"Bridges......................."

My return to the old assembly after a ten-year attendance elsewhere was accomplished out of a desire to be with my daughters and grandchildren, especially since we learned of the oldest girl’s recent diagnosis of cancer, a threat hopefully caught early enough to be conquered with medication. The transition finds me yet contented to simply “fill a pew”, with no wish at all to involve myself in any of their outreaches, and detached from most of the congregation, this past decade giving birth to, not only to a sea of faces unfamiliar to me, but also an agenda, a format that is nothing like the “family” I stepped into so long ago. Nonetheless, in spite of all that, if this old man is patient, somewhere during most any service, the Spirit finds me, fills me with His presence, and ministers to the needs in my life. Sunday’s sermons this week were on “Our Journey Through Time” and “I Drew Them”, the latter dealing with what the pastor called “God’s scarlet cord of redemption, what I have long referred to as His “anchor-line”. Evening worship began with two songs possessing great lyrics, but put forth at a tempo so fast it was hard to fall into the flow, a chariot race rather than a connection at the oasis. When the speed was adjusted, however, suddenly the sanctuary was one, a moment when you knew He was now in our midst and the reins were in His hands, not ours. People began to pray for each other, testified of past deliverance, of healings known. Tears gathered in my eyes, a release of tongues poured up out of my belly, and communication with my Maker was a reality, not just a religious faith. If much within the sanctuary has changed along the way, if doctrinally we have drifted, to some degree, in two different directions, yet there is unity between us in Him……