Yesterday, Scott talked about the importance of community and kicked it off with one of our families newest favorite movies…The Lego Movie. If you missed the clip, or if you just want to see it again, you can find it here.
This morning, after my normal morning perusal of facebook, I saw all kinds of rants and raves about different friends worship services, yesterday. Some had a great experience and seemed to be on top of the world, while others seem disappointed that their worship experience wasn’t “on par”.
It is true that many Christians are chasing the perfect worship experience for their own lives. It looks different for every person, but in general, it includes music that they connect with and have an emotional response to, a sermon that’s not too long or short and nails an issue that they’ve been dealing with in their life.
For pastors, it often means a person is genuinely moved to take the next spiritual step in their life, someone becomes a follower of Christ, or sometimes, just that everything went off without a hitch.
I’ve chased after the perfect worship experience as a pastor and as a church attender. As a church planter, I’ve tried to create a perfect worship experience for our own folks.
The problem is, finding that elusive formula of worship perfection is impossible. In large part, that is because true worship is more about the heart of the worshipper and the involvement of the Holy Spirit more than the selection of songs, media, or sermon topics.
Yesterday, though, was pretty awesome. Here’s 6 reasons why…
1. We still do quite a bit of setup to be ready for Sunday mornings. Some friends showed up Saturday night to setup chairs and have our worship space ready to go…just because they wanted to.
2. Early Sunday morning, one of our coffee bar volunteers, who was camping with her family, left their campground and showed up early to help setup for morning coffee and breakfast.
3. One of our musicians got out of his comfort zone and led one of the songs during worship. He was scared to death, but it was awesome!
4. Immediately after worship, I watched as several of our attenders told him how much they appreciated him and how meaningful it was.
5. For lunch, 2 of our ministry teams stayed at Journey to break bread, spend time with each other, and plan for greater ways to reach kids and youth at Journey.
6. And, as usual, many pitched in to help tear down what needed to put away for the week.
Why was this such a good service? For me it was simple…community. People gave of themselves to do something meaningful for others and for the Kingdom. After 6 years of doing Journey, what I enjoy most is not that I don’t wear a suit, or that we can show the lego movie, it’s not even the music…it’s the community that’s been built of people that genuinely care for others and serve out of thankfulness for what Jesus has done tor them. Thanks for such a great worship experience, Journey!
Mark Love
Lead Pastor