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Posted in Church God Faith
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Our pastor had a minor medical procedure today, so Jason preached tonight. What he did was invite the adults to the youth worship service, Consuming Fire.  I wanted to be there, so I took the older kids, and my friend also wanted to be there, so we took the nursery kids as well. (There were two 3 year olds, two 4 year olds, and a 5 year old. In addition to the 7 older children and a dozen or more teenagers.) He opened with a prayer: Prayer for Worship
Our God, Maker of our hearts, We come, makers of walls.
We walk in a crowd and carry our walls with us: white lies and protective fronts used to wall each other out, and to wall ourselves in.
Sometimes we are a church of walls; bringing in only those we choose. No scaling our walls allowed by those who did not help build them.
At times we look at a mirror, separated by a wall from our own reflection. Stout defenses our hearts erect against knowing our own darkness.
O God, Maker of our hearts, Who brought down the wall of Jericho, Who tore the veil in two, Who destroyed the wall of hostility dividing humanity, bring Your holy wrecking ball into this place. Let no wall stand between Your truth and our hearts.
May we see you that we may see ourselves.
Then may we, our walls knocked down, be built up into You.
Amen. We sang Heart of Worship and then he preached on worship through lament. (Job 1:20-21 After his servants came and told him that he had lost everything: 20 Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped. 21 He said, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh.") He explained how we often get things out of order. Something devastating happens, we wait for God to fix things and then we praise Him. But in Job, the bad happens and he worships Him right then and there. Same thing for David when he and Bathsheba lose their son. He invited us to go to God with our sorrow and worship Him in the midst of it. He read the words for Praise You in this Storm, and then he played Come to Jesus by Chris Rice. During this time, he invited us to come and "ash" ourselves as a sign of mourning. (Not a regular thing among Baptists, unlike other denominations.) We closed with Blessed be Your Name, Breathe, We Are Hungry and then How Great Is Our God. I am not doing the service justice in my explanation, but it was very meaningful. I sat with the nursery kids and so I was not able to be completely lost in it, but I enjoyed it all the same, and it has given me something to think about this week. |
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