Worship went very well this morning. We sang "Go Down, Moses" without instruments, with a leader singing the verses and everyone responding, "Let my people go." Great. And the refrain for the psalm reading was "Wade in the Water," with these verses from Psalm 77:
What god is great like our God?
You are the God who works wonders,
You redeemed your people with your mighty arm...
"Wade in the water, wade in the water children
wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water..."
When the waters saw you, O God,
when the waters saw you, they were afraid,
yes, the deep trembled.
The clouds poured out water;
the skies gave forth thunder;
your arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
your lightning lighted up the world;
the earth trembled and shook.
Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
The discussion afterwards was a little more difficult. I thought it went well, but it was obvious the some people were uncomfortable with the direction we took and the implications of it. I hope it serves as a good introduction to the leadership discussions that are coming up in church meetings later this month.
I actually wasn't planning to say anything on the topic. After talking it over with an experienced person in the community here, I thought it would probably be best to just abstain from the voting and leave it at that. But in the last month the discussions on church leadership took an unexpected turn, which made me think people here might be open to something different (and perhaps not satisfied with the form of leadership we have); and then someone asked us to lead worship right before a church meeting on the topic. And it had been planned to have discussions on the worship scripture readings afterwards, starting today. So it seemed like God was making a big opening for me to say something.
Also, I had just begun feeling that things were a bit easy, going a bit too well, and wondering if I was being tempted to make compromises or stay quiet so that things would continue to go well for us. I don't know. We'll see what, if anything, comes of this.