a vestige of thought...

I love my church! Or rather, I love the church. The Body of Christ is amazing. Yesterday Northminster combined its four services (two traditional and two contemporary) into one service, followed by a congregational meeting and a lunch. I normally attend the 9:00 contemporary service (Crosspoint) in Founder's Hall. Yesterday's service was in the sanctuary and was a combination of traditional and contemporary worship styles. Some ladies behind me complained throughout the service about this combination, but I loved it. It was so cool to worship in different ways with such a variety of people. The Body of Christ is, after all, not made up of one kind of person or one manner of music. What really struck me was reciting the Lord's Prayer with a couple hundred other people. Obviously I've done this before, but it seemed new to me yesterday. At first I simply heard my own voice, rotely reciting, "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name." And then I heard the elderly woman next to me speaking in her warbly voice along with mine: "Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." Then I realized that I could hear individual voices of several people around me: "Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And finally, when I took my concentration off my immediate surroundings, I could hear the the entire church praying with one voice as one body: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." Amen.

* * * * *

I made the mistake today of looking at my schedule for the week and I nearly collapsed into a defeated heap and refused to get up until March.