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Apologies All Around
Man, I feel like a big slacker. I’ve been neglecting my posting duties for the last couple days; actually, this is the longest I’ve gone without posting. The weekend was pretty busy and I either didn’t have the opportunity to write, or I didn’t have the inclination.
As much as I’d like to write about other things that went on over the weekend, the dominant thing in my mind right now is the first service of oneplace, which, as many know because of my constant raving, was last night. Here’s some general feelings or thoughts that I had throughout yesterday:
I came early to help set things up. After the stream of things I’m qualified to do (heavy lifting) ran dry, I was just sitting in the bleachers and listening to the band. It was one of those moments where the music and the situation that I’m in seemed to perfectly synch up…it was a moment of incredible beauty. It was during this moment, listening to music, surrounded by people that I feel a true sense of community with, that I realized the true wonder of what was going on. God has subtly moved to arrange the lives of all the people in the room toward this moment. What an incredible confluence of circumstances is required even for oneplace to exist; people who, years ago, never would have imagined doing something as crazy as starting a church, meet, do it and do it well.
There are some frustrations that I’ve experienced though. Greg and I were talking about this at length the other day and he said something that really sums up how I feel. He said something along the lines of, “When you have something like oneplace that you feel so strongly about and that you feel really invested in, it’s frustrating when others can’t see what you do.” Here’s an example: after the service, I talked to a few people and asked them what they thought. They tersely replied, “The worship was really good.” What about everything else? If that’s all someone got from oneplace, what an incredible amount has been missed. I hope these people stick around oneplace long enough to be broken away from wanting to be entertained, wanting easily digestible, cliche non-challenging teaching, and settling for cheap superficial facades over difficult, but rewarding realities.
All gripes, worries, and problems aside, I truly felt that the service went really well. I have faith that, through oneplace, God will meet with us. One of the messages that hopefully clearly came across last night, especially in the video, was that that God has gone to incredible lengths to reach us. I was reminded of those lengths by a poem by John Donne that I read today. I’ll leave you with that, his Holy Sonnet #11:
Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make his temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting, (for he ne’er begun)
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,
Coheir to his glory, and Sabbath’s endless rest;
And as a robbed man, which by search doth find
His stol’n stuff sold, must lose or buy it again:
The Son of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom he had made, and Satan stol’n, to unbind.
‘Twas much, that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.