Sunday Stuff

As I have expressed in an earlier post, holidays are the toughest times to preach in the Christian Church. People start preparing on Sunday for their cookouts on Monday, and as you can expect, on the East Coast, we feel the "numbers" crunch.

But regardless of that, we still had a wonderful worship experience on yesterday. I mean the Lord showed up and the people were ready to bless His name.

Jamal Goodley was at it again, leading the church in worship. We are fortunate to be witnesses to his growth and development into a mighty man of God. Kadeem Turner and our music ministry were on point as usual. I cannot express the importance of a solid and committed music staff. I know of some Pastors who have a revolving door set in their music ministry, but I have been blessed to have the same staff for the last 2 years. To God Be the Glory!!!! And I am not letting them out of my sight!

We began a new sermon series, dealing with 15 wonderful Psalms, 120-134, which is known as the Songs of Ascents, and I have called the series, Marching Up to Zion. These pilgrim songs, were sung by the Children of Israel as they left their homes, left the valleys, headed towards Mount Zion to worship the Lord.

These songs were sung as preparation for their worship period before the Lord and brought about a new attitude towards the things of God.

The aim that the Lord is leading me towards for our church is that as we are getting closer to reaching our own Mt. Zion, there are some things that we must do while we are making this journey towards our new place of worship.

Psalm 120 describes the psalter's feeling of discomfort having to live surrounded by two groups of people, those from Meshech and those from Kedar. They both were powerful people who specialized in flaunting their military strength and economic might, and they were a people of great conflict and chaos who despised peace.

So the psalter writes this song to the Lord seeking his peace while having to dwell among people who hate peace. I labeled this message A Song For Peace. I will post the outline tomorrow.

I am headed for Memphis, TN in the morning to attend the Annual Session of the National Baptist Convention. This is an important year due to the fact that we will elect a new President this week.

The top candidates are Dr. Julius Scruggs of Alabama and the former president, Dr. Henry Lyons of Florida. I have mixed emotions about this as I like the platform of both men, but I think Lyons would be the better president. But there are apprehensions about that fact as well, because right now our convention is INSIGNIFICANT on a national level, and I fear that if Lyons wins we will then become INFAMOUS. The media horde that will befall Memphis will be crazy. Please pray for our convention that God's will be done!