Sunday, February 28, 2010

Competing with the Gold Medal Game

This morning's service was awesome! It started with the craziness of a broken piano string that buzzed throughout the service like a snare drum, but not even that string could stop the beautiful energy of the Holy Spirit. Seriously - something was moving in that church, and it was powerful!

In the afternoon, I beat myself up for booking a concert on the closing night of the Olympics. What was I thinking??? I mean, I know we're good, but we can't compete with the gold medal hockey game!

We left home after the second period to drive to Faith Gospel Tabernacle in Brampton. We arrived just in time to hear the pastor cry out, "They tied??" As people arrived during our sound check, we got them to give us updates. All I can say is, "Yay, Canada!!!!"

Luckily, people left their homes after the game to come to church! Faith Gospel is a growing church that hosts monthly Gospel concerts. The evening opened with their passionate praise team leading the audience in a mix of Gospel hymns and praise songs. The other artist on the bill was Elvis Gospel impressionist, Vili V. We love Elvis's Gospel music, so all the songs were very familiar to us.

Gerald and I did a guitar set that mixed our originals with praise songs and hymns. We're trying to eliminate solos, so we did harmony on every song but one. As we started to sing the praise songs, we could feel the audience singing along with us. On "Blessed Be Your Name," we invited them to sing on the chorus, and they sang with gusto! We used the second verse of "Blessed Be Your Name" to transition into a testimony about our car accident. When we ended our set with "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," people didn't even wait for the invitation - they just burst into song, joining us on all three verses and choruses. Sometimes you just tap into something greater than yourself, and we felt that tonight. There was a lot of love in the room, and we really felt like we'd been welcomed into this awesome church's family.

"Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering, blessed be your name!"

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