Revival...

 This morning my church, First Presbyterian in Fort Wayne if your interested, held our annual Church in the Park service at 11:00am followed by a carry-in lunch.  

Not to brag, but my fabulous fruit salad had completely disappeared before I got that far in the buffet line.  But that's not what I'm writing about this evening.  I want to focus on the sheer joy of the worship service itself.  

I have never been to a Tent Revival but that's what it made me think of. My father had told me about what tent revivals were like when he was a child.  Today we were not in a tent but in a covered pavilion in the park with open sides so it felt tent-like to me.  Happily there were ceiling fans which kept the temperature much more comfortable than it would have been in a tent on this very hot day.  While we did not have the traditional 'altar call' we did have everyone who was headed back to school come forward for the 'blessing of the backpacks.'

Adding to the joyous feeling of the worship experience was the excellent music provided by a jazz group including drums, keyboard, sax, trumpet and bass.  They were wonderful and the music was all familiar, at least to people of my age.  The prelude included "Blessed Assurance" and "Be Thou My Vision" and during the service we sang "Amazing Grace," "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," "Precious Lord Take My Hand" and "Just a Closer Walk with Thee."  The title of the sermon, movingly delivered by our Korean Language minister was "Faith over Fear."

People were laughing and clapping during the service and the joy certainly spilled over into the lunch time.  

At heart I am a traditionalist, very comfortable worshiping in our sanctuary, so I am not suggesting that I would want to worship in a park every Sunday.  Except for the joyousness of course, that I can take on a regular basis.