Service "Interruption": Business As Unusual.

A few years ago I heard a message from Harvey Carey, pastor of Citadel of Faith Covenant Church in Detroit, Michigan. One of the things he said at that time was that, from week to week, no one knew what church service would look like. He and his congregation remained open to doing whatever God called them to do on that particular day.

That is an unusual way of doing church in the twenty-first century. We tend to be creatures of habit, and we love knowing things in advance. So we have planning meetings. We set agendas. Even here at Bronx Bethany, we spend a lot of time and energy on planning meetings and printing bulletins. (I wonder how high would the stack of papers be if we piled 48 years of bulletins one on top of another.)

Don't get me wrong. I am not denying the value of being well-prepared as we present our service of worship to God and for the people of God. And bulletins are a great thing to have. But when we become over-invested in "sticking to the script", we lose out on the chance to receive counsel and blessing from God Himself.

Just as God equipped us for ministry, He also reserves the right to put our ministry work on pause. He can say, "I know you were scheduled to preach but I want My people to pray." "I know you've worked on this ministry event for five months, but you never asked Me if that's what I want. Cancel it." "I am not giving you a reason: I just want you to trust Me and step down from ministry indefinitely."

And when He, the Lord of Glory, says such things, what is our response? Do we pretend that we don't recognize His voice? Do we justify our plans and move forward without His blessing? Do we love our ministry more than we love our Lord?

It's dangerous to be an expert. We know this church routine inside-out. It is the sin of the Pharisee, who does all the right things in the right way but never gains God's commendation.

God is good to us. Last week Sunday we set aside all we know about doing church in order to embrace God's foolishness, which is always wiser than man's wisdom. And He rewarded us. I pray that we will always be willing to set aside our expertise when God "interrupts".