Deep thoughts – Where’s Jack Handey

As I’m listening to random music while trying to fall asleep, I was struck with questions.
During the years I volunteered at River Oaks Community Church, I kept recordings of all the music and have it all on my iPod. At random a song from the service right after the events of 9/11/01 came up and I was thinking about how almost every church in the US had to scramble to come up with a new sermon and in most cases new music selection. Then my thoughts turned to how well planned and organized everything is at North Point. I once heard it said that NP doesn’t believe in last minute changes because the Holy Spirit can work in the planning process (this stemmed from a discussion about worship leaders who are “led by the Spirit” and make changes live in the middle of a service).
So now I’m thinking, how does the Holy Spirit work?

• Were the leaders who made changes because of 9/11 not receptive to the Spirit beforehand?

• Did God deceive them? “Yeah sorry for all those fake ideas last week, I didn’t want you to panic. So now let’s work on the real plans for this weekend.”

• If the Spirit is involved in the planning process weeks in advance, wouldn’t major events be taken into consideration before they happen? “I was thinking this would be a 4 week series, but I feel the Holy Spirt telling me to cut it off at third week and address why God allows bad things to happen the following week.”

• Is the Holy Ghost even involved when we select the songs or sermon topics coming up? Maybe it is a gift from God to be have an ability to pick the right songs or topics when we simply follow our own hearts (that were transformed by the Spirit long ago). “That song really touched me in light of what’s been going on this week.” “Thanks, that must be why the Spirit told me to play it this week.” “Thanks, I just heard it on the latest Passion tour and told the worship team we have got to do that song as soon as we figure out the chords.”

• Is the Spirit prompting me to post this?

• Is the Spirit going to encourage me to read Luke 12:10 after I finish publishing this?

~ by Daniel Koster on May 22, 2008.