Photo by permission from http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bigevil600

Responses to yesterday (if you don’t know it, it may help you to read yesterday’s bloggage before you carry on) were a bit interesting. After telling our church that I have been called to a new role there was a stunned silence. I could see on people’s faces that they were a bit surprised / shocked / upset / stunned [delete as appropriate].

I told the church at the end of the service, just before we sang ‘To God be the glory’, which gave us all a chance to refocus on him.

Afterwards, once they had recovered, the wonderful people at our church were very warm, encouraging, kind and uplifting. I had hoped that they wouldn’t string the bunting out straight away (‘Hooray he’s going’) or wear black armbands (‘It’s terrible news’) and bless them, they blessed me so much.

Later in the day the news was announced by the EBA and I then posted it on here. Subsequently I have had lots of very kind messages on Facebook, emails and text messages. They are very encouraging and blessed me no end, especially as I was so down about telling the church. Thank you all.

But the thing that blessed me most was when, after the service, someone came up to me and (while briefly mentioning my news) wanted to say that God had spoken to me through the sermon. That meant more to me than anything kind or thoughtful that anyone has said to me or written to me about the move. Don’t get me wrong, don’t get in a huff if you sent me a message or said something kind, but I was blessed because for that person the most important thing in the service was not me, but Jesus and what he had said to him.

“YES!” That’s my prayer each time I stand in a pulpit and it was so encouraging that it had happened yesterday in the midst of everything else.

I remember a small Baptist chapel in rural Devon that I visited before I trained at Bible college. I was cutting my preaching teeth (and the congregations probably bore the teethmarks afterwards) and trying to discern whether God was calling me to be a Minister. As I entered the pulpit (and you had to climb up into it) there was a small piece of paper sellotaped to the lectern top. On it were these words:

“Sir, we would see Jesus.”

It was a message from the congregation to the preacher. I am not sure if they changed it when a lady preacher came. But it has lodged in my memory and is my prayer for all who are sitting in congregations when I stand up to preach – look at Jesus.

I rejoice that this happened yesterday.

But it can happen to us each day if we are living sermons (or free samples of Jesus).

Or, flipping the context around, when you go to church is it to meet your friends, hear the preacher or to see Jesus?

Be blessed, be a blessing.