taken for granted

Just back from our big annual church conference where I had the privilege of planning and leading worship Sunday morning. It's always a great experience to be on the platform at conference, to look out on this gathering of God's people, to sing and pray and worship. Like I said, it was a great experience for me.

And apparently it was also a good worship experience for at least some of those gathered. I fielded quite a few positive comments about the service, for which I am appreciative. There were also some surprises in those comments.

Early in the service the kids were called forward, and I jumped down on the floor to talk with them about fear and love. The kids were awesome: full of energy, answering the questions, giving creative and insightful answers, like only kids can do. The surprise was in the number of people who said what a risk it was to have a story like that, how brave I was to take that on, and how unusual it was to have a children's time at conference. These comments all may have something to say about why we seem to have fewer and fewer kids in our churches! I didn't even think twice about meeting the kids.

The second surprise was the category of comments that lifted up the flow and integration of worship. Again, for me that's pretty much a no-brainer. Especially at this big gathering of Brethren, continuity, flow, and direction seem like priorities for worship. I'm not talking style, but rather quality. How else would we plan and carry out worship except with our best??

The third observation was that a lot of folks found the simple hymn chorus Don't be afraid to be very powerful as part of the response to confession. Many requests for this piece, which I got from the Church of the Brethren Hymnal Supplement.

The reminder for me in these observations it to not take for granted the gifts that I've been given, and to remember that just because something is "routine" or "expected" from my point of view that it well might be new, interesting and empowering to someone else.