Interim Minister and President Column
by Stephen Sterner
January/February 2005
Worship Services Quench Arid Souls
The Fall and early Winter in Phoenix brought some much needed rain to the desert. It is the tenth year of below-normal rainfall. The rain brings out a sense of joy that is hard for those living in a wetter climate to understand. Folks will often rush to the window when the rain begins, much like a child eagerly watches the falling of the first snow.
What is amazing to me is how a small amount of rain can turn the desert green. There is so much life in the desert waiting to be given a chance to grow with just a little rain. This spring the desert will bloom as it does only rarely because the rains came at just the right time. It is a splendid sight to see the desert mountains covered with bright yellow and orange flowers. It helps one understand why the Prophet Isaiah speaks of the desert blooming as a sign that God’s spirit is moving across the landscape. It is a divine sight! And it only takes a little rain at just the right moment.
We might think of this as a metaphor for our life as a Christian community, perhaps especially in the Lenten season. When we gather in worship, prayer, and praise, or when we seek to bring justice into our communities, we are possibly bringing the gift of life or hope at just the right moment. It offers those who come to share with us, or who benefit from our ministries, the nurture needed to grow and flower as the children of God they are.
Every worship service allows some of the life giving presence of God’s spirit to move across the landscape and bring a sense of beauty and an abundance of hope in the sometimes arid land of our knowing. Sometimes we feel dulled by the routine nature of our ministry in worship or in the world. But it is not routine. Each time we gather in God’s name and serve in God’s world we are potentially offering life-giving words and hope at just the right time for a needy spirit or an arid soul. Like the Psalmist we can rejoice and be glad when we are called unto the house of our God.
What a gift it is to bring the right amount of nurture at just the right time to allow lives to flower in the presence of God.
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