Monday Soup

 
Week #2 in our 3 Doors series saw us open ourselves up to confession.  Wonderful message and a wonderful service.

I've really felt like we've been touching on some deep spiritual needs of our campuses with this series.  It's been humbling to watch how people have responded.

This also marked the first weekend that John preached solo back from his 1 month sabbatical.  Maybe you noticed what I did: he spoke out of the journey that God took him on during his time away.  Very powerful, authentic, and focused.  I loved hearing him recount his prayer of confession at the monastery: "God, have mercy on me, your son, a sinner."

I thought our worship set was incredibly powerful and appropriate.  We began the service with this video as a call to be present in the moment with God's presence.  Then we followed it by singing Jeremy Riddle's song, Stand In Awe:



We then invited our people to sing with us to Sweetly Broken, Sweep Me Away, and How He Loves.  Ron Morlan (at Cedar Falls) and Zach Elster (at Waterloo) both did a fantastic job of leading and spiritually directing people into this posture and attitude of confession.

Sidenote: this weekend also marked a few firsts for us.  Zach began his first weekend as the Worship Director at Waterloo.  And I began my interim position as the Waterloo Campus Pastor.  It's going to be a lot of work, but has already proved very insightful and rewarding.

On another sidenote: it's been a little while since I've been over to Waterloo, as this summer's vacations have kept me at Cedar Falls filling in on stage as the worship leader pretty often.  Coming back, I was delighted to see: they are good.  I mean, good.  The've got "It," if you know what I mean.  Great, excellent, relevant, inviting experience.

Whew.  This Monday Soup is getting long (big?  Maybe it's not possible for soup to get long?)

After John's message, we took communion together, and were invited to confess while we had the elements in our hands.  We listened to the band sing Tomlin's Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone):



Then we allowed people to stick around and take a step into the light if they so chose - to come forward to a pastor, elder, or chaplain and confess face to face.  We lined the stage with lamps to symbolize this desire to be transparent.  Always humbling to be a part of moments like that, at both campuses.

See you next weekend - another big one.  We send off Ron Phares to his next position as the Senior Pastor of Elevate Church in Mankato, MN.  We commission our Osage staff and congregation.  And we invite you to pray, give, and go.

See you there.