Blessings to You!

I just returned from a trip to Costa Rica. It was a missions trip, not a vacation, therefore it can be included here on my blog. I have quite a few good stories from this trip but this one was my favorite.
Ten of our church members made this trip to work with a Costa Rican church.  Part of our mission was to teach on prayer and healing in a three day conference. During this conference I was asked to lead worship. I couldn't really tell how many songs they wanted me to do or for how long we were supposed to play. Lucky for me I have some experience on my side and a pretty good working knowledge of the Spanish language. I guess in the church we don't ever say luck because we believe (as I do) God directs all things. I'm certainly not going to explain that because that's not what this blog is about. We are talking about worship music in a Spanish church.
I would do a couple songs, then glance at the Costa Rican Pastor who looked at me with an apprehensive glance. I was trying to interpret this glance as either he is ready to speak, or I should do another song.  I would start a song with music, and if he didn't look too troubled I would sing the verses.  His face became more anxious after one more song in particular so I figured I was done. He came to the front began to pray out loud.  In some Pentecostal churches, they like music during the prayers. I played some music and the Pastor turned to look toward me. Once again I couldn't tell if he wanted me to stop or keep going, so I compromised and played, but much softer.
During prayer time after the preaching, I came back to the stage to play some more soft music. Music is a funny thing during prayer. Some people love it and others not so much. I guess it depends on the praying person. I have been told to play and sing, sometimes just play, and other times keep silent. I notice never have I been asked to just sing and not play. This would be very unusual in church prayer times but maybe I should try it someday.
Anyway, after the service a kind man came to me in, and in Spanish said something about a blessing. I wanted to clarify so I asked him what he meant. He then tried his English, which was not nearly as good as my spanish, and pointed at himself saying "blessing for me!" to which I asked, "you want me to pray a blessing over you?" A few more awkward exchanges had me convinced this man wanted me to pray for him and especially to pray a blessing over him. I put my hand on his shoulder and in my best authoritative voice prayed a blessing for the man. He looked at me kind of like the Pastor did and them bowed his head and closed his eyes. I realized even the facial expressions in Costa Rica seemed to be in a language I didn't understand. "That went well" is all I could think as he walked off, when suddenly I was again approached by another man who seemed to be asking me the same thing. Apparently he saw me praying for the other man and wanted to get in on it as well.
This time, in a addition to his blessing, he mentioned a blessing for everyone in the room! "Wow", I thought as I looked around the room at all the people. Should I pray out loud so everyone can hear or just to the man in front of me. I guess he thought my looking around the room was a signal to bring in an interpreter, which while not completely accurate, seemed to be a way God had rescued me.
The interpreter explained that he was telling me my music had been a blessing to everyone there tonight. Thus the blessing part. Now it made sense. The very same thing the other guy was telling me before I did my best Pope imitation on him. One more person came to me with the same words about blessing. This time I was ready. "Gracias" was the correct response, affirmed by his smile.

Out of the Box, No Receipt

We are off to a great start in 2012 already. They don't let me preach too often, but it was great speaking to our congregation on the first sunday of the New Year. I can safely claim to have had the best message anyone had heard this year in our church.  I was asked to do a children's sermon. I guess I am qualified to do that. I have three kids of my own and taught pre-school for many years.  A kid's sermon. That really means "We want you to talk to children and entertain them and their parents. We don't really expect you to preach on anything important since you only have 10 minutes." Ok.  I can do that.
I check the readings for the week. It turns out we are celebrating the feast of the circumcision of Jesus. What? That's a feast day? Since a feast means we eat, what do you suppose we should eat to celebrate that feast? I think I will do a sermon on re-gifting instead. Before I get to what I talked about, you need to know that the reason I started writing this blog was because of the ironic silly things that can happen at a church. For example, suppose it is the lesson from Luke on Jesus' circumcision that is to be read by one of our deacons. Well the deacon gets to the last part of the lesson; the part where they actually mention the circumcision...and stops early.  Apparently there was a complication with the notes on how many verses were to be read that day.  In most churches nobody would notice. But in our church we put the lessons on the screen for folks who don't want to bother carrying those heavy Bibles to church. So everyone saw that our Deacon stopped the lesson short. You might even say...as I did...the deacon circumcised the lesson on circumcision. Ouch.
Moving on to what I talked about. Re-gifting. It is what we do with the presents we don't want or won't use. The phrase came from the meaning to give a gift to someone that was given to us by another person. I suggested we can do that with the gift God has given us. The gift of Life. I even brought in a game of Life wrapped up for kids to open. Forget outreach and missional movement and all the trendy words we have invented for sharing our faith. Re-gifting is all we need. Hopefully God's gift is not one we want to return or won't use. But that is the good part. Even when we give it away we still have it to give again and again.
Speaking of returns, check out Philippians 4:17.  It talks about returning gifts to the store without a receipt. If you have ever stood in line at Wal-Mart or Target to return something for 30 minutes only to be told you can't, try this verse out on the customer service rep.   In the NIV it says "Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account."  The Bible says to ask for a gift card from the store.  I am pretty sure God gave us his gift of life to be re-gifted and never exchanged. He gave us his only Son as a gift and we tried to return that gift without success. The Bible promises Jesus will be the one to return and when he does, he gets to go to the front of the line and believe me, he has his receipt!