A different experience!

I'm not sure where to start...

On Wednesday we had Corps Council. There was nothing much out of the ordinary - even the awkward silence when it came to evangelism/outreach was there. Just before the meeting my good friend, Jeff, called to see if I was free for coffee. I arranged to meet him at Tim's after the meeting and said that I'd probably need it. We are going to Bulgaria in May on missions trip and still have many plans to make.

I finally got to Tim's just after 9.30pm and the caffeine started working. Six hours later and a few more coffees and we had put the world to rights! As well as centring around our upcoming trip a lot of the conversation focused on what is wrong with the church today, especially in our small city here. There is a severe lack of unity amongst the churches in Elliot Lake along with no real sense of purpose or urgency amongst the people in these churches.

A couple of days later and I'm with Jeff again and another Christian leader in town for a time of prayer together. Again the conversation centres in on the lack of unity and outreach in the churches of Elliot Lake.

After this conversation we got word that this Wednesday DHQ will be discussing our property severance proposal and the impact on the future of our church. We really need to get rid of the building we are in, but enough of that for now.

Later on Friday I was really struggling with the message for this morning. I follow the Revised Common Lectionary and the text for this week was Luke 4:14-21. For those of you who don't know me, I like to get into the pulpit with full script. I get worried about losing my place or getting tongue twisted. I came up with a message about the fact that God allows us to start over, as part of the text was Jesus referring to the time of Jubilee, but I was still struggling to bring it all together. This continued yesterday as I finalised the whole deal.

All of this is backgorund for what happened in our church this morning. First of all, we had to play church tag this morning as Cameron was sick and had to stay home. Living next door means that it is quite easy to play tag like this. So I missed the first part of the service, but Pamela called me after the kid's time and we swapped places. She took the rest of the kids to our house and had Sunday School here as well.

Although this church tag thing works well, I'm not comfortable going in and preaching 'cold', without getting a feel for how the service has gone so far. So, I started preaching and it seemed that my fears were unfounded. Then I got to a point where I was using the verse from the sermon on the mount where Jesus says, 'You are the light of the world.' I added, 'Really? We are the light of the world? Are we really shining out?'

Then it happened. I just stopped and all that had taken place in the previous few days came together and I realised what God had been telling me through it all. I left the script behind and walked off the platform and out the door speaking about everything that had happened in the previous few days (I was wearing a lapel mike!). I stopped walking when I got outside to the top of the disability ramp, but I kept on talking, although it was none of what I prepared. Although I can't remember all I said, the essence was that we need to be outside of our building. It's no use shining inside if we extinguish the light as soon as we leave the building. I eventually came back inside to stunned faces, still talking the words that were not mine.

This was really a different experience for me. Nothing like this has happened to me before, not to this extent anyway. It's still all a blur, but it did happen. We'll have to see where it all leads now...