Sing of Him, Sing of His praises

Since my departure from the institutional church I have had to find opportunities to "sing of Him, sing His praises" as Psalm 105 encourages me to do. I mourned and missed Thursday night rehearsals and sometimes I found myself desiring to privately sneak into a Sunday morning service where the music would be loud enough that no one would hear me in the back row, belting my private praise to God. I admit it, I missed singing, rehearsing, working toward a great sound. Making music is an awesome experience and I found comfort and joy in the creativity.
This past Saturday night I gathered with a group of extremely creative people to make some noise to the LORD, bring our fellowship before His throne and learn of one another and better learn who God says He is in this Story we are in.
One of the first songs we sang together on Saturday was the song "Friend of God"... it just slayed me. This song took me back years ago to when I had first heard it (before radio played the Phillips, Craig and Dean version every half hour). I decided to introduce it to the crowd on a Sunday morning with the iWorship Video knowing the bass line at the beginning of the video would render some comment cards but hopefully the crowd would hear the message. I was to rehearse on Thurs and lead on Sunday as our full time worship leader was to be absent. Interestingly, the memory that clearly came to me was rehearsing this song with the video without our band. The lead guitarist kept telling me I was singing the wrong part at the chorus. He was insistent that if I did not follow Israel Houghton's part like the video, the congregation would not know what to sing. The soprano I was paired with that week had sung with me tons of times and if I jumped to lead, she would jump to alto, if I jumped to alto, she would go to lead. We knew this about one another and it did not need to be discussed. But the guitarist kept trying to sing the part that he sensed I should be singing. Rehearsal began to deteriorate at a speed I could not remedy. His frustration grew and rehearsal became tense as I continued singing what I knew to be true, not true by my experience but true by what I heard in the lyrics and general makeup of the song. There was beauty in the relationships of those I was singing with that the guitarist could not hear. I probably knew even that night many years ago that God was moving me out of that realm of performance. Not necessarily because I was a mediocre song leader but because it was killing my heart. I am so thankful His timing was priority over mine.
As this entire memory played out in my mind Saturday night and then again this morning I have entered into greater gratitude as a friend and child of God. I am so blessed by the Holy Spirit that the critical and often hurtful experiences of the past can be remembered but not hold me captive. I am still learning to sing again but without looking around me to see who I might offend. I am learning to sing again with a singular purpose...Giving praise to the LORD, calling on His name; making known among the nations what He has done. Singing of Him, Singing of His praises; telling of all His wonderful acts.

Spring is Here!

I can't believe that my last post was in February!!

Where does the time go? One reason I haven't been writing much lately is the advent of spring! Its been a long, cold winter that doesn't seem to want to give up even in April. Regardless, its 70 sunny degrees on this day and I'm knee-deep in preparing my garden for the summer.

I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that I will resume posting teachings from The River next week. We've had a couple of fabulous weeks together during Holy Week. The teaching times were a little different and harder to capture on audio so we didn't even try!

God keeps amazing us in so many different ways. We're discovering depths of His love for us that before we only heard were possible. We're experiencing a depth of community and commitment for each other because of that love that's beyond our understanding...but its REAL. For the first time in my 44 years, I'm finding that it IS possible to experience community like the church in Acts.

I'm so grateful for my God and the community in which He has placed me. The words of the Richardo Sanchez song express my desire to go even deeper into God and into true, redemptive community:

I'm not going back
I'm moving ahead
I'm here to declare to You
My past is over
In You all things are made new
I've surrendered my life to Christ
I'm moving
Moving forward!

For the Kingdom,
Marc