B E H I N D / T H E / B A R

Today was a good day.  A really good day.  One I want to remember for a long time.  So rather than tell you ALL the reasons it was a good day I’ll just list the top 5 reasons.

1.  The Gathering

Today’s Gathering was such a great day.  Worship was simple, and impacting.  Straight to the throne of God kind of worship.  The room was full of people who had come together to intentionally focus on Jesus.  We had new people, people who’ve been with us from the beginning, and people we hadn’t seen in a long time.  I was especially blessed by the fact that the front row held four homeless friends, who had never ever actually sat through an entire worship gathering at RiverChurch, much less the sermon.  But today, they participated, and were hugely attentive.  What an amazing way to celebrate 5 years of doing life together.

2.  Our Macedonians

I started a series today, on recapturing the meaning of living a missional life, by asking our congregation who their Macedonian was (Acts 16:6-10).  As a response I asked our folks to fill out a card that stated who their “Macedonian” was; the person or people group that they felt God calling them to.  I was blown away by the responses.  Our people know they’ve been called to reach a lost world with the love of Christ, and they are committed to living a truly missional life.  You blessed me big time RiverChurch.

3.  Food & Friends

Lunch after church today was a blast.  Such a diverse group of people sat around our table, and laughed and connected.  It was awesome.  I was able to spend some time with a spiritual little brother, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time.  Loved hearing what God is doing in his life and l’m looking forward to reconnecting and doing life with him again in the days and weeks to come.  Then tonight our family was  thoroughly blessed by an invitation to join some RiverChurch families at another RiverChurch family’s house.    I love seeing our individual families with in our larger community of faith reach out to one another.  RiverChurch – I encourage you to break bread together.  There’s no better time to connect, and grow closer together than around the table.

4.  Sunday Naps

Coming home from church and taking even a 30 minute nap is like a little slice of heaven.  ‘Nuf said.

5.  Hearing my kid worship

The last song in our worship set today was “Cannons” by Phil Wickham.  During that song my son walked over to me and asked me to hold him, so I did.  He laid his head on my shoulder and began to sing with the crowd – “You are Holy, Great and Mighty, the moon and the stars declare who you are.”  Time stood still for about 30 seconds as I stood there listening to my son sing to His God, His father’s God!  In that 30 seconds I became undone with the reality that the way I felt in that moment had to be just a little glimpse of how God feels when we lay our head on His shoulder and tell Him, “You Are Holy, Great and Mighty, the moon and the stars declare who you are.  You couldn’t buy a moment like that from me for a million bucks.

Yeah – it was a pretty amazing day.  Tonight as I lay my head to rest, my heart is full and I know that I am blessed.

God Bless and Good Night!