Surfing the Inner N8

Last night at CrossWay Church we had our first Midway Praise.  It’s something we’re just starting to do every three months.  We had 20 people come out for some celebration, music, and focused prayer (and a short devotional, which is Christianese for sermonette).

It was great!  We started with four songs, then spent about 15 minutes praying in small groups for several specific topics.  We had one more song before a very brief message about Patrick, who I learned is the patron saint of Ireland, Nigeria, Montserrat, New York, Boston, engineers, and paralegals.  Seriously.  A lot of myth has sprung up around Patrick, legends about four-leaf clovers and snakes and green beer and Lucky Charms.  Or something like that.  But we do know some facts about his life.  He was born into a rich British family, was taken captive by raiders, and was sold into slavery in Ireland.  After spending a few years as a slave shepherd, he escaped and went back home, where he trained for the priesthood and returned to Ireland–the land of his captivity–as a missionary.  We read some verses (Romans 6:17-18,22-23; 1 Corinthians 9:19) about how Christ has freed us from captivity to sin, but rather than kicking back and being all mellow, like, “Whew, glad that’s over with!”, we’re actually to venture back out into the land of captivity to share with others the good news of freedom in Jesus Christ!

We prayed that God would transform us into a people on mission.  Then we sang four more songs and ate green food with green drinks (nope, no beer–I know you were wondering).

I’m already looking forward to the next Midway Praise: June 16!