We often joke that our church is a “church in a trailer”. While our service is not held in a double-wide parked out on someone’s back forty, we do haul all of our AV equipment each week to the elementary school gym that is our current home. In addition to setting up chairs for about a hundred and fifty people, areas for a nursery and a kid’s Sunday School class, we have techs who run cable for mics, set up the keyboards and electronic drums, put up two projectors, rig up the soundboard, run up the screens, set out the hallway display monitor, check the batteries on a million different things…our chief sound and all-around tech guy is a genius. Most Sundays, things work efficiently and seamlessly.
And yet.
There are weeks – not often, thankfully – when all that can go wrong, does. The first person I saw yesterday morning was our chief sound and all-around tech genius kneeling at a computer hooked up to the hallway display monitor.
“Technical difficulties?” I asked.
“If it weren’t for technical difficulties, I wouldn’t have a job.”
While nothing absolutely catastrophic happened, all sorts of little things were…off. You could honestly say that the technical side of the service was not our best effort.
And yet.
The topic of the sermon? Joy.
Joy, the inward state of resting in all of the victories God has already won on your behalf, as opposed to happiness, an often fleeting emotion that is determined by outward circumstances. Joy, which leads to contentment even when things are falling apart around you.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (ESV)
And yet.
There are weeks – not often, thankfully – when all that can go wrong, does. The first person I saw yesterday morning was our chief sound and all-around tech genius kneeling at a computer hooked up to the hallway display monitor.
“Technical difficulties?” I asked.
“If it weren’t for technical difficulties, I wouldn’t have a job.”
While nothing absolutely catastrophic happened, all sorts of little things were…off. You could honestly say that the technical side of the service was not our best effort.
And yet.
The topic of the sermon? Joy.
Joy, the inward state of resting in all of the victories God has already won on your behalf, as opposed to happiness, an often fleeting emotion that is determined by outward circumstances. Joy, which leads to contentment even when things are falling apart around you.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (ESV)
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