Over the past several weeks our congregation has been exploring healing - physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental. Today we had a healing service...but not the way I had in mind. Going into worship I was excited about some of the new things we were going to try.
Yet, We had few "hiccups" with the order of worship and the worship leader. This irritated me a bit, but I was keeping my cool, looking forward to our acts of healing after communion.
Then in the middle of the service during a hymn, one of our elderly members who sings in the choir passed out. (This is the third time he has done this at church - the second time since I have been there!) Thankfully he passed out sitting down. The hymn we were singing was - "Have Thine Own Way Lord." (Ironic, because worship certainly wasn't going the way I intended!)
So some of the men in the choir fireman-carried him into the fellowship hall where luckily we had an EMT in the congregation who was able to provide assistance until the rescue squad arrived. We continued the service with a prayer for healing for our "fallen" comrade and then attempted to continue with the rest of the order of worship.
In the end, I think that this poor gentleman's fainting spell really set the tone for the rest of the service. This may sound weird, but somehow the kinks in the (read: my) plans created space for God to move in the midst of the service. People shared authentically about what was going on in their own lives. They approached the healing centers (anointing with oil, shared prayer, remembering their baptism, and kneeling at the altar rail) with a different kind of mindset.
If anyone was touched by the service or experienced any kind of healing, there is no question that it was the power of God moving and not the design and implementation of the service! What a day!
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