It's All About Relationship

God showed up powerfully again in our service this morning. During the singing of "Spirit of the Living God, Fall Fresh on me" we began to experience the "heaviness" of the very Spirit we were singing to! God was answering our musical prayer.

When finished singing that chorus, we were "supposed" to move on to lively worship music, but we just skipped right through that to a more worshipful song. It was the right thing to do and God kept moving all around the room.

Aurora was so moved, she could no longer sing, so Debbie stepped up to help lead the prayer time (again, out of program order) and let Holy Spirit continue his work. I could see people around the room being affected in their own ways. Some knelt, some lifted hands, some became very still, but almost all seemed to sense that God was manifesting himself (sadly, there were a few who missed it). I felt at least 3 distinct waves of Holy Spirit's presence wash over me throughout this time.

Dan, weeping mildly came and placed his hand on me and prayed for my upcoming message (and against a cold that had affected my voice). After that, I was led to move around the room and lay hands on and pray specifically for 3 of our youth.

We sang a little more, kept praying and eventually we all began to sense a lifting of the "weight" and an okay to move on with the meeting.

Next, the scripture reading seemed to be extremely powerful. So much so, I read it in 2 different versions. I trust God was "moving it from our heads to our hearts" and sensed I had never quite read it or heard it that way before.

I spoke about Relationship. This was an introductory message of a four-parter, intending to get our hearts off ourselves and onto our Relationship with God, Others and the Lost. We watched a very funny video "commercial" with a guy singing and hawking a (fictitious) 2 CD set of praise music about "ME!" We heard clips from songs like: "It's all about Me," "How I lift my name on high," "I exalt me," "How great I am" and others. It really made the point in a fun way.

When I was finished, I asked people to take a slip of paper home with them which read:

What's it All About?
It's all about Relationship.
1) Our Relationship with God.
2) Our Relationship with Others.
3) Our Relationship with the Lost.

Our homework is to review it regularly over the next few weeks and ask God to speak to us about Relationship, pray for insight and revelation, and for the upcoming services.

In the end, I believe God had his way with us today. It was awesome!