This will be a short post because in Week 5 one thing stood out to me over and over again. Beginning in Day 1 with prayer, then Day 2 with planned spontaneity, and then Day 4 with the power of the Spirit I was reminded again and again how these are God's services.
Yes, we can and should plan and execute to the best of our ability, but these are God's services. I need to pray like crazy, and then humbly expect the Holy Spirit to work in the services, and if He wants to change something then let's change it.
Here's the prayer I wrote on Day 3, "God, I have honestly never considered veering from the plan a good thing, especially in worship services. Help me remember that these services are yours, not mine and you can change your plans any time you want."
In my love of planning, the quote on page 86 nailed me, "To be filled with the Holy Spirit is really more about getting unfilled with ourselves."
What spoke to you this week?
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Yay! We were out of town last week/weekend, so I thought I missed commenting with all of you. I just wanted to share my experiences with prayer and performance. Both with Praise Team and when I was in choir, there were times that things were just not coming together well. There was a marked difference in attitude and performance between when we tried to "muscle through" on our own, and when someone (usually Brad or Brian) stopped the rehearsal and lead prayer with us. I'm sure you all have experienced times like this, either when practice was going poorly, or even when it was a Sun morning and it still seemed hopeless to have it all together. God is so amazing when we just stop trying to do it ourselves and refocus on Him running things! :)
-Jen House
A quote from day 2 that stuck with me is, "We must plan as though it's all up to us, and trust as though it's all up to Him." I am a control freak by nature, but I find that when I surrender that part of me, I frequently come to a goal-setting standstill. I think that staying focused on that quote will help me keep balance in my daily walk. We trust God for the destination, but we still have to keep ourselves moving toward it. I was also convicted by the planned spontaneity concept, but I was thinking more of work than church. I work in customer service, so that's a lot of phone work. Sometimes I feel resentful if I'm in the middle of something deep and difficult, and the phone rings and "interrupts" me. The phone is actually the center of my job, so it can't really be an interruption. This put a different spin on the concept in the book of seeing interruptions as opportunities.
I also need to work on my pliableness(pliability?). Guys in general don't like change, but I think I'm worse than normal with this. Again, I don't seem to have this problem at church, particularly with the music, which is kind of improvisational to begin with. My problem in general is anytime someone comes up with a new plan or idea, I have to mentally un-hardwire myself to let the new idea in. This process takes a few seconds, and apparently it shows on my face, because by the time I get myself set to listen properly, they're already saying "never mind." I almost missed out on a family Disney vacation that way, because my brother-in-law misinterpreted this mental process of mine as rejection. I suppose if I train myself to go with the flow better, this will cease to be a problem.
I, too, keep coming back to the phrase Scott quotes ("...plan as though it's all up to us, and trust as though it's all up to Him.").
I've always been big on having a plan. You've probably heard all the good ones on this topic, like "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail," etc. But I've also been really big on improvising and spontaneity. (I suppose I could mention as proof the improvisation I did the Sunday I led worship, when I had people stand up during the 2nd offering!) This study from day 2 is right in my wheelhouse. I love that we must have a plan to bring order to worship, but be open and willing to let the plan go askew if the situation calls for it. The great thing is that, if our hearts are set on worship, God will use it all to His glory!
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