Two Days of Mercy

Amy and I spent the weekend with our new friends at Mercy Church in Sioux Falls to lead worship and discuss the possibility of partnering in ministry. Mercy is a one year old church plant led by Pastor Shel Boese that is affiliated with the Christian Missionary Alliance. The church has grown from a core group of about 15 to about 75-100 in weekly attendance and is a greatly diverse group of people.

I actually came to know a bit about the church from my friend Tory Larson who worked with Shel's mom in Yankton. The more I talked with Tory, the more interested I became in what Mercy was doing. When I saw a part time worship position listed with them this summer, I was definitely interested in starting a conversation to see where it might lead.

Over the past four months I've traded emails with Shel, I visited Mercy for a service, Amy visited Mercy for a service and I had coffee with Shel in August to talk a bit. All of that initial getting to know you led to this past weekend where we had a chance to immerse ourselves in the community for a weekend and interview for the position.

Saturday kicked off with us sending the kids to Yankton with Jim and Marilyn so that Amy and I could head to the church to rehearse with the team. The church actually meets in another church's building and still has some of the tension of needing to set up and tear down a lot so as to coexist with the host congregation, so set up took a bit of time and over the course of about an hour we got to meet team members and get set up. It was nice to be able to hang out with Larry, Bobbie, Nick, Greg and Cory before rehearsal a little and see how they function in getting things set up. Amy and I tried to stay out of the way in order to not complicate matters and after getting some levels set, we were ready to dig in.

Leading a rehearsal with musicians that are used to working together is always a bit tricky since they have already developed their own musical language, but I love to make rehearsals a collaborative effort and was really blessed by the ideas, energy and creativity that the team brought to the table. They are really great musicians and were a joy to play with. We worked through the songs for Sunday's service in pretty short order and I felt solid about where we were at as a team. After rehearsal, Amy and I headed to Chili's with Shel for a late lunch and more conversation.

One of the concerns that I had for the weekend was whether my voice would hold or not. I had picked up a cold earlier in the week and by Saturday I definitely didn't have much strength or endurance. I played it safe in spots in the rehearsal hoping to not overtax things. When I woke up Sunday morning, I felt even worse. Even so, I felt peaceful about everything. In the days leading up, I came to the conclusion that if God was in this, nothing was going to stop it. So, voice or not, we were going to rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal whether or not we were meant to partner together.

We got to the church at 10:00 to set up and sound check for the 10:45 service and again tried to not complicate the set up process too much. It wasn't until we started that I got an idea of how I was going to sound. We started a few songs to set some levels in a truer sound check than we're used to on a Sunday morning. We've always been a little spoiled in that we've been able to use sound checks as last second rehearsals with teams at Hanfield and New Hope. Here we didn't have the time, but we didn't need it either.

Shel provided a welcome and we read a Psalm together as a Call to Worship before Nick started his U2-esque intro to "I am Free". It took no time at all to see that this is a worshipping congregation! They sang and responded enthusiastically throughout the morning and were an active part of every part of the service. Next, we introduced "You Never Let Go" by Matt Redman which the church hadn't done before. We sang of God's faithfulness together and by the end of the song, we were deep into worship. At that point, we were supposed to have another Lectionary reading, but Shel signaled that we should just keep going, so we went on to "Come, Thou Fount" with Amy's signature Irish flute introduction giving way to a roaring full band sound. After "Come, Thou Fount" we transitioned into a time of free worship where people could respond to God in spontaneous song. I prayed in song for God to give us a vision of him like that of Isaiah which led into pieces of "Holy, Holy, Holy" before finally landing on "Better is One Day". At that point, Shel transitioned us into a time of spontaneous worship followed by prayer and offering before Shel's message. Shel spoke on Christian decision making and it was really good stuff. We were definitely able to relate a lot of what he said to the journey that we've been on over the last two years and it felt like more confirmation from the Lord that we're on the right track. We closed with a ministry time with prayer counselors available and sang "You Never Let Go" again.

Overall, we had a great time! Musically, things went really well and ministry-wise I felt like things went better than we could have hoped. God moved powerfully through the course of the service and we were just blessed to be a part of it. We got to talk to several folks afterward and it was nice to get to know a little more of the heart and character of the community through conversation.

We headed home for lunch and then back again at 2:00 for a sit down interview with members of the vision team and Shel. It was nice that we were able to do that together because Amy and I definitely are a team in ministry. I was blessed by how she brought clarity to some of my more wordy responses and we had fun playing off of each other in trying to express our hearts.

We headed home feeling good about how the weekend went. Shel and the vision team were going to meet for awhile after we left and then Shel was going to need to talk to other team members that were unable to make the interview session. He said he'll give us a call sometime this week to let us know where we go from here.

God has taught us to hold things loosely over the last two years, so if He calls the whole thing off, we'll accept that and move on. But we would really love to be a part of what Mercy is doing in Sioux Falls and both feel like we're being released into something for the first time since we moved here. Regardless of where this leads, we are grateful for the opportunity that we had this weekend to share in ministry with a great community of believers.