Sunday Morning Worship

For those of you who will peek at this blog before Sunday morning worship at Ivanrest, I'm praying for a blessing for you as you gather together.

I just finished worship at Christ Church in Old City Jerusalem. Christ Church is a congregation that chooses to recognize our Christian roots in Judaism, so some of our readings were done in Hebrew. It was a good blend of both contemporary and liturgical.

Being in Israel brought some of the words of the songs to life for me. We started with "Come, Now is the Time to Worship". In this city filled with passionate Jews and Muslims I couldn't help but smile when we sang that one day every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord and one day every knee will bow. And I realize that the Matt Redman probably wasn't thinking about the land of Israel when he wrote "Blessed be Your Name", but when we sang:

Blessed be your name
in the land that is plentiful
where your streams of abundance flow...

Blessed be your name
when I'm found in the desert place
though I walk through the wilderness...

...I pictured the land I've been looking at over the past week with it's streams of abundance and it's wilderness/desert places. Powerful.

So, I pray that you too will be open to God's Spirit wanting to bless you or challenge you or encourage you though worship this morning. I miss being with you, my church family!

(By the way, the pictures were taken before the service as the praise team was practicing. The seats were full with more off to the side.)