Saturday night recap

Up until this point, I have kind of reserved this blog as a way to keep you up to date with what's going on in our ministry.  But, after being exposed to how some other churches use their blogs, I'd like to start offering you my reaction to what we partnered with God to do on a weekend.  So, here's a few reactions to this Saturday night's service:

• Over the course of a single service, we sang both Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi and It Is Well With My Soul.  How cool is that - that we're able to weave both of those art forms in a meaningful and purposeful way to support God's message?
• This weekend's worship team on stage was comprised of 4 relatively new or completely new faces... some of whom will most likely be leading us in worship in the next few months.  God is so faithful to bring us new people to do what we need them to do at just the right time.  He's in control.
• Jon Lloyd, our newly hired Waterloo Worship Director, spent his first Saturday night with us.  Praise God for sending him and his wife Michelle to us!
• Jeremy Ott, our newly hired Waterloo Tech Director, called the service for us.  Again: praise God for sending him and his family to us!
• We had a service that was a little more musically challenging, which means that our tech teams got a little short-changed on some of the opportunities they usually get to practice during warm-up.  But, they all pulled together really well.
• Chad Dean, our video director, had the challenge of calling shots on a song like Livin' On A Prayer as well as shots on a team-taught sermon.  He did a great job.
• Speaking of which: John and Kay team-taught from stage on "How To Pray."  Kay told a story of how God answered one of her prayers for her son Shane just two years ago when he was 16... and she initially prayed that prayer when Shane was five!
• We "blurred the ending" of the service, giving people space to pray before John closed, and giving them more space to pray as well as to come forward and be prayed for by staff and elders as the service ended.  Many people took advantage of the opportunity.  I got a chance to pray for a mom who's 11-year-old daughter is about to take a step across the faith line, as well as for a guy who accepted Christ and is about to go to prison.  And those are just two of the many who came forward.  God moves every time we give him space to do so.
• We took some creative risks in how we set the environment for that moment of prayer at the end of the service - no IMAG, par lights and 250's on the two band members praying, and dimly lit room.  It was awesome; it worked very well.

Just a lot of great things happened tonight - whether behind the scenes, on stage, or in the congregation.  I feel blessed to be a part of it, and grateful for the opportunity to call our attention to just how unique and good Prairie Lakes Church really is.  Good job, everyone.  Let's do it again a couple times tomorrow morning!