GOD BLEW UP OUR SERVICE...AND IT WAS AWESOME

This past Saturday night at House of Freedom, God decided to blow things up…in an awesome way! I am thankful that everyone was obedient to the Holy Spirit and agreed to put aside the “church service” for the night and “to be the church.”

We began worship, and “made it” through three songs. I say “made it’ because things were just not right. There was a spirit of heaviness in the room that was not allowing for these songs to be songs of praise. At least from my lips, they seemed to be empty words. I got up from the drums and expressed how I felt, and that I felt God wanted us to “blow things up” for the night. As I described the burden on my heart for non-believers, those that used to lived for Christ and now live for themselves, and just an overall apathetic view of God in our culture, it felt that everybody was starting to discover that they too were sharing this burden.

So, we decided to have the guys go to one end of the worship center and pray and the ladies did the same thing at the opposite end of the worship center. This is where we started “to be the church.” Powerful things began to happen when we agreed in prayer for each other, lifted up those that used to live for God, and just prayed! After our time of prayer, we gathered back together and shared what God was doing in our lives and what we felt God speaking to us through our prayer time. The overall feeling by the end of the night was FAMILY! God has blessed us with a church that doesn’t just feel like, but IS a family! A family cares for one another, prays together, is hurt when other family members hurt, rejoices when family members rejoice. That is the heart of House of Freedom. A family that is sold out for Jesus, and living life together.

We also had Ashlei and Jotham share their personal testimonies and it was great to hear how God has and is working in their lives. We ended with another time of worship, but this was much different from the first set!

With this said, we are still going to encounter problems and heavy hearts. The lesson I learned…again, is church isn’t about the service. It is about the people being the church: praying for one another, sharing in the hurt and the joyous times, learning together, and serving God together. This is a hard thing to do for a church plant. Most people want a nice little church service, wrapped in the same package each week. I am sorry, but that's not us. I know if we conformed to that, our attendance would be much higher which is what you are always asked about as a church plant. But God has not called HoF to conform, but to follow the calling he has given us. The calling to offer something real and genuine and to meet people where they are at, not offer the same packaged deal each week.

That is what happened at HoF this week and that starts to explain our heart. We don’t have everything figured out. We are all imperfect people running after the Perfect One. But it sure is nice having others to run along side of you.