From A Rut To A Tear Fest

From A Rut To A Tear Fest

     Linda caught me as I headed to my counseling office in the back of the church.  "You've got to do something about Marlene she gives me lip every time I try to get her to follow my advice.  After all, I am in charge of the primary Sunday School classes."

     As her words sunk in I recalled that she seemed to get perturbed periodically.  I tried to recall the last time I saw her smile, let alone laugh.  One of the leaders had said, "I think Linda was baptized in lemon juice."

     I went to the Lord in prayer as I was feeling Linda wasn't the only member uptight right then.  I asked for wisdom to help bring peace and tranquility to the whole church.  Then I waited for His answer.

     A couple of weeks later the Lord laid on my heart what needed to happen.  But it was so unique that I hesitated for a few days.  Church members often don't like change.  At least not a big dose of change.

     And the Lord had given me a huge dose of change.

     The common itinerary for Sunday mornings was 15 minutes of singing.  Followed by prayer, Scripture reading, a communion talk and song, service of communion, followed by a sermon, invitation song, prayer and dismissal.  But a big change was in store for next Sunday.

     The Praise Team led us in a couple of songs after which we began with prayer.  Then a video player performed a heart-warming DVD song onto our large screen.  I had tried to carefully select about 9 or 10 videos expressing the love of God, deep faith, forgiveness, prayer, thankfulness and so on.  I had begged the Lord to soften the hearts of the members as the songs were played.

     The audience watched and listened and some even sang along with the different songs.

     I earnestly prayed that what was coming next would be used by the Holy Spirit to change the atmosphere of the church.  I read the Scripture the Lord had laid on my soul a week ago:

“This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God."  (Matthew 5:23-24, MSG)

     We still had communion service to go and so I read this Scripture and said, "In preparation for continuing our worship by taking Communion I challenge you to ponder this teaching of Jesus and get up and go to anyone in the church with whom you have a problem, or who you know has one with you."

     Before I even sat down to pray movement was happening.  First just a couple of people left their pew and headed to make things right, then another, and before long I was hearing a lot of movement, crying, saw hugging and nearly every pew had activity.

     It's hard to recall how long this part of the service lasted but it was quite a while before we served Communion and dismissed.  I noticed people didn't leave but stood around and talked and hugged and hugged and hugged.

     By the way one visitor stood just before the dismissal prayer and she said "This was the most touching church service I've ever been in."

     Personally, I'll always remember that Linda came up and hugged me and never spoke a word as she wiped tears from her face.

     God is so good.  How often do we get in such a routine that we wouldn't dare try something so different from our norm.  Seems like I recall someone saying if you can't change the routine you're in a rut... and do you know what a rut is?  It is a grave with the ends knocked out.  A dictionary described a rut as, "a habit or pattern of behavior that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change."

     Sometimes we become so predictable we don't give God's Holy Spirit any room or time to affect His purposes in our services.

Holy Spirit

Kim Walker-Smith

This song has been played more than 36 million times.

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