Chapter
34 God Provides … Yet Again
The
prayer group meeting each week for Bible study and prayer,
particularly prayer for our church, coincided with God providing
extremely lavishly.
We
wrote down in a book the matters we were praying for provision or
guidance with and the results and over time we saw in black and white
the wonderful way God answered. Often the provision was at the same
time the means of guidance.
Let
me say again that we Christians often fall into the trap of deciding
what we think would be best and then praying for God to do it. WRONG!
If Christ is the head of his Church he gets to choose
when and what and how. Our task is to ask what
he
would have us
do to fit in with his
plans. Sometimes this task is to pray fervently
for something, for example revival. Then when we pray because the
Holy Spirit is like a fire within us to ask for this with all our
might, it is no surprise that mighty miracles follow. On the other
hand when, as happens so often, we merely think revival or more
usually just having our church grow big (and fat!) would be nice, no
matter how much emotion we whip up God does not answer! (Well despite
this, God is so abundantly kind and generous that often
even our feeble and headstrong prayers get answered – though not
necessarily exactly how we had in mind)
My
first example of how wonderfully God provided for us as we sought to
re-build the parish is this:
Flo.
who was the faithful and dedicated organist at Lang Lang I talked
about earlier, came to me one day and said that she felt she was now
too old to continue, and a few weeks later died peacefully. So our
prayer group brought this need for music at Lang Lang before God.
God
answered in two ways, and provided guidance at the same time.
First
a lady who attended a church about 30Km away contacted me saying she
was an organist and had heard we had a very sweet little pipe organ.
She came and tried out the organ and was delighted. Listening to her
play we quickly saw that she was a very accomplished musician. She
volunteered to come and play for one service a month, but after she
heard about our Sunday School and the family services we had had, she
asked for it to be the family service.
There
was one problem. She was very “high church” and wanted the new
family service to be a very traditional “Sung Eucharist”. We were
more on the opposite end of churchmanship, although as I said earlier
except for our “Bayles Fellowship” which had a pentecostal
service, we used the current Prayer Book services. So our ideas for
the family service were certainly more traditional than was the
current vogue in evangelical churches, but what our new organist
wanted was very much a move in the opposite direction to where
“successful” evangelical churches were heading.
The
conventional wisdom among “growing” churches at that time was to
downplay the “Anglican” and pretend to be “Community”.
Services were more and more informal, the Prayer Book alluded to less
and less, traditional hymns definitely replaced with contemporary
choruses, and even ministers wearing street clothes. This trend has
incidentally continued since then – I recently attended an Anglican
service where the was nothing recognisable as liturgy from the Prayer
Book, and nothing at all by way of a “Confession” or “Prayers
of Intercession”.
However
we could not escape the feeling that this lady was both God's
provision and his means of directing how the family service should
be. So we turned our backs on conventional wisdom and went with God!
God's
wisdom is proved right by its fruits. These family services – yes
done as a formal sung Eucharist – were a roaring success!
The kids took to it like ducks to
water, their parents and grandparents came (yes they came initially
to see their child doing their bit in the service, but they came) and
forgive me if I sound old fashioned saying “and the blessing of the
Lord was upon it” because I think that was the defining factor. We
did it how God said to for that time and place, he had pulled
together the right people for it, and he blessed it – there was
just always the most wonderful atmosphere.
But as they say on TV : “Kiddies
don’t try this at home”! I must add: Don’t just rush in and try
this formula in your church – ask God what his individual plan is
for you and your church!
Looking back I can see some of the
human factors in the reason for its success. The kids were believers
and they wanted their parents and grandparents to find what they had
found in Christ. They had Sunday School most weeks with its format
which was tailored to their needs and their own very special music.
Family Service was where they were doing something for their extended
families. Also church itself was so new to them that they saw no
difference between “high” and “low” church or even between
“formal” and “informal” styles of service. Their parents on
the other had a formed idea of what “church” should be. Many of
them had attended Sunday School in their youth. They had all been
married in a church. They may not have darkened the doors of one
since then, but they had an ingrained “cultural memory” if you
like of what church should be like. So for them a traditional
Eucharist was “proper church”. Besides with the kids doing many
of the roles in the service, a really good organist (and really
singable hymns!) and the presence of the Holy Spirit these services
had real zing! As St. Paul said “God's 'foolishness' beats human
'wisdom'.”
We had organists for the other weeks in
the month over time who were a great help, but I want to jump to one
other amazing provision. This time God provided the most amazing
couple to play the organ at Lang Lang. He was blind, his wife was his
chauffeur much needed since they lived some 50KM away and his
“partner in crime”.
He came and tried out our organ. “What
kind of service do you do?” he asked, and then added “I can play
for any sort: I’ve played for Pentecostals, I’ve played for the
Grand Masonic Lodge.” I was amazed. An organist that knew their
stuff but was prepared to fit in with whatever was required, Wow!
Again a lesson in God's wisdom. Did you
pick the “Masonic Lodge” bit. So did I at the time but it was
also obvious to us that God had sent this couple. At the time we
simply followed where God was clearly directing, but if anyone has
problems with this just think about God's people in past times who
had to be spoken to on that account. For instance the Israelites
about God's choice of Cyrus the Persian as his agent (Isaiah 54) and
Peter about being sent to the foreigner Cornelius (Acts 10).
I asked him how he managed to play
being blind. He answered “Most things I know by heart” If I am
not sure, I run my fingers over the music I have in Braille to
refresh my memory, then I play it by heart.” “What about new
tunes” I asked. “Ah well” he replied. “I do need a bit of
advance notice. You see my wife plays it one note at a time on my
organ at home and I transcribe it into Braille music. Then I play it
and learn it by heart.”
They had to come some distance. I knew
they would need petrol money, and I feared – rightly as it turned
out – that the vestry would not come at that. But he was brilliant.
I believed God had sent him. So I just paid his petrol money out of
my own pocket.
He was the most incredible organist.
Ours was only a baby organ but with a very sweet rank of metal pipes
and a very mellow rank of wooden ones, and the usual stops to give
combinations of pipes sounding from the one key. He could almost
make that organ sit up and beg! He just got the most amazing sounds
out of it. He also had exquisite musicality and rhythm. When he
played you just had to sing. I remember particularly his arrangement
of that stirring Easter hymn “Thine be the glory, risen conquering
Son”. It absolutely sent shivers down your spine and you just had
sing it out with all your heart.
The church was changing and growing,
but in quite a different way to anything we could have planned. God's
plans really are so much better!
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