Leading worship

On Sunday morning, I led worship and preached. I was told afterward by a couple of people that I am improving. This was good feedback, afterall, I have been doing it here for two years and have taken about 14 subjects toward ordination during that time. During that time, my goal was to improve. The comments were specific that I was getting better because I seemed more confident. I am glad I seem more confident, but I am never confident standing in front of people presumably to speak God's word to them. It is a God sized task that I need God for. So the fact that I appear more confident, indicates to me that I am coping better with the pressure of doing God's work. I hope that means, that I have become more dependent on God. It is a risk though, that the more we know, the more we may try in our own power, in which case, I would rather look uncomfortable or less confident. At any rate, leading worship and preaching are becoming a greater part of what I do.

Here I am to worship plan...

Planning worship. It is not enough that mere humans are called upon to plan, organize and lead worship of the Almighty God but we are called to do so in all of our humanity. I mean often I lead worship as a one man show. That is not so difficult because I put the service together to meet my expectations of worship as I have been trained theologically and usually most of the congregatation are happy. Then change congregations, next it if for your peers. They know what you know so you feel the expectation is higher. While preparing worhsip for peers you are working with peers. So who takes the lead, we are all in training to lead. That was really only an awkward moment at least all our expectations were similar. Then go back to lead the congregation that you are part of and take the theme that was given you by the worship task group and go. Right? Wrong? There is a new task group for the morning service that on Thursday afternoon send you their plan for the service and it doesn't match what you started. For various reasons I did not attend this new group's meeting so had to resort to phone calls and emails to find out why there was a difference. They picked hymns from the NT reading and Psalm and the theme came from the OT reading. The lovely group of eager lay people used all the readings to choose music from; they had a different expectation. This is more than awkward; it is downright difficult. I don't want to hurt feelings just want to know if the theme has changed. I acknowledge many people are more creative than I am and I acknowledge my need for those people's help. As a leader, I have never been afraid to ruffle feathers as long as I knew that I was able to smooth them over again. It is no longer simply one subordinate but a congregation that I may end up smoothing feathers for. Humanly, a big Job. It is God's job really not mine. My job to be obedient and present myself in front of the congregation to lead worship. God's job, through the Spirit to move in and through that action. Amen

Righteous Indignation

I watched as young men vandelized the train. I was eventually able to notify an offical but by the time I got to the official I was angry. Very angry. I think that I was angry about the helpless feeling that I had. I was unable to stop them. They were 2 and young and am 1 and old (by comparison). As I watched, they took no heed of me because they knew that I was helpless. Ha, I showed them. The rail offical had police officers there in a moment. While that was important, the vandels were stopped, I was still angry. My evening had been ruined, I missed my bus while doing the "right thing". I felt as if I was the person paying for their bad manners. I guess, I was. Sleep brought a brighter perspective. It was pointed out to me that "righteous indignation", anger, prompts us to action, to do the right thing in spite of the problems the action may cause ourselves. I certainly did not think about missing the bus at that time. I was only driven by anger to stop the bad behavior. Do you suppose that is how Jesus was feeling when he overturned the tables in the temple?