West Cocoa Chat

There are times in the life of a church when things seem to just click. You walk away from a conversation, congregational worship, life group meeting, or a phone call and you can feel the Holy Spirit working in the lives of the church. If you wanted to throw a sports term in it would be tantamount to being “in the zone.”

My mind goes to an NBA Final in which Michael Jordan hit six or seven “3-point shots” in one game. I remember at one point Jordan looked over at the T.V. Announcers, sheepishly smiling and shrugging his shoulders in almost embarrassment at how easily the “3’s” were falling. My son Steven had that 4 for 4 game earlier this Fall with a pair of doubles. He said the baseball looked as big as a basketball.

That’s how this past Sunday felt at our church. It started off with our first set of songs. As we were standing and singing, one of our worship leaders who has been away since August undergoing training to become an Air Force “P.J.,” suddenly appeared off to the side with a mic singing the tenor part. Paul wasn’t expected back in town until just before Christmas. His wife who is a bit short didn’t notice him at first. Then when Paul walked to the top of our “stage area” it hit her. At first she said to herself, “That’s Paul leading singing. That’s Paul leading singing.” Then it hit her and she burst out, “That’s Paul leading singing!” She ran up to him and gave him one of those hugs that all men and women deserve who spend time away from their families serving our country. There wasn’t a dry eye in the auditorium.

Then we had the children of our church give us a preview of a play they are going to present called “The Big, Big, Story.” This is where I’ll make the disclaimer that when your church is in that “zone” it doesn’t necessarily mean (my opinion) everything comes off technically correct. It wouldn’t be “family” if that were so.

Any way, our tech guy didn’t know that the children were going to sing with a C.D. so it took a few minutes to cue it up. In the mean time we had about 25 kids on stage who were nervously twitching until one of them said loud enough for the mic to pick up, “Any day now!” It broke everyone up. I love kids being involved in the worship for it lets your church know that it is alive!

Our preacher Don delivered a great message on the true meaning of Christmas. It is so easy to get over whelmed by all the details of the Holidays that you miss celebrating Jesus.

Our life group was a blessing as always. I’m so proud of my good friend Chuck (we fondly refer to him as “the Chuckster”) and the way in which he has stepped up to be the facilitator of our group. He and his wife Lee make a great team.

Then there was tonight’s phone call to one of our members. Their young son had been very ill and at one point had been diagnosed with food poisoning. They had to take a couple of trips to the ER but he is doing better now. I loved how the father ended our conversation. He thanked me for calling and then he said, “You know Cecil, you don’t realize just how fortunate we are to have a church like ours until your family faces a crisis like the one we had this past week.”

Our church isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I think God for it. Forgive me for bragging just a bit. Have a good day family.