My Easter Reflections (part 1)

I think for me, one of the aspects that made this past Easter more special than usual was that we went into with a Church-wide Day of Prayer and Fasting from Wednesday evening through Thursday evening. This personal yet small sacrifice allowed me to focus more clearly on the sacrifice of Christ. The most meaningful part of that 24-hour time period was the 75 minutes that seven of us men on staff spent together in prayer. Pastor Tim, myself, Craig Peters (our Facility Manager), David Felty (our Worship Arts Director); Pastor Whitie; Pastor Doug and Dennis Jordan (our Finance manager) had a very informal yet special time of reading Scripture and praying as God lead each of us. Frankly, it has been a long time since I spent 75 minutes uninterrupted before the Lord.

For me personally, the highlight of the weekend was our Good Friday Night of Worship. Pastor Tim led this evening and it was amazing – without question, the best Good Friday Worship I have ever attended. What made it more special for me was that my family got to sit on the back row together for the entire evening. Joy got home from college just as the service was starting. I had no part of the service and Laura did not have to play on stage so we sat together. I honestly think the last time the four of us sat together in church was way back when I was a youth pastor and the kids were too young to remember. How cool it was to sit together; worship together; and take communion together, especially in light of the fact that this was our last Easter before both of our kids will be gone off to college and empty nest begins to settle in.

Saturday was a great day for me leading up to our first of four Easter Celebration services. I planned to sleep in a bit longer than usual but I woke up at 6:30am due to my small bladder. As soon as I did my mind kicked in and my allergies did as well causing my nose to start running. I knew I would never get back to sleep so I got up, showered and was into the church by about 7am. It was one of those rare times that it was just me in the entire building. I honestly love being in the church by myself (unless of course it is late in the evening – for some reason that spooks me). I was able to go into the auditorium and spend time going through my Easter message and meditating before the Lord as I looked at each of the seats that were set up in the auditorium, thinking about who God was going to bring in over our four services to fill those seats and to hear about Jesus.

I then had to run an errand out to the Rockvale Outlets. It was still early enough that traffic wasn't bad. I used the trip out to the outlets to go through my message one more time. On the way back to the church I put on a powerful worship CD, cranked it as loud as I could possibly crank it and still be able to stand it, and spent the ride home in an amazing one-on-one time of worship with my Risen Redeemer.

When I got back to the church I took time to walk through the building and found myself filled with awe and wonder at the anticipation of how God was going to use our entire ministry and every square footage of our facility to meet thousands of people where they were and help move them to where He wants them to be. I then went home to have our big dinner of the day over lunch as a family realizing that I was going to have to be back to the church by 2pm for all of the final preparations, prep meetings and rehearsals for our Saturday Night Easter Service at Grace!