Monday Morning Musings ...

Yesterday was a good day. The weather was gorgeous. The Spirit in the services was very good. Someone led worship who had never done it before and did a very good job. There seemed to be good energy in the building as the service started and the energy level stayed pretty high for most of the service. The church recognized my wife's birthday and gave her an iPod, personally engraved, among a few other items. Since she has recently taken up running this was a great gift and she is really excited. Our attendance was back up, which was encouraging. But more encouraging was the reaction and response to the whole worship experience, including the message.

I preached on hope, "Hope in Weakness, or Weak Hope?". We looked at some ideas of hope. We also examined suffering and our own weaknesses. Then we looked at our hope and the help that is available to us. People seemed to be engaged throughout the message and I had a few comment about how much they needed the reminder, challenge and encouragement (I heard all of those, interesting how God uses the same words to personally speak to different people in different ways.). For me, I was not pleased with how I presented the message, but it is not supposed to be about me. So when people are touched when I didn't do my part well, I am reminded all over again that it is about God and people listening to Him.

In the evening we had a missionary who works in the countries of Ecuador, Columbia and Venezuela speak. He shared an awesome story of the conversion of a former enforcer for the powerful drug cartel in Cali, Columbia. He was powerful and very moving. We had a good attendance for this time as well.

Here's hoping that you have hope in your weakness this week and that you are enable to encourage someone else to be hopeful as well.