What do all of these things have in common?
- fever, which is usually high, but unlike seasonal flu, is sometimes absent
- cough
- runny nose or stuffy nose
- sore throat
- body aches
- headache
- chills
- fatigue or tiredness, which can be extreme
- diarrhea and vomiting, sometimes, but more commonly seen than with seasonal flu
They’re all symptoms of swine flu AND several of them have been ravaging my body for the past few days. I’m definitely on the mend (and no oinking yet!) so I don’t think there’s much cause for concern but it certainly made things interesting this past weekend.
On Saturday morning I got up, felt fine, headed over to the church for breakfast with a bunch of guys and then spent some time with my family at a kids festival in town. By 1:00 we were home and I was totally knocked out by this flu – chills, fever, headache, coughing. I ended up on the couch, not moving until 10:00 or so that night – knowing that I was going to be leading two services the next morning at OBC and feeling pretty confident that I’d be okay to do that.
I drank lots of orange juice and water before going to bed and another full litre of juice the next morning before heading to the church. I can honestly say that I have never led worship feeling the way I did – my head was spinning, a couple of times I had to just step back to catch my breath. During the 9:00 service I sat beside my wife during the message and spent most of it doubled over just trying to get comfortable enough to go back up and lead the closing songs.
In the midst of my great weakness, though, God was definitely honoured. I spoke with lots of people who couldn’t tell that I was sick and told me how moving the service was and how much they enjoyed it.
We are continuing in the series called “Grow UP!” where we’re spending nine weeks on a chunk of verses in 2 Peter which talk about spiritual growth. Earl led us through an exploration of perseverance and godliness and it was clear there were some “aha!” moments for people in the crowd. I think that this series will come out as being one of the most helpful for our people over the last couple of years – lots of good stuff and great content for people to grab on to.
Here’s what our service looked like -
Welcome/Announcements
Call to Worship
Sing to the King – Billy Foote – E (9:00) // You Are – Mark Roach – E (11:00)
Let Everything That Has Breath – Matt Redman – E
Meet & Greet/Offering
Your Love Never Fails – Chris Quilala – G
Responsive Reading – Psalm 118
Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus – Hymn – G
Message – Perseverance & Godliness
You Never Let Go – Matt & Beth Redman – Bb
Lord Reign In Me – Brenton Brown – C
A couple things to hilight -
- We switched our opener after the 9:00 service. I thought that “Sing to the King” would give us a good Jesus-focused opening right at the beginning but it didn’t – pulled it out and added “You Are” for 11:00. Much better.
- “Your Love Never Fails” is a new song from Jesus Culture – we’ll give it another couple tries with the congregation before deciding if it’s a keeper or not. Not sure yet.
- That song plus the reading focused on the enduring love of God leading in to “Tis So Sweet” was a really nice section in both services. At 9:00 there was one guy who sounded like he’d been waiting his whole life to sing that hymn and as soon as we started the first line he just let it belt out – awesome! :)
Great weekend – despite my sickness. Couple more weeks of this series and then two weeks of holidays for me – looking forward to all of it!
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You can find more posts like this at my friend Fred’s blog here.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm currently on sabbatical this summer - you can read more about my sabbatical here: Personal Update - What's Next
Since I'm away from the blog I've decided to close comments. I love the interaction and discussion that happens with readers and since I'm not able to do that this summer, I'll be very much looking forward to that when I return in August.
