i am an offering

Yesterday at Living Word was a bit different than usual.  Our pastor is on a much needed vacation, so I filled in with the teaching yesterday while the other two deacons helped to lead the service.  Will, Kelli and Robin did a fantastic job of leading worship, bringing back a few of my favorite hymns that I hadn’t sung for a while.  Songs for the morning:

• Praise to the Lord the Almighty (hymn)
• Blessed Assurance (hymn)
• Softly and Tenderly (hymn)
• Jesus, Thank You (Sovereign Grace)

One of the best parts of the day for me was a testimony from Hans, one of our youth who had just been to what’s called FLY BootCamp (Free Lutheran Youth Boot Camp), an intense time of training and encouragement for youth from the Free Lutheran Church around the country.  This year they focused on evangelism with some hands on training.  I must admit, when it comes to evangelism - especially on the street, everyday, talk to whoever you meet evangelism, I fall way short.  Hans challenged all of the adults in the congregation to be examples for the youth, because that’s where the youth get their inspiration and encouragement to keep going.  I was sure convicted!  What a great challenge for adults for every area of life as well.  People are watching, folks.

By the way, Fred McKinnon just started something pretty cool to get people seeing what other churches around the country are singing week to week.  This post is part of his ‘Sunday Setlists’ post. Check it out, especially if you’re interested in some new song ideas.

Tomorrow, I want to dive into a hard topic, one that I’ve been wrestling with this past weekend as some interesting things have happened with this blog - pride.  I’m going to be honest and raw and hope that some of our thinking might shift a little.  See you tomorrow.

Today and tomorrow Abiding Savior has the privilege to host three staff members from Faith Free Lutheran in Kalispell Montana. We’re going to have an opportunity to show how God is blessing us here, a little bit of how we do things during the work day/week, and perhaps more importantly to learn from them as well.

I would love to make opportunities like this available at Living Word someday and I would absolutely love to come visit another church to learn from their worship ministry.

Have you ever been involved in these experiences, either on the hosting or the visiting side? If you visited, what was one of the most meaningful things you learned? If you hosted, what was the most meaningful thing that your visitors taught you?