We’ve been in Brasov, Romania for the last six days at our squad debrief. We have rested and received some great inspiring teaching. We love our individual teams, but the times when the whole squad is together I think people come alive more spiritually and we really begin to see how we are becoming a church.
Last Sunday my teammate, Liz Adcock, was video chatting with her parents and her mom asked if she had been to church. Liz said, “No we kind of do church all the time. We kind of are a church.” At the beginning of the Race “We are the church” sounded a bit far-fetched and after a while started to get trite. Now I’m beginning to see the vision. As we get comfortable with one another and love one another more, I’m receiving a new vision for what church looks like.
A few nights ago after dinner many of us were sitting in the room where we had been worshipping and receiving teaching all week. The Team leaders, Squad leaders, and coaches had been out at a special dinner and did not arrive at the time we usually began. 7:30 rolled around and our leaders were not there yet. At first I thought I would stand up and call everyone to start praying out loud to kick off our nightly worship together. Then Dan starting singing some VBS song and I ran to the front and joined him.
At first, people were a bit bored, but soon they were standing up and everyone was leading their favorite song from childhood. We continued getting “undignified” before our Lord for about 20 minutes until our Squad leader, Allison Johnston, arrived with a few team leaders and exclaimed, “I didn’t realize we had a VBS anointing in the house tonight!” It was a great way to usher in a spirit of joy for our evening together as a church.
So this leaves me with one question. What would you do if it was time for church start and the pastor and worship leaders were not present? Who would call the Body to prayer? Who would give the word? Would you stand and praise or all just file out the church quietly?
