It was so good to be back at Journey this last Sunday. I loved my weekend at the Oasis retreat last weekend. But, probably because I hopped in a car a couple of days later, it felt like a long time since I’d been “home”.
COMMUNION – It’s hard not to have a great service when it’s centered on the “anamnesis” (great word from the more liturgical current of our stream). I love seeing people DO church. This weekend we talked about CONFESSION – bringing the real you to the real God. We talked about THANKSGIVING – recognizing & naming the goodness of God in our lives. Then we took communion, the Eucharist. The 3rd movement in the service was about PREACHING – we remember those that aren’t at the table… YET! This is probably the part of the Communion that is most likely to be overlooked. “We proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” Communion, the most basic thing we know about what we do as the people of God has right IN THERE mission. It’s like God is saying, “don’t forget the lost, the outsider, those far from Me.”
The worship music that surrounded the table was so perfect & moved us from moment with moment.
WET WEDDING – On Saturday, I did a wedding out at Sycuan… an outdoor wedding! Almost all the weddings I do are outdoors (I’d say 90% at least) in SD it just makes sense. But it seemed like our drought ended, you guessed it, on Saturday. At times it was coming down in sheets. So we prayed for 30 minutes of respite. God gave us 35! The groom found Christ at Journey. It was fun to meet his friends and had some good conversations about their spiritual lives.
T-DAY – Linda’s family all decided to do Thanksgiving in AZ. It’s quite a feat to get everybody in the same place. I drove out on Wednesday morning weaving through the parade of RVs hauling quads to the desert. The best thing about the time was seeing how great my kids are with their cousins. They are the oldest and I love how they care about and connect with their cousins.
INVITE SEASON BEGINS – For us at Journey, it’s like Sunday began a season of invitation. I love the invite pieces we are doing this year for Christmas Eve services. I also got a lot of great feedback about us adding a 4th service on Wednesday evening. I think we are off to an awesome start!
