Burned fingers and receptive hearts...

So I burnt my finger kind of badly yesterday. I was trying to flip my eggs and grabbed on to the metal part of the handle. Why my frying pan has a metal part on the handle I'll never know. Anyways, It wasn't bad enough that I had to go to the hospital or anything, but bad enough that I had too ice it throughout the night and I imagine in a day or so the thing will blister up and that will be all sorts of fun.

I noticed several things about my burn. First, when ever I got anywhere near heat, that my finger started throbbing in pain. I also noticed something while icing it. When I iced it and then pulled the finger away from the ice, I noticed that it took quite some time before my finger started stinging again. The colder the ice, the longer my finger took to go back to its normal state of intense pain.

Why am I sharing this? Because I think I learned a lesson about God through all this. Since my finger had been seared (that's the term I keep coming back to), it's been hyper sensitive to that same stimuli that burned it in the first place - heat. I think that 's the next step I need to take in growing in my relationship with Jesus. As I spend time in prayer, contemplation and study, I allow myself to become "seared" by him, and I become much more sensitive and reactive to His prompting. I greatly desire this in my life...to be more responsive and sensitive to the moving of the Spirit in my life and in the life of others.

When I iced it, I removed that responsiveness that my finger had. I realized that when I move farther away from considering God and Jesus, I become "numb" to the moving of the Spirit of God. And the more I stay away, the more time it takes to get back my sensitivity.

I'm deciding I'd rather be seared by Him than numbed by the things of the world. I'm not sure what that's going to look like yet, but I think some things are going to have to change...

Can you laugh and be frightened all at the same time?

Courtesy of Loswhit...


Cadbury Eyebrows from Nils-Petter Lovgren on Vimeo.

Sunday Setlist Roundup

This post is a part of Fred McKinnon's Sunday Setlist series.

It was an interesting Sunday. We did WAY more songs than we'd usually do. Our pastor plays guitar, but only "country" guitar as he says. He wanted to do a couple of the old "campfire" songs, so he came up and led the part of the set I lovingly refer to as "Randy's Hoedown". It was really great fun.

Pre Service Music - Jars of Clay - Redemption Songs (off of my ipod)

1. Friend of God (Gungor)- My wife hates this song, but I like it, even though I haven't done it since August. I forgot how much it hurts my hands to strum that fast!

2. Touching Heaven Changing Earth (Hillsongs) - Our pastor likes this song alot, but I can take it or leave it. We didn't really get to rehearse this one, because we spent a lot of time on the hoedown, so as we were singing, I realized I didn't have the 2nd verse in my music. Luckily, my words person was on it, and put the words on the screen before we had to sing it, so I muddled through. Wrote down the words for the 2nd service though...

3. Desert Song - I adore this song, but it wasn't that strong this time. I need to spend more time with the arrangement.

Randy's Hoedown
4. I Saw the Light
5. Joy Unspeakable
6. There is Power in the Blood
7. I'll Fly Away

All of these songs ran together and it worked quite well. We have quite a few older people in our congregation and they LOVED it. The younger ones were clapping and singing along, so it was great fun and a nice change of pace. Props to our drummer Marty, who had to drum double-time for 7-8 minutes straight!

When we finished, the congregation cheered and one person in the 2nd service shouted "more". We had to do worship after that so I said, "great, now I have to follow that". I was worried people wouldn't respond to the abrupt change in style but worship went well too.

8. Glory to the King (Hillsongs)- I think anything I did after the hoedown would feel abrupt and I was right. But it went OK.

9. The Heart of Worship (Redman) - A wonderful time of worship with people coming down to the altar. Beautiful, inspite of the fact I don't think I played it well personally.

10. O Lord I receive your Love - This our pastor led and we didn't do it the first service, or practice it at all. Big mistake. I should have known better. Our timing was ALL OVER the place, but as a testament that God is still God, it worked for the congregation.

It was fun to do those campfire songs, and it reminded me that I need to add those every so often into the rotation. I feel like a fish out of water because I did not grow up with these songs, so they don't come natural. But I had a blast shakin' my hips and singing the occasional harmony!

Slowing Down

 

I tend to not slow down very much. I'm no good with unstructured time on my hands. Today I actually spent my time well. I got down on the floor and played legos with my 5 year old and my 11 year old. It was the first time in YEARS that I had built anything with Legos. I used to LOVE them as a kid. Ahhh...it was the best part of my day. Behold my first lego creation in over a decade!

Life Goals

I heard a pastor on a podcast I listen to talk about making life goals. He has about 100 different goals in areas of travel, family, ministry, etc. I've heard other people I respect talk about life goals. To be honest, it's always seemed kind of selfish to do that. Life isn't about what we can get out of it, right? But the more I think about it, the more I think it has to do with living a purposeful life. I want my life to mean something to the Kingdom when I reach the end of it. Things of quality usually don't happen by accident, but by careful planning and prayerful consideration.

So I'm starting my life goal list. Do you have one? If so, what's on it? I"d love to know!

Worship: The review

Every so often I participate in Fred McKinnon's Sunday Setlists where people post and discuss their worship services.  Today is one of those days.

Opening

Hear Our Praises (Morgan)

Holy is the Lord (Tomlin)

Hosanna (Baloche, Brown)

Offering

Break our Hearts (Foote)

Worship

From the Inside Out (Hillsongs)

You are My King (Foote)

I Give You My Heart (Morgan)

i'm not gonna lie, this past Sunday was a little rough.  I was short a singer and my bass player.  The set was Ok, but the band didn't really seem to click...tempo phasing and what not.  At least we didn't have the monumental tech problems we had last Sunday (computer crashing, monitors gone, etc.).  Also, From the Inside Out only sounds good in C, but the bridge is at the very tip top of my range.  It wasn't until I was running through the set on Saturday that I remembered my bass player, who normally sings that part because he has an awesome tenor voice, wasn't going to be there.  So I just backed up off of the mic and went for it on the bridge.  It was not my finest moment...

Speaking of "From the Inside Out", it is one of my favorite songs, but for some reason, it didn't feel like it was connecting with the congregation....and that was before my banchee like screams in the bridge.  I'm gonna have to think about that one.

At a meeting we had a few weeks ago about bringing new people into the church, somebody made a comment that there was too much music for new people.  I've been thinking alot about that recently and I think he might be right.  Our services run 1 1/2 hours, and the first 45 minutes are worship, announcements, offering, and any other special event (communion, unreached people groups, etc.).  I'd like to find a way to break that up a bit, do more media and drama presentations.  I need to get out there and see what other churches do that's working.  So, I'll probably be clicking through all the posts at the worship carnival in the next couple of minutes.  

the easy way

Read the story of Naaman today.  He travelled great distances to see Elisha to be healed.  Elisha told him to go wash himself in the Jordan river 7 times and he would be cleansed.  That ticked Naaman off.  Here's why...

But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?"

We tend to want God to do for us, but we want it done magically, without any effort of our own.  Have marital trouble?  Poof!  All gone.  Drug addiction?  BLAM.  Not any more.  Now, I believe in the soverignty of God and that he could work this way if he chooses.  But more often than not, he requires us to put our own effort in.  It highlights our reluctance to do our part in cleansing sin from our life.  There's no way I can remove sin from my life without God, but more often than not, it's not going to go away without some serious effort on my part.

What have you been waiting for God to do instead of getting out there and doing it?