Tonight was my last stint at service leading for a while. We had a petty good evening all told. Again it was extended praise, so there was a whole chunk of singing at the end.

Highlights of tonight include:
Getting most of the congregation to pray on their knees.
John’s sermon being broken up into bite-sized chunks.
The sense of worshiping God with some real purpose.

The whole service was formed around Daniel 5 [make that Daniel 3], and the three guys being thrown into the furnace. Despite thinking about leading, I was also able to think about my idols… you know I have plenty.

Bags of complements after too.

However, I know that I need a break. I get frustrated by the whole process of service leading, there’s so much interference from people with well meaning comments. Tonight was supposed to be a new, more creative, service; just through the whole planning I kept asking myself why.

Ultimately, I’d love us to be free enough to communicate a message or theme in the most applicable way possible in a service. That may mean not singing, or praying a whole lot more, or ditching the notices [which is a slot possible as sacred as the sermon] but instead we are tied to certain things which don’t always fit. Also, it would be nice to use peoples’ gifts to their fullest. That means allowing them to pray more, or sing more or read stuff. I just feel that we’re a bit programmed.

Anyway, I was getting completely wound up by the process, so I decided that for the next few months I was better out than in. It should give me time to finish a dissertation, start working on a marketing project about how churches are using social networking tools (something that I may turn into a paper) and get my trip to Aus in.

Goodnight folks