We at Journey kicked off our series DIALOGUE this weekend. Somewhat surprisingly one of the topics that came up multiple times was that of Hell. I’m pretty sure this was the 1st time we’ve done a message at Journey on “Hell”. Not that we haven’t talked about it.
It was great to be back & it was a crazy full weekend.
• WORSHIP – There usually seems to be a “money song” in our worship segment. The Lord seemed to land on the old song “Be Thou My Vision.” It’s hard to even make it through the old language with the “naught but thou art” line. But, man! God, landed on it & it really connected with our people.
• MESSAGE – I knew there were a lot of people who NEEDED a word from the Lord this weekend – people battling cancer, people going through heartache. Frankly, I longed for the goodness & glory of God. Somehow I think this happened. I also wanted to have do something like equipping, helping people to talk to their friends about one of those things that stumbles people in our culture on their way to Christ. I got a lot of feedback. Most of it positive. I got a lot of feedback. Most of it very positive. One person in particular had a hard time with the concept of real v. literal. I may blog about this later in the week. Some people had questions that were a little more personal. All in all, I sensed the Holy Spirit’s help all weekend.
• CHAT ROOM – next week. We had a few problems with our chat room (people texting in questions) didn’t really work the weekend. I’m thinking of taking some extra questions for this weekend – left over hell questions.
• SELAH – We had an unusually powerful Selah. A great time of worship, some wonderfully deep prayer times interceding for each other. God released some worlds of knowledge. We had people go to a prayer area to be prayed over for specific needs & some deep things were unpacked & God moved.
• THE BODY OF JESUS – About 20 people from our various prayer ministries actually met an hour early (before the Selah) to pray for a young man who has been afflicted with mental illness. Jason Denison called us together. The young man was a stellar kid when J was the Youth Pastor here. In fact, he is the one who brought the rest of his family to Journey when he was in high school. We seated his parents in the middle & gathered around them as we prayed. It was an intense time of prayer – lots of tears, tons of faith, a vision or two. Wow, I love seeing the body of Jesus be!
• LAYING OUT 09 – The reason I’m a day late on my normal weekend review is that I’ve been on an overnight & all day planning get away with the other Journey pastors. By get away, I mean we were at a hotel on mission bay. A couple of us got up & surfed this morning (fun waves – steep high tide, but fun) but other than that it was all business – o.k. I’m not fooling anyone. But, it was a good time. Lots of prayer over each other & some great discussion as we laid out ministry plans for 09. It does not suck to be in a room with this view if you are in an 8-hour meeting.
I’m really looking forward to next week &
