Sabbath Memoir

In my posting for January 13 I talked about the wonderful blessing I received during the worship and praise time when I attended PMC. Today I again attended the same worship and this time I sat much closer to the front. I was not disappointed. Once again I was deeply moved and richly blessed during the well-planned music portion of the service. I have not seen this level of quality in all the years I have attended this congregation. I would highly recommend visiting this church for the 11:20 service if you are within 50 miles of it. The young men who plan and prepare this part of the service are putting the kind of effort and thoughtful orchestration into it that honors God and blesses all who participate.

And speaking of orchestration, that is exactly one of the things that makes it so effective. I have been told that they actually write out scores for the songs and prepare the music for the strings and other instruments each week. I know this is what happens in some of the popular mega-churches around the world but I have not seen this done in hardly any of our own churches. It has the effect of making the worship experience so much richer and majestic and real.

Am I saying that worship is dependent on the quality of the musicians and orchestration? Not necessarily. Worship is a condition of the heart. But in corporate worship it is very easy to allow various things to interfere and become distractions to that state of the heart. I have been in far too many (most to be exact) services where it was next to impossible to enter into a passionate and unrestricted expression of love for God because of the dull and lifeless atmosphere around me. Or on the other hand I have attended a number of services where the atmosphere has been loud and even boisterous in an attempt to drum up emotion in the name of worship but still leaves me feeling empty and shallow because it was mostly show and emotion but very little skill and planning and attention to a genuine worship experience. I realize that most will believe this is due mostly to my bias and preferences. Maybe so, but I have enjoyed deep and meaningful worship experiences in both lively churches and in more traditional churches when enough attention was given to creating an atmosphere conducive to awakening the heart instead of just titillating either the head or the emotions.

After thoroughly enjoying the worship time (except for the still-in-place unspoken taboo on hand-raising) I also enjoyed another excellent sermon from Dwight Nelson in his series title Mercy Came A-runnin'. (you can hear it on www.pmc.tv) He spoke on one of my favorite parables, the story of the debtor in Matthew 18. I was eager to see if he had discovered the real punch-line at the end of the story. His insights were very good and his illustration very effective, but though he came very close he missed the most important point of the whole story. I'm not surprised however. I only heard it myself just a few years ago and it is mostly unheard of by almost all teachers and preachers everywhere.

I was sitting next to his wife on the pew and I contemplated asking her after the service if I could share with him later that day, but I decided that would likely be a dead-end idea. After the dismissal prayer I sat and watched what people were doing as they left and observed that Dwight was staying around the front and occasionally talking with people. I decided to go up and see if he would let me share my thoughts with him. The worst he could say was no and I really had nothing to lose. So I approached him and asked if I could share a different punch-line with him from the story than the one he had used.

He was a bit skeptical at first but agreed to let me share with him. So I had him turn to the passage and showed him the words near the end of the story that unveil the amazing surprise ending that I have been sharing with others. At first he couldn't believe that it was not really there but when I showed him how it was supported in the context and that even his own illustration story that he used at the end of his sermon reinforced the very point I was making he saw what I was saying and said he could except that. He said he would try to remember that next time he presented this teaching.

I only say this to share what happened today, not as a means of name-dropping or making myself look important. On my way home from church I decided to stop by the house of a 90-year old lady that I did some work for several years ago and who is very sharp and intelligent but gets very few visitors. I ended up sharing with her for most of the afternoon and had a wonderful time discussing various topics I have been learning about over the past few years. Her mind is very alert and she asks very good questions. She is very perceptive and can quickly read a person's character in just a few minutes after she meets them. She also remembers people far better than most people I know, especially myself. She can remember pretty much everyone I have brought to her house over the last five years and asks about them on occasion.

Due to the death in my son-in-law's family it looks like I will be doing the early morning paper route for another week yet. Continue to pray for them as they go to be with his grandparents for a few days and continues the grieving process and attends the funeral sometime this week. I pray that God may find an opportunity in this situation to draw my children closer to Him and cherish His presence more in their lives.