Derailed by Disunity

Each week, I start out my post from Sunday talking about how great a morning it was.  This week was no different.  The services were a great outpouring of God’s goodness, but I must admit the entire day was amazing of watching the church in action.  In addition to wonderful services, I watched a volunteer team give it their all amidst great setbacks, a Spirit-led business meeting, and a group of guys pushing each other on to selflessness.

In short, I love our church!

Today, we started a new series entitled “Derailed,” where we began our study of 1 Corinthians.  While we looked at Ephesians as a church who got it, this church is the exact opposite.   In 1 Corinthians 1-2, the Corinthian church found themselves way off track from where Paul had planted them.  One particular way they had become derailed was in the area of disunity.  Their preferences of different styles of ministry kept them from unifying around Jesus.  We would be wise not to follow their example.

Today, we worshiped to:

HYMNS & MORE.  You may have noticed as of late that we have brushed off some old hymns.  God has really been stirring in my heart to teach some of these truths to younger generations and so the band has been working up some new arrangements to some hymns (I’ll post later on this in the week).  I loved the 2 arrangements we did today!  The band knocked it out!  “All to Us” was also a perfect conclusion to Jeff’s message.  When I felt guided to lead this song at the end, I had no idea how perfect it would conclude Jeff’s message.  So glad God did!

MESSAGE.  Today, I watched an honest, transparent pastor who is standing firm on the Word of God give one of the best messages I have ever heard him preach.  His challenge on what true biblical unity looks like challenged the fire out of me!

PREFERENCES VIDEO.  Today, we also got to debut a video that we worked on called “Worship Preferences.”  I was honored by so many encouraging comments on the video quality and message.  I am going to have a viewable version of this video soon so that others can see it.  We tried to really have an impacting message on church, worship, and our preferences in 2 minutes, and I was very pleased with the result.

BAPTISMS.  Watching our baptisms this morning was incredible.  Watching 5 of the 6 be grown men was something rare to see in church but such a blessing.  Overwhelmed by life change!

WORSHIP TEAM.  I can’t overstate what happened: our team was dropping like flies this morning.  From sicknesses, accidents, and circumstances messing up with what our worship team had to do this morning, you would have thought we would have never been able to lead a service, but I doubt anyone in the congregation even knew anything was different than the way it was Wednesday – and that is why I love this group of servants!  You guys and gals rose up and showed up and led people in worship despite the random difficulties today – I appreciate you!

PAUL MONOLOGUE.  We tried something a little different today (I know that will shock you).  I wanted to setup the context of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians before Jeff got up there to preach, so we decided to include a monologue from Paul.  Thea Goldman performed a script that John McFadden wrote to talk about Paul’s conversion, his missionary trip to Corinth, and the disturbing news he had heard about the way they were living.  As he concluded his part to go write a letter, Jeff got to step into the context and start preaching from chapter 1.  A little different way to do it, but that can be a good thing.  Thankful to Thea and John for setting up the context so well for the message to be proclaimed!

Overall, wonderful day!  Can’t wait to go through this series through March and April and see how God can keep our church on track!

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