAC and what we feel led to do to inspire more life. We asked how we could lead in such a way as to encourage freedom in worship, transparency in sharing, fellowship in suffering, unity in celebration, vitality in celebration, liberty in scheduling and participation from people who have been passive in our services. We had all these wonderful ideas of how we could help people get past themselves and recognize that God wanted to move amongst us in our worship and we agreeed to begin to plan to make some changes to facilitate this shift in culture. This was Saturday, I don't thing that any of us were prepared for what would come on Sunday.

It was as if God took out prayers and longings and said "you had not because you asked not" and on Sunday to my recollection every single desire and dream that we agreed upon for our service came true. In one glorious worship service it was as though God rended the heavens and entered into our worship in a way that was positively overwhelming. It would be very easy to stand up tall and pat ourselves as Elders on the back after a Sunday like that and say, "mission accomplished" we're it not for one small caveat - we didn't do anything!

All of our plans and ideas were for the nebulous period of time known as 'the future' none of us to my knowledge had any expectation (I certainly didn't) that we would see that sort of transformation the very next day! It was as though God was saying to us "its not what you can do, but what I can do. Now watch me as I bring life to this congregation."

I didn't do it.
We didn't do it.
God did it.

This was one of the best services I've been at part of in seven and a half years at EAC. What can I say but that God is good.