Leaving the Building, Still in His Service

Yesterday was a beautiful day. And yet it was a bit of a strange day. The reason it was strange is because the building that holds the Woodside Presbyterian Church was oddly quiet yesterday morning. You see, yesterday morning there were no worship services held there. No songs praising the Lord. No prayers lifting our voices to heaven. No sermon to teach us the word. Silence. Silence because the church had “Left the Building”.

Rather than the usual Sunday services the Woodside congregation took the word of God out to the community. We all left our comfort zones and “Stepped outside the Box”. Some 20 to 30 or so groups got together and served the community. Some fed the homeless while others served the unfortunate that live in tents - almost in our backyards. Men & women went into retirement homes and spent time with the residents or did yard or light handyman work. Services were held, single moms and senior citizens got much needed help around the house, food pantries were repaired and highways were cleaned up.

The group I was with held a worship service and prepared and fed lunch to a group of men and women struggling with addiction. We sang, prayed and shared with these brothers and sisters and I came away with the feeling that the Holy Spirit had definitely been in the room, working through us to reach shattered lives. However it wasn’t until later that I understood one very special moment.

At the end of the worship service we had an altar call. Four or five came forward to either accept Jesus as their Lord, or to renew their faith. That’s always very powerful to me. But what I didn’t realize was that one of the men who came forward had been resisting the call of God for some time. You see he had been struggling with addiction for quite a while and after placing his faith in God’s hands at some point, he had felt that the church, and God, had let him down. He continued to attend and participate at recovery meetings but wouldn’t open the door to ask Jesus for his help. Yesterday God used one of us to reach into his heart. It may have been a song, a prayer, a sharing of faith or maybe it was just our presence there, but Sal let the Holy Spirit in and accepted Jesus as his Lord, Savior and friend.

When we go to serve in the prison, Dan Regan and I often talk about that “one”. What we mean by that is that we aren’t greedy. We don’t need to reach 100, or 50 or even 10 men during a visit. We wouldn’t turn them down of course, but our goal is always to reach one person. And, if the Lord doesn’t will it that night, we hope that we light a spark in one person. Yesterday, we were blessed, and I hope Sal was too.

Say a prayer for somebody today.