So this entire summer I've really stressed out about this coming year's tuition for school. I didn't recieve the same amount of scholarships this year as I did last year. In fact I recieved about $3000 less than last year. And I wasn't sure what my loans would cover. And I wasn't sure that I'd be getting an on-campus job to help pay off my tuition, and I don't have a car to go get a job off-campus. Seriously, this whole summer I'd freak out every time I thought about it. Now, I always trust God to provide, because he always has. But it's still scary living in that moment when you don't have anything and you don't know what you're gonna do about it when you've already done everythig you can. But last Friday, when I came home from camp, God releaved my spirit with the news that the only money I owe the school for next semester is just under $900, plus books of course. Most of my tuition is covered in loans, but I'm ok with that right now. I recieved almost $4,000 in a PELL Grant, $560 for the Trustees Scholarship, and $200 for my Music scholarship. That's about a third of my tuition, money I don't have to pay back, covered not only for this fall semester, but those same amounts will be applied the for spring semester. Woohoo!
I say all of this because this morning, our worship minister, Pastor Deborah, preached. One of the things she said that just hit home with me was this: "Sometimes our faith is the only thing that will carry us through our fear." The Lord is my Jehovah Jirah. I always knew he'd take care of me and I always pray that he would, but that doesn't mean I'm not afraid at times. Noah wasn't fearless when God called him to build the ark. But he obeyed and practiced out his faith, and he and his family lived through the flood.
This has nothing to do with what I initially wanted to blog about, but I thought I'd just share my testimony with you.
After a wonderful service this morning, my family took me out for a birthday lunch to my favorite Mexican restaurant (even though my birthday was two days ago) and one of our family friends joined us as well.
In the midst of being merry and gay, and laughing joyously with each other, we ended up discussing the whole issue of church services being organized, being put into a time slot. There's a time for fellowship, a time for worship, a time for the message, even a time for the announcments and offering. Anything before or after is just inconvenience, and if one thing extends its time slot, then people become aggitated. "Come on, let's move on to the next thing already. I've worshiped long enough." The problem with having a set time for church services is that it hinders us from being the church outside of the service. Once the alloted time for church is up, then its time for Sunday lunch, then maybe a nap. And then Monday comes. Then Tuesday, then Wednesday, etc. etc...until Sunday roles around again: "Ok, time for church! It's time for worship. Time for the message. Ok, church is over." The service may end, but church should never be over. And when we develop a habit of having a time "slot" for prayer, and a time "slot" for worship, and a time "slot" for the Word, etc. then we develop a habit of ending prayer, ending worship, and ending the sermon until the next time for those things come around.
Now, I'm not saying that we should have a continuous church service 24/7, because we have jobs and school to go to, sports events to attend, homework to do, "places to go and people to see." But we should never stop being the church, even when the service is over. We should never stop praying, or worshiping, or diving into the Word. When we grow, the church grows, and the church can't grow only on Sunday mornings.
I was talking to a friend of mine after a chapel service last semester. Chapel that morning went about ten minutes over its alloted time so students had about two minutes to rush to their next class. He told me that the worship and sermon time for chapel should each be about twenty minutes long. That way people don't get bored and aggitated, worrying whether or not they'll to get to class on time, and whatnot. After he said this I asked him, "Well what if the worship pastor or speaker was lead by the Spirit to keep going?" This was his response (my paraphrase), "That doesn't mean that everyone else is going to feel led." I didn't know how to reply then, but through our discussion today I realized that that is why we have worship leaders and pastors. The Spirit leads them to help lead other people. If the Spirit gives a word to a pastor at the end of his sermon that would cause him to speak for an extra ten minutes, why on earth would the church become upset? Just because he should have ended ten minutes ago? We obviously would have needed the word, being that it's from God, and we're going to ignore it and be upset about it just because our Sunday afternoon naps would have been ten minutes shorter?
I wonder what kind of things would happen if we showed up to church on Sunday morning and we allowed the Spirit to completely take over and to lead the worship leader, the pastor, and yes, the body, as he felt needed. Somtimes it might take thirty minutes. And sometimes it might take three hours. But imagine how it would translate into our church lives outside of the church service. If we planned our lives around God, instead of planning God into our lives, then we would be allowing the Holy Spirit to move in and through us Monday through Saturday, and not just on Sunday. We would pray and worship continually, and we would devour the Bible.
The church service is for Christians to pray, worship, and to listen to the Word together, to build community and relationships with one another, to hold each other accountable. But if we only give God an hour and a half of our time one day out of the week to do all of this, and to not let him do it all on his time, then how are we going to sqeeze him into our own time Monday through Saturday when we don't have an alloted time for church. When we give God the freedon to lead us on Sunday mornings, then it'll become so much easier to give him the freedom to lead us Monday through Saturday.
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