Chris From Canada

At the end of the day, Sunday ended up being a great morning but it definitely started off with a couple of interesting things. Here’s a quick timeline of what happened before our 9:00 service.

7:45 Band & A/V team arrive for warm-up and run-through
8:10 Main projector decides to power down
8:20 A/V guys figure out the problem and get projector back up and running
8:25 Bass guitar decides to stop working
8:30 Back-up bass en route thanks to a phone call to another bass player
8:45 Surgery performed on original bass repairs disconnected electronics

So yeah.. You can be sure that I was encouraging our team that this particular Sundays was going to be one of those days where anything could happen. Anticipate was the word of the day - be on the lookout for the unexpected to happen and be ready to jump when it does.

I’ve been in churches where things like this would be blamed on spiritual warfare, Satan not wanting us to gather to worship, etc. I’m not one to really jump on things like that but there were definitely things happening that took our attention away from preparing to worship when we first arrived.

After things settled down and our services actually happened it turned out to be a great morning. Here’s the rundown -

Sunday, May 4, 2008 - Global Outreach Emphasis
Filled With Your Glory - Starfield - F
Great Is Thy Faithfulness - C
“Hope” passages
I Have A Hope - Tommy Walker - E
You Are - Mark Roach - E
Meet & Greet
Offering/Announcements
Global Prayer
IN Uganada Update
Message - Justus Miwanda
Your Name - Paul Baloche - A

Last week we focused on the “greater things” that God is calling us to do as a church in our region. This week we spent the morning hearing about, celebrating and praying for the ministry of our friend and partner, Justus Miwanda, the head of International Needs Uganda. Justus and his ministry have been a part of our church for a few years and we feel very privileged to have a very unique church/mision relationship with him.

Our partnership is so much more than just sending money and people to see some good things done - we believe that we are committed to work with Justus and his team of Ugandans to see this generation changed for the glory of God. Having Justus here for a whole week continues to solidify his place as part of our “team” - not just a missionary that we support but a ministry partner in the truest sense of the word.

I wish I could communicate how the ministry at Buikwe and Kiyindi have become such a deep, core part of the life of our church over the past few years. With the money that we’ve already committed to raise as part of our BEYOND project as well as the number of kids that are being sponsored by people in our church, we are sending over $100,000 a year to the ministry in Uganda. For some churches that is peanuts but for the size and demographics of our church (as well as the history!) that is a pretty incredible number. We took some time to thank and praise God for that number in staff meeting on Tuesday. Our global outreach director commented that when the Spirit of God moves, the wells of generosity are opened - what a great line!

Okay - so the music part of our service. Our first set was really solid and the songs all worked together very nicely. Our main thematic focus was hope - the hope we have in Christ which motivates us to share that hope with others. “I Have A Hope” is a brand new song for us but I set it up with some verses all focused on hope and the congregation seemed to pick it up really well at both services - I was actually surprised at how well they were singing the song as soon as we brought them in.

Mark Roach’s “You Are” continues to be a standout song for us - it just works every time. If you don’t have the song or have never tried his stuff in your services you should give it a shot.

We closed with “Your Name” - did it a bit quicker than we had been doing it recently and it was a nice closer to our service.

So there you go. No fireworks this week but it was a very solid morning - a great time for us to gather together, worship God through our singing, hear from His word, celebrate what He’s doing around the world and in our lives. Pretty awesome.