Monday, December 26, 2005

Using the F-Bomb


Now this would make an interesting Christmas Eve service. It's the story of a pastor who, after a lot of prayer, allowed his drama leader to present a Christmas Eve poem where she used the F-word. Repeatedly.

Although I joked with a few people about following this church's lead, I'm not advocating dropping the F-word into the sermon, the worship or anything else. Like them, I'd need some persuasion to feel comfortable with it. But I just plain love articles like this because they show God working in some unexpected ways.

In the case of this particular article, I was impressed by the risk the pastor took in letting someone be so authentic, so straightforwardly honest about something, and at a Christmas Eve service, no less. (I was also impressed by his thoroughness in considering the issue from as many sides as he could, and warning people up front that the next part of the service would be inappropriate for children.)

And as a result of his openness to what the Holy Spirit might be doing, and his thoroughness in testing the spirit, the Christmas Eve service they held at church reached a lot of people who might not have felt any connection with God otherwise.

That's faith, an honest faith that I often wonder if I have, the faith to set aside my ideas of the familiar, the safe, the comfortable and even (at times) the appropriate, to free God to do what he will, whatever the cost to me.

God grant that it be so.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I understand about maybe not using it at Christmas Eve services, but at a regular service it wouldn't be a problem. It's raw emotion and God understands that.