Tales of a Secret Rockstar

Round up the cattle, it's bloggin' time again.
Yeehaw!

Sometimes I giggle to myself at how popular blogging is. There seem to be many tiers of blogs. Some are really serious and newsy. Some are really artsy. Some are super Asian. And then there's the ones like mine. Just a person putting words on to a screen. For no reason really. Kind of a public diary, which is a really twisted concept when you think about it. I've come to realize a whole bunch of people from my old College have blogs. But I realized that because they told me about them. Which made me realize that I can't seem to stop hanging out with people who still go to my old college. But I get to play soccer, so I think I'm okay with that.

There are three main categories about which I can write today. For the sake of brevity (and the sanity of the reader), I will choose one. Plus a few random thoughts.

Church was really good today. Super good. Things have been looking up in churchland. Which is partly why I chose this topic. I have way to many angry church blogs, but really, I like church. When you think about it, God has pretty much put all his money on the church. There's not really many good ways to have a healthy Christian life without the church. Of course, as many before me have said, the church will never be perfect because it contains people. At any rate, I felt a change in the air today. For one thing, I'm not one to be deeply moved during worship services. Actually I kind of try to make a point not to be moved, which is probably not a good idea. I think I do it because I get so frustrated with the shortsightedness and self-absorption involved in singing and dancing and expecting God to make us feel good. But that's another, slightly angrier, post.
Anyhow, I was quite moved during the worship time. To the point where I was just praying in tongues a bunch. Praying in tongues is usually something I do in a corporate prayer setting when I don't really know what to do with my mouth. But this time I really felt moved to do it. Like it was necessary. Like somehow I caught a glimpse of what God was doing, and this was the only way I knew how to thank him and challenge him to keep doing it. It was a strange experience this morning. It just seemed like you could feel something in the air. Like God was so close, but not necessarily to me. He was close to us. We were all involved and responding to him. It was beautiful. People just seemed to respond so wholeheartedly.

The pastor spoke today. But he was different too. He had purpose to his message. It made sense. I found myself agreeing with him. He was just challenging us with the idea that God does not set us free just so we can feel good about ourselves. He wants us to show him to others. Although his style is still quite rambly, he was right on. It was challenging. And people became Christians. I haven't seen that there in a while. People responded to the Gospel, and not because it was hyped up or pushed on them. It was simply the truth presented truthfully. That was exciting too. All in all, a great morning.

This really seems like just the beginning. I could really feel a shift. I can't really say what it is specifically. I suppose it's a shift in focus. A change of priorities. It's not necessarily doing something different, but believing something different. Sometimes behaviours change beliefs, and sometimes beliefs change behaviours. I'm hoping for the latter here. Our church has a problem with pragmatic repetition. When we find something that works, we stick with it until it doesn't work anymore. The key here is not looking for what works, but pursuing what is true. Sometimes the things that define a good church are nearly indefinable. I think that's what's happening here, to a certain degree. And so I watch with anticipation.