Day 1 - 1-10-10
Today, as we concluded our teaching series on Galatians, we introduced our new series, "Surprise Me God." We asked everyone to start each day of the next 30 with simple 3 word prayer, "Surprise Me God."
So today we, as a worshipping community, started with that simple 3 word prayer..."Surprise Me God."
Maybe not surpizingly, God did surprise me in our worship. First, as I was preaching, microphones were flying, Lutherans were laughing in worship, and the seats were close to full on a day where the temperature was below zero. Wow, thanks for a nice beginning surprise!
Second, as final song was playing, we sang, "God is Good, All the Time." The background video was from two year's ago Men's Retreat organized by former Rejoicer, Brian Bernhard. Sadly Brian died unexpectedly last year. Our loss, heaven's gain. One of Brian's favorite things to say was, "God is Good All the Time!" It gave me a smile and a reminder of Hebrews 12:1. Hebrews 12 reminds us that a great cloud of witnesses cheer us on from heavens. Today I, along with many, could feel the angels and Brian along with all the other saints cheering us on from Heaven.
After worship, we had Rejoice's First Annual Meeting. Quite frankly, many pastors wince a little at the thought of anual meetings. At best, most are boring. At worst, too many can be divisive and ugly. In fact, I have been in a few doozies of anual meetings myself.
Gratefuly, today's anual meeting was neither boring, nor divisive. That should be surprise enough. But to add to the surprises, there were awesome hopes and dreams shared, great questions asked and so many reasons to be excited about the upcoming year.
My favorite piece from a very positive anual meeting were the closing words by Dave Oswald. Dave shared how last year's $500 Outreach Budget served over 20,000 people. How does human logic explain that? This can only be attributed to God. Thank you lord for that wonderful surprise of what You can do when we just join together with what you are already doing. Awesome!
Now it is up to you my friends and fellow Rejoicers, click the "Comment" button below to share your "Surprises." God is Good All the Time. Give 'em Heaven!
2 comments:
One of the songs we sang today at Rejoice! was called "How Deep The Father's Love For Us." We have sung this song several times before, but today, God surprised me with how deeply He touched my soul with the meaning in this song. Here is the verse that moved me so much:
Behold the man upon the cross,
My sin upon his shoulders.
Ashamed to hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held him there,
Until it was accomplished.
His dying breath has brought me life,
I know that it is finished.
Surprise...Jesus died because of my sin...and yet...he still loves me so very much. Can there be a better surprise than that?
I was surprised when Paster Tim threw his mic it was at a prefect time in the message. So God will suprise us all at some time.
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