Thursday, May 03, 2007

First Wednesday: RE-charge

At the Orchard, we have what we call First Wednesday. The first Wednesday of each month (except for maybe a couple of months during the summer to give our teams a break), we gather together to just take a breather. It's a time when our church community gets together to keep first things first and to remind ourselves of why we are Christ followers. It's a time of music (usually all acoustic/unplugged), communion, and especially community.

It's a time to re-focus, re-energize and re-fresh.

This Wednesday we had, in my opinion, ONE of the best gatherings I've ever been a part of. There were people of all ages, various backgrounds and different stages of there journey. My family got to come for the first time in a while, which was cool to see too.

We actually change our auditorium so that it is a unique and different experience than on the weekends. It's a very spiritual experience. Not that our weekends are not, but it's different.

This month, Scott talked about the Eucharist. You can read more about it on his blog post, but the main idea was that we have been called to be a living Eucharist. It's not just a one time act, but a pouring into us that we then pour into others lives. He talked about how some have poured out so much to others but don't always take the time to be re-plenished.

The music was great - just a couple of acoustics (Ken still threw some cool licks on the electric which gave it a nice touch), a djembe (awesome Matt!) and some fantastic vocals (Amanda - wow!). Great community time together - the sound of people meeting or re-meeting and re-connecting was almost deafening. A great time of just re-centering on what it's all about. A great time of the church truly being the church - the body of the living Christ.

Thanks for all of you who were there - I pray you were touched.
I pray that you were re-filled.

If you weren't there, you got to check it out sometime - you won't be disappointed!

Peace.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

quite an amazing night last night! wow...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Amanda has one of those anointed voices where just the sound of it takes you to a different place. Thanks to Diana who gave me a heartfelt "shalom" during our greeting time and I just felt at home and welcome.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a wonderfully spiritual and uplifting experience-I'd like to come sometime