IGood Friday morning Church Requel!
It's good to be back in the saddle this week. Thank you for giving Mary Kay and I the week off last week. Each year on our anniversary we take some time off to rekindle the marriage flame we began 39 years ago. It's been healthy for our relationship. It's hard to believe we are now working towards our 40th year of married life!
Having a week off is also good for me as a pastor as it gives me a chance to reflect on the church without the pressures of a Sunday sermon to prepare. I think that it is time for us to try something new, something a little different, in our worship times together. If you'll allow me some editorial freedom, I'll give you a little background before I tell you the new worship element we're going to begin including in our Sunday services.
Having the week off didn't mean that I didn't hear from many of you. (That's ok, by the way, since most of you didn't even know we were gone until this past Sunday when we weren't at church.) This past week I have heard from more of you than I usually do. There seemed to be a common thread weaving through your messages to me.
Some of you wrote to me about the sermon the week before on the topic of giving to the church. Your messages were heart warming commitments to trust God with your finances. Some of you wrote to me about other ways that God has been working in your life - several answers to prayers, some of which had been lifted to God over a period of years.
As I was thinking of your stories I received a telephone call from Sheri, one of our leadership team members. She was telling me yet another great story of God's faithfulness in her life. I don't know which of us thought of it first, but before the end of that telephone conversation we just knew that we had to give the opportunity for the people of Church Requel to tell their own God stories.
At the time we were thinking of a special day set aside for you to tell your stories. But the more I got to thinking about this, the more I became convinced that this is not something that should be relegated to the special or occasional status. The truth is that God is working each and every day in our lives. We should have the opportunity to tell those stories to others in our congregation as they happen and while they are fresh!
Here's another little factoid that has been rolling around in my head. When did the historical church decide that the only person who could tell God stories is the professionally paid pastor? To be sure there is an appropriate role for trained men and women of God to teach correct Christian doctrine. But God does not work in and through the pastor alone. Or maybe an even better way of saying it is that in some ways, each and every one of us has a ministry role. We each use our talents and gifts for God's kingdom in a different way. As a result, we each have a unique God story to tell.
So here is the upshot of this entire newsletter to you. Starting this Sunday we plan to add an additional worship element to our Sunday morning service. We'll call it what I've been calling it here: God Stories. We will set aside time in each Sunday morning worship service for you to share with the Church Requel congregation how God has been working in your lives. Here are some of the things you'll want to keep in mind if you decide to share your own God story.
- Keep it encouraging. Even if the story is not over yet and you are going through a difficult journey, you'll want to affirm God's faithfulness even in the shadow of doubt.
- Keep it to the point. We want to give others a chance to share their stories too.
- Keep it understandable. Stories of any kind don't work if people can't hear you - so we'll use our wireless handheld microphone.
Now - here is my promise back to you. If you will keep it encouraging, to the point, and understandable, I will keep it flexible. By that I mean that if more people feel the Spirit of God moving them to share their God story than what we have allocated time for on any given Sunday morning, then your worship team (Brandi and me at the moment) will adjust or delete the rest of our plans for that morning's service to allow God's Spirit to reign. After all we come together to hear from Him!
We'll start this coming Sunday morning. Midway through our worship service, after our singing, communion and prayer time - but before the sermon - we'll invite you to share your God story if you feel God is moving you to share. If no one has a story to share, no problem. We'll just go right into the sermon. (And it's a good one! Check out the sermon notes here.)
I'm excited to begin this new worship journey with you all. There are so many wonderful, powerful and encouraging things that God is accomplishing through all of you! Too often you all don't have the opportunity that I have to hear about these stories. That's going to change this Sunday! We always say that you don't want to miss a Sunday to be with your church family. Now that is going to be doubly true because we just never know what may happen when we go to Church Requel! Should be an exciting time together.
I have a lot more to tell you, but I'll save it for another time. Love you all and can't wait to see you again! Pastor Mark