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It's always fun to find kindred spirits, but even more when they are in your own neighborhood.



I was invited this week to give a presentation on kings' crowns at the Wednesday night service for a church just a few blocks from where we live. When I entered the sanctuary and the peaceful singing of the intercessors washed over me, I had an instant sense of welcome. I looked around further and above the platform I saw an Israeli flag hanging. Israel awareness is not a common thing to find in churches, so seeing the flag blessed me and told me that there were receptive hearts here to the message the Lord had sent me to deliver.



I talked about the symbolism of the crowns I had brought following an excellent exegetical study presented by the study leader. The two banners I had brought along also supported the message of God's protection over Israel and his sovereignty over the creation. The attendants were interested and inquisitive and there was a lively question and answer time following the presentation. I believe people there connected with the scriptural truth that was going out to them and they embraced it. The evening was a divine appointment. I have the sense that we will connect again.

We had a word of exhortation this morning in our service. An interesting word. It came after singing Robin Mark’s “Revival”. Part of the chorus was the illustration for the word.

Quote:I can hear that thunder in the distance,

like a train on the edge of the town,

I can feel the brooding of Your Spirit…

Our congregation meets in a town where there is LOTS of train traffic, Olathe, Kansas. If we don’t hear a couple of train horns during the service, we usually are treated to several right after the service, in the parking lot and pulling away from church. We’re familiar with hearing the train on the edge of town.



The word was partially a confession about being sad to say that too often we don’t feel the brooding of the Holy Spirit and that lack of feeling the strong sense of His presence is a sad thing. We want and need to feel Him brooding over us. Do we even know what that means?



Brooding is what a hen does with her chicks. A hen lays eggs, one or two per day, until she has a clutch of them. She sits or sets on the clutch, keeping them warm, tending them, turning them, and arranging them so they all fit under her feathers. The eggs hatch one by one until the clutch turns into a brood of chicks. Remember Jesus’ words about Jerusalem, how He would have gathered Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks, her brood? It’s interesting about hens and chicks. Part of the reason for brooding over them is protection, but it is also to impart warmth, to keep the chicks at a healthy temperature until their little fires can burn adequately on their own. And one of the things that God did in His design of hens is to create their feathers in such a way that if the chicks try to escape, the feathers are going the wrong way and it’s hard for them to push past those feathers. They’re in there for their own protection, too, since they really do not know enough about the dangers “out there”.



How many of us long to feel that kind of presence, or feel it again? To be protected, to have our temperature regulated to match that of our God.



As with so many things about our God, this is about fire and passion. Robin Mark’s song also has a bridge that says, “Revive us with Your fire.” That’s it! YOUR fire, O God, is what I long for. I don’t want to whump it up on my own. That’s sin and really wrong. I want my passions for You to burn because of pressing in to Your heart, under Your pinions, under Your brooding Spirit. Kind of like the seraphim, the “fire guys” of Scripture, who blazed before the throne. Why did they blaze? I think it was because they’re described as going toward and fro-ward (away from, not forward, but froward), coming near to God and then having to back away because of the heat! I long to have Holy Spirit fire burning within me, burning in my bones, waiting to affect and infect my world, not just on Sunday within the four relatively safe walls of the church building, but on Monday in my work place, in the market, in the street, in my neighborhood.



Ignite me, O Lord, that I may burn with pure and holy zeal for You!

We've just concluded celebration of the Central Province's June 09 Convocation. The theme was "Walking out the Vision". We heard from the angel to the church in Kansas City, as Archbishop Bates brought the Word of the Lord to the congregants who attended day sessions and evening celebrations of Eucharistic worship.



It's always spiritually refreshing (if physically exhausting!) to participate in these events, but our small pageantry team at Cathedral Church of the King prepared for almost 2 months to offer 3 featured choreographed dance pieces during the 3 nights of the convocation. We also moved spontaneously in the worship and liturgical music times.



There are always moments that are memorable and significant.



The overriding personal intercession project was the prayers continually sent up during the event for 3 of our own struck down just as the convocation was about to begin. One of our music team hospitalized, a servant teacher and father of young children fallen off a ladder with head injuries, and a small boy who nearly drowned in a pool accident...all very serious.



There was a great outcry of fervent prayer for that small boy, and on one night it came from the song selection of the music team in the song called "I will rise (when He calls my name) " I danced the song, and it became an intercession for that boy. You could tell that everyone in that room was adding the voice of their spirit to that prayer in the message that death and the grave had been overcome by the power and love of Christ. Our bishop encouraged us to continue to "dance on death" as we persevere in prayer for these beloved ones.



The first night was thematically about the Eucharist, and we had chosen a piece called Lamb of God, we worship You, an elegant ballad that embodied the adoration due the Eucharist. The Lord allowed the message of the Cup and the Body to be powerfully communicated, even to the point of the shape of the Cup being made by the arched arms of crossing dancers. Something unintentional in the planning, but startling in it's clarity in the performance of it.



In another piece, a Sanctus that we danced with tallits, the tallits at the end were also viewed by prophetic eyes as the sails on a clipper ship as they swelled and ebbed in sync with one another...an illustration of our own bishop's mission to bring the Church to teleios, or maturity--literally "with sails filled, rigging in place, ready to let the wind take us to sea".



Of course there was so much more, but these were things that affected and moved the worship, so I've highlighted them here.

KING of GLORY Banner - is featured again! Hayseed Stevens (former quarterback for the NY Jets) was the Texan that declared when asked "who is this King of Glory"? 'Why - it's JESUS!" has now passed onto Glory too! Thanks for recording the event. I was blessed to be the banner bearer! Thank you for letting me borrow it!

Pastors...let us get to know you a bit. Tell us a bit about your situation, your worship vision, and how you see your role in pastoring creative arts people.



You are welcome to respond in anyway you like to this topic, however I'll provide a few questions to get the ball rolling. You can respond to any or all of these questions with as much or as little information as seems right to you:



1. What is the nature of your pastorate?

2. What denomination are you affiliated with, if any?

3. Do you currently have a congregation or flock of some kind?

4. Do you oversee a worship team, and who is in it?

5. What is your vision for the release of worship in your charge?

6. What do you think prevents/promotes healthy expression of arts ministry in the church?

First new worship song I've heard in a long time with such a strong anointing.  Many more Lord!

https://youtu.be/3dZMBrGGmeE