Led worship at NCCC today. I met Francis Luckcock, who preached today, at a seminar we both attended last week. During the seminar, I meant to ask him what God laid upon his heart to preach so I could pick suitable worship songs for it. However, it just didn’t happen, perhaps I was too engrossed (with the food :p) during the lunch interval and the subject didn’t surface in my mind while speaking to him. After the seminar was over and when it came back to my mind, I was like ‘Alamak! Forgot to ask!’ I decided to step out in faith, believing that God is sovereign and He would guide. I was immensely touched several times during the sermon when I realised that there were many common ground between the worship and preaching-Our spiritual inheritance as a family, righteousness through faith in Jesus. There was even a common verse being read, Matt 5:20. I realise that God’s guidance doesn’t necessarily need to come with a ‘bang’ or obvious indication. In fact, I realise that while preparing for the worship, it felt like it was based on my own thoughts, but now I see that God so subtlety guided me. He was working with me, or should I say I was working with Him :) Though I was standing up there today, God is the real chair of the worship for He orchestrated the whole thing.
Even before the worship, I was already seeing God work. When asking for musicians, I sent out emails to various people and one of them is a guy who has not been to NCCC for a long time. He replied in an email saying thanks for not leaving him out. Although he wasn’t able to make it today because he went camping, I am glad I remembered him and its amazing how just a little thought and email can encourage someone. Really thankful and appreciative for Kevin who was on the guitar today. He was so willing to help out from the start when I asked him. Also, despite a late night, he drove 45 minutes to get to worship practice this morning which started at 9:30am, and he arrived exactly on the spot. Was good to see Richard, a good brother whom I have not seen for a while ;) Good to know that he will be coming back to Nottingham in over a week’s time. Worship practice went so smoothly, much faster than I thought. Had time to spare to have a nice lunch in the garden and chit-chat. Managed to set-up earlier than usual in church and it helps to not have to rush about.
Usually, when I am on projector duties, I would be so concerned about the projector, setting it up in time for 1pm, checking whether the projection is on the screen. Today, 10 minutes before the service, the projector has not even arrived yet. I was so surprised that I didn’t panic! My focus at that time was right, it was on God. In my mind, I thought ‘So what if there is no projector, we could possibly use the laptop screen. The aim is to worship God and a projector will not stop us from doing so’.
This is the first worship I led where I could really sense a much closer manifestation of the Spirit’s presence working in me. At times, I forgot what I wanted to say next. I didn’t panic and simply took my time. Periods of silence doesn’t kill! It was alright even if I didn’t follow entirely what I set out to do. The best thing a worship leader can do is to worship God himself at the same time while leading. I do not think worship leading is my area of gifting, but that doesn't stop me from helping out. It's amazing how I can have the courage to stand in front to lead a group of people to sing when I have only been in a KTV once in my life! Feel pretty embarassed about this actually, hehe.
People’s encouragement after the service is a true indication that my prayers for today’s service has been answered. That’s the point of today’s whole service-for God to draw close. Lord, open my heart to be joyful to see people drawing close and coming back to You. Even after the service, I was greatly encouraged. I realised that Lena, who was playing the piano, was playing for the Cantonese service as well after being through a morning of worship practice and english service in the afternoon. I don’t play the piano, so I don’t know how demanding it is to be on it for hours, but I can imagine it’s quite tiring. I was greatly humbled and encouraged. Also, I am greatly encouraged by a couple in church whom I can see are making a deliberate effort to spend time with people, to ask them how they are and to pray for them.
Praise God for the family I have at NCCC.
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