Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad. We had our joint service with Clairview E-Free yesterday, and by joint I mean we planned and executed the whole thing and they provided the space. I t was a really great experience, but very taxing. I think what impressed my the most was Don's (the pastor), and by extention the whole church's, level of trust in us to take over their service and bring a bit of Houseness to their gathering. I have never seen a more truly open group of people. As Don put it to me later they, as a group, have the abilibty to discern the hearts of people and if the hearts are in the right place everything else is just details. Powerful!

The service went off quite well considering the short amount of time to set up and the few people we had to do so. Everything was great, but what really got me was the worship time. We enlisted the help of our unofficial music guru, the Great Paul. Our first set consisted of only 2 songs: Oh Lead Me and Great is They Faithfulness. Paul tuned his guitar to my new didgeridoo and we rocked it out. About halfway though Oh Lead Me I became completely lost. I don't know how long we played and, to be honest, I have no idea how it sounded. All I know is that God was there and at the end my throat was dry and my eyes weren't. I can't explain it, I can't describe it.

Our second set was more lively and designed as a continued celebration from the communion table. We handed out various shakers and drums to people and asked everyone to join in however they felt lead. I was nervous about handing out noisemakers to a congregation I have heard described as "not a musical bunch", but it was great. Everyone was standing, singing, clapping, just plain old worshipping.

Then the rest of Sunday was a maeltsrom of stillness as The House crashed from exhaustion.