Fun Times...

The day of bass went very well. It would have gone much better if I was not rather ill the entire day. A nice head cold/crazy weird random seering pain shots sickness thing is trying to settle into my body. I am fighting it with prayer, suppliments and our always beloved Tylenol PM.

I am sitting here waiting for my PM to kick in before I crawl into bed. When I not totally doped up large portions of my joints/skin absolutely KILLS... so I'm waiting for the buzz to set in and then I can creek myself into bed. I've been feeling this since Wednesday, so I'm about ready to not feel it anymore.

And tonight I will get all better because I am supposed to leave for a week in the morning. Oh dear.

Anyway... I'm rambling... I think the PM is starting to work. The evening was really good. Peter hit a home run in the worship factor and I had a blast. The crowd was really conservative, which is something that I am not used to nor do I understand at all. I can appreciate the choir that sings songs with french horns and other such instruments, but really... is this all that Christianity has to offer to them?

Why come to a worship even to sit there and watch? I don't understand it and I really don't understand why people do it. In the words of Damien Rice, "Why'd you sing Hallelujah, if it means nothing to ya?"

But there was a large contingent of people who were into it. And they populated the front row. And promptly freaked the heck out of everyone. These people come from a church called Spruce Grove Community. Worship in Spruce has basically no rules, no guidelines and if the thought comes into your head you go and do it without a second guess. Let's just say that the worship times at that church are... lively?

So worship starts. It's the fast songs. They are fun and exciting. So what does the front row do? What they always do at church! Come on, doesn't everyone worship like this? The breakdancing begins, the other strange whatever style worship dancing begins, they're jumping all over the place and basically going nuts-o for Jesus. This is good. I like it. I then look at other people and question why I've never seen such shocked looks on people's faces before.

Worship continues. More fast songs. So what does the front row do? What they always do at church! Come on, doesn't everyone disassemble the entire front of stage decoration of world flags and start whipping them around everywhere during worship? Oh dear... you should see the size of those shocked eyes now... they're almost as large as the wide open mouths.

It did provide a great deal of entertainment from my vantage point on the stage. Especially when they formed a line of perfectly timed dance moves including a powerful thrust of the flags into the air. The decorator people didn't take this into account and did not glue, staple and tape the flags to the poles so a few of the flags when flying off the sticks and one guy in particular was waving around a stick for a while before noticing his flag was decorating the ground.

But what do you do when the flags fall off their sticks and fall to the ground. You crumple them up in a tight ball and chuck them into the air as high as you can! Come on, doesn't everyone worship like this? Surely the highly conservative representatives from that nation would be greatly impressed with our treatment of their flag.

But then I looked around as the worship time progressed. Suddenly a few more people then just the front row were going for it. A few were in the isles dancing away. Some decided to clamp their mouths shut and close their eyes and actually... RAISE THEIR HANDS... and they worshipped for a while. It was nice to see.

Others, I'm sure, are going to have amazing stories to tell when they get home. I would LOVE to hear their take on the worship time. I know I loved it, but I'm used to that kind of stuff. I am also used to being in many different styles and flavors of Christianity from travelling so much, so I always find it funny when one "flavor" blasts off without any notice of anyone else around them. Really... I authentically find it hilarious.

Another cool thing for me last night was to be able to revisit the very same location where I first met the Holy Spirit. Hall C of the Shaw Conference Center. That was one serious power encounter that lasted for a long, long time. I was nailed to the floor and I will never forget the way the ceiling looked. It was nice to be able to go back into that hall, look again at the ceiling and remember how it all began for me.

It was nice to walk the halls of that conference center, to remember the electric feeling I'd have in the parkade underneath Canada Place, to feel the excitement. One day when I'm rich I'm going to rent out Hall C again. I may invite people, but for a good portion of the time I'll be there by myself in deep and humble gratitude for the God who invaded my life with all His power late one evening. It is nice to be able to visit the physical place where God stepped down and became the living defenition of real in my life.

After I'm doing being alone with the Holy Spirit then I'll invite a bunch of Jesus lovers to join me and they can get tons of flags and go as crazy as they want. I'll be going with them all the way.