CREEDE HINSHAW: God uses parishioner, door to make a point

The most significant moments in worship are sometimes unplanned or unanticipated by the worship leaders.

I worship in a church with excellent worship leaders. The liturgy is always moving and prayerfully considered. The flow of the service from the opening greeting to the closing postlude is attentive to the seasons of the church year and the needs of the congregation. One can expect holy and sacred worship week after week in the preaching, the music, the prayers.

And yet … and yet … there is always room for the Holy Spirit to move creatively in any worship service, either because of advance preparations of the leaders or in spite of them.

Last Sunday, our pastor was preaching about the odd gifts brought the Christ child by the magi (Matthew 2: 1-12). He was carefully moving toward a moment when he would call the congregation to consider whether we were willing to sacrifice our selves in order to follow Jesus. Eloquently, he called us to ponder our own response of obedience and discovery, asking what we would offer. Then he paused. He paused long enough to let the gravity of his words sink in. Silence in our sanctuary. It was quite effective.

But that silence came to an abrupt end in an unplanned moment with a solemn thud reverberating through the sanctuary when one of our large wooden sanctuary doors closed with firm, solid finality. A member of the congregation, a very faithful older member who had left the sanctuary earlier in the sermon, became an unwitting instrument of God by returning to the service at the crucial moment in the sermon, an instrument who allowed that door to thud through the sanctuary.

The door closed with apocalyptic finality, the sound echoing in my soul. Did others hear it that distinctly? I do not know, but what I heard in and through that sound effect was the announcement we do not have the luxury of unlimited time to decide to lay our lives before the Christ. Comes a time, comes a moment, when the door will be firmly closed, and it will be too late to be faithful. Many of Jesus’ parables (See Matthew 25, for instance) speak to this finality.

That slowly closing heavy oaken door, accelerating the last few seconds before finally, forcefully rendezvousing with the door frame to thud impressively precisely at the moment when we in that sanctuary were pondering our own response, was the sublime work of God. The same God who so carefully set the galaxies and universes in motion knows how to call forth just the right effect at just the right moment to bring home a point already made very well by the preacher. It was, not to be too cute, a hinge moment.

You never know what’s going to happen in worship. Be alert! God will use each service to speak to you. P.S. Why not strive for perfect attendance in 2019?

Email Creede Hinshaw at [email protected].