I saw a woman wearing a shirt with "Guess" on it...so I said "Implants?"

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THAT:

#1 - Geoff & Shannon Husa and the girls came to Pathway this morning. We're going to support them when they go back to work with the Mibu in Papua New Guinea next month. They want to get to know the people of Pathway better, so even though they weren't on the agenda for the morning they came for the morning's services. He told me earlier in the week they'd be coming so I asked him to read Scripture. I'd call him up, ask him a few questions about the process of going back to the field, and then he'd read Jonah, chapter 2 - the passage from which I preached this morning. (I'm doing a 4-week series on Jonah.) I choose a different person each week to read Scripture, so it was no big deal to have Geoff do it.

When they came in before the service I touched base with him about the order of service and he reminded me that Jonah is one of the books he's translated into the Mibu language.
[Light bulb goes on! "Hey, I have an idea..."]
When the time came, after our brief Q & A, I asked the people to turn to Jonah 2 in their Bibles and follow along. Then Geoff read the passage in Mibu! He called out the verse number every two or three verses so we had an idea where he was in his reading.
We encountered God's Word with the added bonus of hearing it in what was, to our ears, a very strange language. But to the Mibu it is the same Word of God, living and powerful.
We worshiped in English and in Mibu this morning.

#2 - Matt & Marcie are in Texas visiting family for the weekend. He normally leads our singing, and does a great job. When he's gone we have a couple of options, but this week it needed to be me. One of the songs I chose was "Love the Lord," a somewhat repetitive song with the words, "I will love the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind and with all my strength." As I thought about it during the week, and that we have anywhere from 16-18 children between the ages of 4 and 7 in the service until they're dismissed to Children's Church, I decided to add some motions to the song for those kids to do. As we sang that line they pointed to their heart, their stomach, their head, and then did the body builder's pose with their arms slightly arced and fists together at their waist.
The kids did a great job with the motions. Morgan, especially. So early in the song I motioned for her to come up and join me. I watched her ask her mom and get the OK. Then she came up, stood beside me, and we sang and did the motions together. (I think she's about 5 or 6 years old.)
Ya' know what else happened? Once the adults saw her up there doing the motions most of them started doing them, too. (some already were) At the end they all clapped.
Morgan did a great job, her mom told me afterward I made her day, and we all got the blessing of watching a child worship. (Can you think of some words of Christ that fit here?)

This isn't the first time in my pastoral experience, but again at Pathway I (we) have freedom. Five minutes before the service I can ask Geoff to read in Mibu. Two minutes into a song I can ask Morgan to come up and sing with me. It's all OK. Yes, we're a small church, but I think (Deo Volente) when we're a church of 300 we'll have the same freedom. I sure hope so! It opens us up for God's little surprises that can make a morning a particular blessing.

I was blessed at Pathway this morning, by the Mibu who live half a world away and a young child who sang a song and learned God's Word.