powerless

my droid woke me at 6 a.m. when colleague karen smith called to say that due to the severe storms the night before, ginghamsburg’s tipp city campus had NO power – and none predicted for at least two hours. through the years we’ve dealt with snow up to the gills, hurricane force winds, no water and temporary electrical flickers but never have we been totally without power to the tipp city campus for any length of time. decisions, decisions.

i’ve been trained at the school of never say die – so the only decision in my mind was HOW to redesign our worship – not IF. i knew that hundreds of people needed the message we had to share together that morning and we dare not miss the opportunity to remind one another of God’s forever faithfulness. as i connected with the worship team members they totally agreed – and so forward we trusted.

upon my arrival at the campus i remembered all over again how dark the worship area really is without lights. encountering the music, media and production teams talking quietly in front i realized everyone was present and anxious to serve… we all just needed our re-assignments for the morning since no cameras would be running, no amps could be turned on, no microphones needed to be sound-checked.

so the candle team grew – pulling in an arsenal of over a dozen candles for the very dark stage. i remembered we had five fuel gel cans for flaming pots left over from our angels & demons series awhile back- and placed them across the stage as well. the band pulled up close to the edge of the stage and rehearsed a powerful albeit simple version of the same tunes we’d enjoyed the night before – with acoustic guitars, minimal drum/brushes and richly blended vocals. excitement grew as we realized the power of what could happen when we used what and who we had – and trusted God to show up powerfully in our midst. in a crazy way i found myself secretly hoping the power would not come back on – so that the POWER could fully come in. and my secret hopes were granted.

why am i always blown away? we serve the God of the resourceful, the God of the great turnaround, the God of the come-back, the God who shows up despite our attempts to screw it up. in all three morning worship celebrations we experienced precious community moments. the peace of hearing one another sing like it mattered – an occasional childlike voice (cue crying baby…), a bold message of God’s provision and the sweet savor of shared communion to the tune of an old familiar hymn. “raw God” as one of my friends aptly commented. and oh my yes, God showed up.