Jim & Al's Excellent Adventure Pt. IV

Today is Saturday and sadly it's our last full day here :( However the trip has been entirely worth while, simply for what happened last night. Al and I went to the 'Encountering God' service and it was simply out of this world! I have to say that my reasons for saying that were quite specific to me; what God did for me in that time was amazing.

First off, the worship was quite something. The band started playing and to be honest it didn't seem like very many people were super engaged with the music; they played one song for about 5-6 minutes, which is quite a while for most churches (that I have been connected with!), but then rather than moving on because it seemed most people were not engaged, suddenly the room changed and virtually everybody was highly engaged! I mean something shifted, or so it seemed! Most places I'm used to would have moved on, but not here!

I think there were about 1000 people there, on a Friday night of all nights!

Al just made a good point: we've seen worship like that at conferences, where there is a high level of anticipation for the worship time, but we didn't experience that here. But what stood out for us was that unlike at a conference, there is worship happening here at IHOP NON-STOP! It's amazing that the people were SO into it in a place where there is SO much worship all the time! I feel like some people will relate to that sentence, but others won't. Just keep in mind that I come from a tradition where the older people complain about the repetition of worship songs and the average worship set on a Sunday morning was about 20 - 30 min. I've long since ditched that paradigm for worship, but it's still what I came out of!

Al and I were lost in the worship. It seemed like we'd only be there for 20 minutes and a full hour had gone by. When they brought up the pulpit in the middle of the last song, I wanted to cry out, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" (and that's saying something, cause I'm a preacher!)

On a more personal note, in the midst of the worship, God began to show me some very powerful things. It actually started before the service started, at the moment I got there and started to journal. Suddenly I began to see elements of my life over the past 2 months begin to come together. Discussions I've had, streams of thought and specific events, began to come together in my mind like pieces of jigsaw puzzle. It started out as some thoughts I was journaling about, but then in the midst of the worship I began to see things in my mind (again, elements of my life over the past 2 months) and I understood how God was fitting them together and what the ramifications were for the future. I recalled conversations and events and instantly knew why God was causing them to happen and what He wanted to teach me. I'd have one stream of thought in my mind, like a video in my mind, and then as I was reeling from it, another whole stream would start and I'd be overwhelmed by that as well. All this happening in the midst of a truly incredible worship set.

I could say way more, especially about the young man who came up to dance with some friends and was clearly lame in one leg! Unbelievably powerful.

Even the message was bizarre for me. It wasn't an overwhelming message at all, but as I watched and listend, Misty Edwards was a picture of a LOT of things that God was saying to me. It's like her delivery of the sermon was a living example in front of me of what God was saying to me.

Al was SO classic on the drive home. He couldn't complete a sentence! It would be like, "Okay, so.... yah...I don't know..." and then we'd laugh, and he'd try again, but it would be "Okay, well, remember when.....wow."
There was lots of conversation, but we both knew and appreciated how hard it was to put it all into language.

God had met with us. Ruined us yet again for ordinary Christianity, and captured us with a vision for more!