The theme for the week seems to be beautiful worship born out of real difficulty.  Yesterday morning I posted a few simple reflections on Tuesday night’s Gathering and then happily went about my day.  Right up until 5PM.  That would be when our Mason campus director, Brett, called to mention that we had a small problem.  The room we had reserved (the one we are ALWAYS in!) had been reassigned for the night.  Funny thing – no one ever told us that, so we were caught a little off guard.  Here’s one of those simple church rules – you don’t want to move the location of your service on 4 hours notice!!  But our production team blew it up and made it work.  A series of Facebook, text, email and twitter messages helped redirect a bunch of people to the new room and we had people in place at the normal room to redirect those who didn’t get the message. Ah…problem solved.

But…let’s talk about the new venue for a minute.  It has two sections.  One, a completely run down, decommissioned food court and the other an amazing outdoor patio that fits a couple hundred people.  Obvious choice, right?  Outside we went – especially since rain wasn’t in the forecast!!  We had an amazing time of worship.  The first half of the talk went well.  And then it started to rain.  Church rule #2 – rain and sound equipment don’t have the best of relationships.  I had never started a talk outside and half way through asked a whole crowd of people to grab their chairs and move inside with me.  I have now.

A disaster?  Not even close!  We finished up the night inside and closed with one final song of worship.  No band.  No amplification.  Nothing other than voices and one guitar.  As we stood there singing, I couldn’t help but marvel at the lengths God had gone to in reminding all of us that it’s not about songs and bands as much as it’s about worship.  I love worshipping with our bands leading.  But you don’t need a band to worship.  Just a heart that loves God!  It ended up being this beautiful night.

So, I can’t wait for tonight at UMD.  I’m excited…and a little nervous!