Another brush with God

First off, I have to start by saying that I can only pray it is as beautiful in whatever part of the world you might find yourself reading this blog from as it is here today. It feels like mid-Spring rather than mid-late summer here, and I'm loving every minute of it. High 70s, low humidity, sunny, and breezy - perfect weather in my book. My Dad and I went out golfing this afternoon, and I'm just not sure you can have a better day for it than we had.

And now, onto my story, which takes place last evening. I'm on the core leadership team at CrossWalk, the satellite congregation that McBIC launched almost 3 years ago. Recently, we've gotten into the practice of having meetings every 3 months where we gather together a larger group of leaders from CrossWalk for a time of fellowship, sharing, and also dreaming and visioning for CrossWalk. We had one of those meetings last night in the form of a cookout at one of our other core team member's homes. (And yes, it was an almost perfect night for that as well, although it was almost too chilly for the pool.

The last 6 to 9 months have been rather trying for CrossWalk on a number of levels. Attendance has dipped notably, along with giving. Now, we're not looking at those metrics as a be-all, end all, but they do represent some points for concern. In addition, we've been absolutely bombarded with a number of serious "people issues", the kind of things we tend to run into at CrossWalk all the time, because we're more of a front line ministry and are often connecting with people who aren't your typical "church people". Of course, that's not to say that "church people" don't have issues, but we are definitely better at keeping them hidden.

Anyhow, we've kind of been going through a "state of the ministry" assessment, and this was what we were laying out to the larger leadership group last night. One of the things we've really been impressed to do is make a commitment to dramatically increase the amount of prayer, both individually and corporately, that happens on behalf of CrossWalk. So after we had laid out the "state of the ministry" with our leaders, we got down to the business of prayer. We originally had broken up in smaller groups to pray together, but shortly into that time, this otherwise gorgeous evening was interrupted by a sudden downpour, which brought us all together under the one awning in the lawn. We joined together, with the core team as an inner circle and the rest of the group with hands on us, and prayed.

I think the sense that many of us immediately got was that this was God showing up, showing what He wants to do at CrossWalk. Rain and water are a key symbol for God's spirit throughout Scripture, and so we just prayed that way. If there was any real doubt in my mind that this was a God thing, it was removed when, after we finished praying, as soon we started making hurried preparations to take everything inside, and as soon as one person stepped out from under the canopy, the downpour slowed dramatically, and was completely stopped within 30 seconds to a minute.

Now, could it have all been a coincidence? Yeah, I'm sure it could have been. We've had a number of these little squalls in and around the area the last couple of days (we'd had one at my house right before I left for the meeting). However, as part of this "re-wiring" I talked about that took place with me in Thailand, I've found myself much less willing to "explain away" what initially strikes me as a God thing. From my vantage point, God showed up in our midst last night, and I look forward to Him doing that again and again as we truly begin to seek Him.