Sunday's Present....well....everything

Last week I shared what Benay and I call God's Sunday presents to us. Something really cool that He gives us each Sunday during our house church times together with Brasilians.

I'm not dedicated enough to share every Sunday but yesterday was too good not to share.

In 2003 I felt led to start a prayer meeting each week at the old building where our church family met. To have a time where we could meet together as a family and pray each week. I knew not everyone could come but I really wanted to have a time like this. We started with about 12 people for the first few times we met and I was encouraged. Then the number started to drop until it was me, my teammate Matt and our dear brother Paulo Renato. For about 3 months we literally sat in a circle with our knees touching each other and prayed together.

I confess I let human expectations dictate my mood for the first month of it being just the three of us. I was upset that "only" three people were there every week. But then God reminded me that His ways are not our ways and that His expectations are different than ours. I was "reminded", as silly as that sounds in a prayer meeting, that God was with the three of us every week. I was reminded that Matt and Paulo were with me EVERY week since we began the prayer meeting. Matt was instrumental in encouraging me to start the prayer meeting, in helping me with ways to grow the prayer lives of everyone there, to think of new ways to pray (contemplative, silent, etc) and in encouraging me with his presence every week. Paulo is one of the most humble prayer warriors I've ever been blessed to be around.

God began to show me that He would rather have 3 people who wanted to be together in His name than 100 who might be there for God's "brownie points."

He began to take away my pre-conceived ideas of what a successful prayer meeting "should" look like and He deepened the prayer lives of 3 men through these 3 months together.

What in the world does this have to do with yesterday?

We had 3 people in our home yesterday. Three.

The old me would look to make excuses: Today is a holiday (it is) and some people are traveling (they are). Or get mad: "Three people? Three? We've been here almost 6 years and only three people were here? What are we doing? We'll be in Brasil for ever because it's taking so long to get people to open their ears to the Good News."

But, I am constantly reminded on a daily basis of what I learned during my three months with Matt and Paulo. God wants our heart.......all of it! If I get so wrapped up in earthly expectations (numbers of members and/or visitors at any given church function, contribution, ongoing bible studies, hours spent in the "church office" per week, etc.) I would have missed what God did yesterday.

Yesterday God brought the perfect people to house church. It was a day Benay and I won't soon forget.

Our daughter, Ansley, is our most creative (musically, artistically, etc) child. She has fought this a little as she has grown up because she wasn't convinced these gifts were really "gifts." We've encouraged her to use those gifts for God. Yesterday as we sang in house church she left and went upstairs. She was up there for a while and I started to go and get her. When you have 10 people together (one being Ansley's good friend), and one leaves it can make a dent in the singing. Ansley and Bronwyn are, like their mom, gifted singers who really enjoy the joy of singing, clapping, and snapping (Giu introduced this one) to some of our praise songs. Anyway, she came back downstairs with a guitar. She had gone upstairs to practice a song that we sing. No sheet music, just started playing it by ear. She came back down and wanted to sing the song and play it once softly, to make sure she had it right, and then crank it up a notch on the second time around. What a blessing! She is beginning to see how she can use her giftedness for the Lord. We were all blessed by her Spirit led playing yesterday. Then our daughter Carys got up and went into the kitchen. She was gone for a while and I asked Benay where she went. She told me Carys asked to fix the Lord's Supper. Since it was taking a while I went in to check on her. She was in the middle of a grape juice mess but was so happy to be doing this for God and our church family. About that time Anderson rolled in and asked if he could help her with the crackers. They both got the Lord's Supper ready and we were blessed by Carys and Giu serving everyone. Later I asked Giu if he would say a prayer and he said "sure." I don't know if you are like me but I would prefer to listen to a new believer's prayer everytime. There are no "church" words that I grew up hearing in almost every prayer at our church ("guide, guard and direct us"........nobody spoke like that unless it was prayer time).

A new believer just "talks" to God and that is exactly what God wants. We are just talking to our dad. It was a blessing for all of us to be a part of Giu's conversation with his dad. He also shared with the group how God had spoken with him through Psalm 49 this week and helped him deal with some anger he felt towards a friend. Again, I was not like Giu when I was 17.

It was then time for Benay to lead our study. Normally we have a kid's class while the adults have a more in depth study. Since all of the kids, except ours, were gone we decided to combine our study. Every person read scripture as we spoke of God's faithfulness. Combining adults and kids in such a natural setting is something that I love about house church.

Garrett had said he would pray if Giu prayed. I asked him if he would say the prayer to end our study time together. Garrett is kind of shy when it comes to public speaking. He gets it naturally from his dad. I'm not and have never been a big fan of public speaking. So he didn't want to do it. I'm thankful there is no pressure on him of "having to" do something in public when he doesn't feel led to do it. He is learning that God has gifted us differently and each gift is special. I asked if anyone else wanted to say our prayer and Bronwyn jumped right in and said she wanted to. One more blessing as she ended our time together.

After house church Bronwyn went upstairs and got a keyboard and brought it down because she wanted to play a song with Ansley. Fabi, Ansley's good friend who had her dad drive her to our house just for house church, was assigned the singing part by Ansley(it wasn't a question- it was, "and Fabi you can sing"...and Fabi jumped right in). The three girls then spent about an hour figuring out chords and singing a few church songs together. In English this song is called "Light the Fire." Here's what it sounded like in portuguese:

Afterwards I took most of the kids and Giu to a soccer game of our favorite team. We won.

Leaving the stadium God blessed us with this beautiful sunset.

After house church Benay and I talked about how we love that our kids feel the freedom to worship God from their heart. We saw that today and were blessed to be a part of it.

As I began this blog I wasn't even thinking of the number 3 and how it related to what happened years ago in the prayer meeting and how we had 3 people yesterday in the house church that meets in our house. God has worked on my heart a great deal since moving to Brasil. He is helping me to see more with His eyes instead of my own. He has shown me that 3 people on fire for the Lord can do more than 40 people who show up but only "play church." Please pray for us to have a house full of people on fire for the Lord.