So yesterday I slept in.
Not really a big surprise.
It's kind of a thing I'm known to do.
Not a thing I'm particularly proud of,
But my life.
My roommate was gone for a couple of days and so I slept on the couch.
I love sleeping on the couch.
Trouble is
that once the alarm on my phone goes off 3 times,
there's no back up alarm clock.
And heh.
Suddenly it was 9:50 and church starts at 10.
It was my Sunday to do a sermon evaluation
as well as my turn to play youth leader because our other leaders were off with the high school group.
So, dressed I got
and drove off to walk in late.
The trick is
that there were no open seats near an end.
And the minister had already started the sermon.
And then I looked around.
There were 7 or 8 others standing or sitting in the back foyer.
Almost a whole congregation unto ourselves.
I stood beside a woman and we started to chat.
Not necessarily protocol for listening to a sermon,
but we chatted nonetheless.
And it was good.
We kind of were "the church" for a bit.
We talked about ministry opportunities,
responded to points being made,
asked each other questions about parts we were unsure of,
discussed the tough parts of the Scripture passages,
and applied them to our own lives.
And then there was Communion.
We discussed for a moment
the options we had with regards to actually participating,
finally concluding that we couldn't really do so without disrupting what was going on beyond the glass doors ahead of us.
Until the serving elder came to the back door,
caught my eye
and I smiled.
He came out and served us,
and the 6 others,
the bread and grape juice.
And in our small gathering,
we celebrated Christ together.
Totally differently.
But really great.
There was even something great about going around to each of the standers and sitters and collecting their grape juice cups.
Funny how God works sometimes...
Not that I'm recommending showing up late for church on a regular basis,
or sleeping through alarms to miss some of the more important details of life,
or trying to skip out on Communion,
but I really went to church yesterday.
Really.
