Emerging Pastor

Sometimes life and ministry just throws you a curveball and this Sunday I caught it (although it nearly broke my hand).

I'm one of the Worship Leaders at our church and this week it was my turn to lead the morning service. I really enjoy worship leading, I feel particularly close to God when I'm doing it. It's a wonderful responsibility and I would do it quite a bit more if I had the time.

In our church we break out the responsibility of leading a service into two roles, worship leading and service leading recognising that not all worship leaders are gifted in leading the other parts of the service and vice - versa. I am one of the few who do both, that's not a blowing my own trumpet thing, I really enjoy doing both but it wasn't always that way. I used to be fine leading communion and the offering, short prayers and announcements but I really never felt comfortable performing the general prayer portion of the service. I used to defer to an Elder but when I was brought on as an Elder in training over a year ago I knew it was time to lift my game, press in with God and trust him to grow me. He had after all trusted me with a little, and now he had given me more.

That is actually off topic for this post, I really wanted to share about how God can bless something when we trust him.

When I put my Order of Service out to the members of the worship team for this week I knew that one of my three singers would not be able to come (I also sing with the team). Wonderfully someone heard about this and sent me an email saying if I need an extra singer then she was available. Thanks Janelle!

Everything seemed on track, God was giving me Scripture to share during the service, I was praying about the service and those who would be there. I arrived Sunday morning about 10 minutes before practice and prayed with our intersessors to be used by God.

After the prayer I had a call from one of my singers, she couldn't make it. She was quite apologetic and I told her it was ok, and it was, life happens sometimes. I had a quick word with the husband of the other singer, he told me that she wouldn't be their either, that was a little annoying, she had opportunity to give me notice. Just after that my fill in singer arrived and told me the drummer wouldn't be there.

The keyboard player arrived shortly after and it was just the three of us during practice. I rang around to some other drummers and no one was available (read: awake), but God had other things in mind. One of the intersessors volenteered to play the other keyboard, adding some depth. He then rang his son and he agreed to play drums for us.

The drummer arrived just before the service, we prayed and then worshiped with our church family.

It was one of the best worship times I have experienced and quite a few others have made the comment as well.

Sometimes we really have to just let go of our plans, our rosters and let God have total control. I think plans and rosters are a good thing generally and don't limit God, but sometimes He just has other ideas and it's wonderful to be able to go with them and experience the blessing.

If your interested, my song list was:

• King of Majesty

• All things are possible

• Salvation belongs to our God

• Amazes Me (On my knees I bow down)

• Complete

• Agnus Dei

• How great is our God

I found this poster on another blog (along with a few other really great posters) and it really helps to describe where I am at at the moment.

For me, ministry is all about the good news, the good news that there is hope for this life as well as the next. But saying that doesn't just bring about hope into the lives of others, and trying to apply a formula to every person just doesn't cut it (anymore? did it ever).

Relevance is critical to those we minister to. We need to think beyond simply attempting to bring the news of hope as a set peice and instead being the news of hope in peoples lives. I believe it was St. Fransis of Assisi who said: "Preach the gospel to all people and if necessary use words".

How can I bring the good news to a person who feels backed into the corner, who cant or wont turn their heads to see what God has for their lives? I can go to them, understand them, and minister to them.

My chuch is seeing the fruit of this approach, it really works. With concern for our neighbours we go to whats best described as an enclave of hopelessness. A cul-de-sac of housing commision flat filled with those who have lost hope, have no one to talk with and feel backed into a corner. And guess what, by going, listening and experiencing a little part of their lives with them there is flesh starting to grow on their dry bones.

You don't know this yet, but when I took on the Pastor to Small Groups role I inherited a project that involves the whole church.

The vision of our church for 2008 is to lead people from a place of complacency to being compelled in their relationship with God. To open their bibles when they are outside church, to pray more and to put legs on their faith and be involved in the lives of others.

The project I inherited is part of helping people move to compulsion in their relationship with God. It's a church-wide small group study based around the Beatitudes in Matthew 5.

My wife was on the project team with an Elder and a former pastor who put the study together. Although it's blown out from 6 to 13 weeks in length, I'm proud of the work she has done along with the rest of the team to put the study together. It's a challenging piece of work that when studied will really challenge people to examine where they are in their walk with God and live out their faith in the way Jesus intended.

The reason I am mentioning it now is because I've reached a milestone with it. I was handed the completed draft of the study just over three weeks ago and it has taken me this long to read it, format it, and introduce an overall structure and narrative to the text. It has survived the transition from PC to Mac, a computer blowing up and being shuffled around between computer and USB drive that many times that I thought it would get corrupted.

So yeah me!

I am thinking about releasing it as a Creative Commons licenced resourse after we complete the study as a church. Hopefully others can use it to further their relationship with God as well.