pleasing the heart of God

I had the opportunity to preach at a different church the past couple weeks. It's always great to see how others worship. Everyone does everything just a little different.

Sitting in the front row of the church, I don't usually get a good view of how the congregation is engaging the service until the sermon. Yesterday, the row of people behind me had several people with a wide array of physical and developmental disabilities. They were pretty obvious because wheelchairs and people with disabilities aren't often very prominent in churches (even though you'd think the congregations that Jesus ministered to were full of them!?!)

In 16 years of church ministry, I don't think I've ever heard anyone sing as loud and passionate as this group. They were REALLY off key and I don't think they could have sang any louder but they were into it - clapping, singing, smiling and firing out the Thank you Jesus and Amens after the particularly good songs.

As a visiting pastor, I think I learned more about the heart of God from this group than anything I could have shared with them.