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Friday, June 17, 2005
I remember the first time I crowd surfed. It was at an outdoor music festival featuring about 20 bands and was an all-day Saturday type deal. Some of my teenagers surprised me--more or less--by lifting me up when Stavesacre started playing and I went from the front of the stage to the back of the crowd in about four minutes.
I remember going crazy in a football stadium when my favorite team scored a touchdown in the final minute to beat our arch rival. I hugged strangers. I jumped up and down. I yelled. I clapped and cheered like crazy for our defense to stop the other team for a few plays. We sang the fight song at the end of the game, too.
I remember the first time I preached in Holland in 2000. I had to step back and take a deep breath. I couldn't believe that a guy with little or no giftedness could be used as the very first pastor from our church to formally preach God's Word on European soil. The moment overwhelmed me and it took me about five seconds to compose myself.
I remember my wedding day. I can still see Tracy in her dress making eye contact with me from the end of the aisle. I remember joking with her when her dad put her arm on mine and walked away that I didn't know that God let His angels fly so low. I remember chatting with her after the prayer while the soloist finished singing that we were actually married. I remember kissing her, too.
I remember watching my daughter get her first base hit in softball. I remember my youngest in her first performance in the Nutcracker.
Now, could you imagine if...
...at the outdoor festival, I was wearing a suit and tie and nice shoes and spent the afternoon shushing everyone telling them to be quiet because I was trying to read?
...at the football game, if everyone in the crowd spoke in whispers and just simply observed what was going on on the field to the degree you could hear what the players were saying in the huddle?
...that, if instead of preaching my sermon in Holland, I simply busted into a rousing chorus of "Tomorrow" from the hit play, "Annie?"
...that, on my wedding day I showed up in my swimsuit, with no shirt, beach towel over my shoulders wearing a diving mask and snorkel?
...after my daughter's first hit I announced the feat to the world using a bullhorn and then ran out on the field and followed her around the bases using my video camera?
...during my daughter's ballet performance I stood up and cheered the second my daughter hit the stage, and then jumped on the stage and got video footage of just her performance?
It's odd because all those things are out of place. It's appropriate to crowd surf at a rock concert. Crowds cheer at football games. Sermons are preached in church services. Weddings are more formal affairs. Children's accomplishments have to be observed from the proper seating areas with reserved & appropriate excitement and enthusiasm.
They have their time and place.
Just like Ecclesiastes 3 tells us...which I'll go more into tomorrow. But that's the mark of wisdom, to know what the appropriate action is given a set of circumstances. Wisdom is knowing what time it is...
For fun today, tell us about a time when you didn't know what time it was, and had an embarrassing moment because you were inappropriate considering the circumstances.
Mine was when I had a "muck wars" with my students when I worked for a small church and they had shaving cream mohawk hairdos and flour all over their clothes and smelled like ketchup and eggs and all that jazz. They were pretty soaked and mucked. Since we finished like 15 minutes before the night time service I thought it would be cute for all of us to go to the more laid-back worship service dressed like that. I even put down trash bags to keep us from getting muck on the pews.
Well, let's just say that when the pastor came out to preach his sermon he looked in the first two rows and saw the mucked up kids (which I thought looked great) and he gave me a glance that told me we were going to have a meeting on Monday to discuss the idea of what was appropriate during a church worship service. Oh man, did I forget what time it was that day!
Brent 4:39 AM
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