It happened a long time ago, in a small church not so far away. The music team tried to do a special Good Friday service. We tried to coordinate clips from the film The Passion of the Christ, with readings and music. We overshot our abilities.
During the service, everything was a struggle, it felt disjointed and “not right.” You could cut the tension with a knife. At the same time, the worship leader was missing his music for the next song. He was inwardly panicking.
Suddenly the wife of the keyboard player got up and stopped the service. (Thank you, God.) She said that she sensed a separation between the worship team and the congregation, and invited everyone attending to move closer together.
While this was going on, God gave me “a knowing” of where the missing music was. I left the platform, went to the front pew and pulled out the music. I walked back up and put the music on the worship leader’s music stand. He was so distracted that he never saw me leave and get the music. He thought the music suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I love that.
Our church poet had originally wanted to read a poem he had written, but the decision was made beforehand that he not do the poem. When everything in the service seemed to shift (fall apart), he decided that he would read his poem. He got up and read his poem, about the Apostle Peter cutting off the ear of Malchus.
After the service he asked his wife if she thought it was a bad idea for him to have read the poem. “A bad idea?”, she said. “At the exact time you were reading your poem, the same scene from The Passion was displaying on the screen behind you. It was the perfect idea.” We never could have coordinated that if we practiced for a week.
There was a young couple attending the service that night. After the service, the man said that he wanted to attend our church. He said it was the best service he had ever attended. It certainly was real.
I think what was special about this service was that people listened to God:
– Someone had the courage to interrupt the service.
– Someone decided to read his poem at the God ordained time.
– Someone left the platform and got the music.
People listened and God worked out the details. It was an interesting evening; it was a wonderful service. It was real people, worshipping a real God in a real way. It was a good Good Friday. It was amazing.
