Tuesday 20 June 2017

An ordinary Sunday transformed

Sunday began like any ordinary Sunday, time in the office, final prayer and prep, then down to set up and pray together.  The service was ordinary, the preaching was ordinary, the coffee was ordinary.  But I was reminded again that God is at work in the ordinary and everyday to bring about the extraordinary.

As a church we were already planning for a baptism on the 2nd July.  But by the end of the service we were planning for five.  Five very different people with very different life stories, ranging from teens to experienced, as well as across the socio-economic background all asking to be baptised to publicly declare that they have repented of their sin and trusted in Jesus and found new life in him.  Not that they trusted him on Sunday morning, for some it was months and even years in the past but now finally they wanted to be baptised.  Inevitably there was a sense of thankfulness to God and a bit of a buzz as we packed away the ordinary and everyday components of a church service in a school hall.

But God was not yet done.  I received a phone call in the afternoon to say that one of our congregation was soon to be called home to hear her Saviour's well done.  It was particularly apt because that morning, in God's timing, we'd been hearing his word from Ecclesiastes 7.  I arrived at the hospital just after God had called our friend home and was able to pray with the family and provide what support I could by bodily being there.

It was a day that reminded me of the privilege of the pastor's call.  To teach God's word and see people come to faith and apply God's word as they live life following Jesus right though life until they are finally called home where Jesus will wake and welcome them.  And amazingly all of it looks so ordinary so mundane, so everyday.  And yet God is gloriously and mysteriously at work to bring glory to himself precisely in the ordinary.

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