everybody got a secret that they’ve been sitting on
the candid among you say their’s feels like an atom bomb
these things i know are delicate could do you some harm
got to have some friends working on the bomb squad - Bill Mallonee

Last night the folks from our church here in Charlottesville threw us a farewell picnic. Some 60 or 70 people showed up to say goodbye to us as we enter our final week before heading off to seminary. Kind of nice to not have to wait until your funeral to find out how many people love you enough to show up at something with your name attached to it.

Without getting into the details, we’ve all been through a lot in the last several weeks. Some of the folks there were still in the old church, some have left. With all that’s happened, it was wonderful and encouraging to see us able to be together in our love for Christ and one another.

After the food settled and the kids had just about run themselves out, we set up outside for a “farewell worship concert” with Karyn and I leading these sweet friends in our favorite hymns and songs one last time. Just as I was about to hit the first chord, the skies opened up with one of the storms that have become an almost daily routine on the east coast this year. We beat a hasty retreat to the living room, where the singing sounded all the more awesome in the close quarters.

I had become a little suspicious earlier when several people from our small group came up to me seperately and all requested that we do first the one and only worship song I had written during our time at the church. My suspicions proved to be well-founded. Just as we were prepared to begin, the members of our small group “rushed the stage” as it were and performed their own version of my song, with lyrics that revealed numerous embarrasing secrets about the Traphagen’s (such as my inability to get the correct name attached to Randy and Ryan, two different guys in our group). Aside from the silliness, the song also recounted the things about us that reminded them of Christ. In some ways, as my LSW commented, the lyrics almost meant more to us than the many touching things people had written to us recently; in some way, they were more “telling it like it really was.”

In the midst of the time of worship, both myself and another of the former elders of our church had opportunity to share a word of encouragement from scripture. Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that God had graced us with a final worship service of our church…the way we would have wanted it to be. Most of all, we were reminded that the thing we had cherished most about our church was the reflection of Christ we had seen in the lives of our friends there.

This brings me to the quote from a Bill Mallonee/Vigilantes of Love song that begins this post. I’ve realized that at many times during the controversies and difficulties of the last half year I’ve felt like I’ve carried around an atomic bomb inside of me. As it is, I know that at times I at least fired a spiritual pistol into the air in my fleshly frustration. Anyway, I’m so thankful that I’ve had a few “friends working on the bomb squad” who have helped save me from pushing the red button of destructiveness.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 18th, 2004 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Christian Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.