This past Sunday the members of our congregation had a bit of a surprise in store for the service.
At the present time, we have no full-time minister serving our parish so the minister at a neighboring church -about 12 miles or so from ours -is the vice-pastor and he serves us three Sundays out of the month with usually one Sunday when we have a supply pastor or speaker who leads the worship service.
The President of the Church Council always makes any pertinent announcements every Sunday prior to the beginning of the service and two days ago, after he finished making his "announcements" he said "Oh and we do have one more announcement today. We have no speaker as the gentleman who was to be with us isn't here and I haven't been able to reach him on the telephone."
Hmmm. What to do now?
He asked if anyone would be willing to lead the service and one member did step forward and said he would be happy to try to do that. That still left us with no one to deliver the sermon though.
Early on in the liturgy, a young man walked quietly up to the chairs behind the pulpit and said something to the man leading the service and then the younger fellow walked back and sat down.
Just before the time for the sermon, the liturgist announced that the young man had come up and told him that he would be willing to try to deliver a sermon based loosely on one he'd had to read a couple weeks ago when the church youth group had the service but he'd also try to interject points from the readings of the day in it too whenever he could.
And so, that's how the son and grandson of two of my neighbors down the street came to deliver a sermon that was pretty much just off the top of his head but one that he did a really great job in speaking his thoughts in a very organized fashion!
The mix-up on the speaker and all that did provide for one of the fastest services we've had but it all worked out quite well anyway!
Leaving church, as the young man and the other one shook everyone's hands as we were exiting the sanctuary, I told the younger guy -who is a Freshman this year in college -that perhaps he should think about the ministry as his potential calling as I shook his hand, gave him a big hug and he returned it to me!
He really should listen to me because, yes, he did a very good job!
5 comments:
That is so awesome. That was the Holy Spirit leading him. Perhaps he has found his calling, or maybe he had something to say that someone in that church really needed to hear that day. Either way, awesome.
:)
It is always so inspiring when someone can be led to take part like this. Its just as well they are able to.
We will be without a Church Minister from March as she has just given notice. :-(
Maggie x
Nuts in May
As Kat said. Given the chance, The Spirit will help.
This story is the perfect antidote to the Newtown tragedy, evidence that in spite of random darkness, there are good young people that will continue to make the world a better place. nice post Jeni.
I don't seem to be able to log i as older eyes, so I wanted you to know I was by ... and that the previous comment was mine.
Bud aka Older Eyes
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