Monday 15 February 2010

USA Tour: Day Nine

Not your usual Sunday.

We checked out of the hotel in Charleston, South Carolina this morning after breakfast and headed to Abundant Life church for the last time on this trip for their Sunday morning meeting. However it was most certainly not about ‘business as usual’. After three evenings the people there were coming ready – there was no sense of having to help people engage. A lot of folks were turning up already drunk. Once again “Wild Bells” proved to be a song with an edge to it. It makes a powerful declaration to the land and gives a voice to feelings and passions that people might otherwise be unable to express. The room was jumping and there was so much joy in the room you could feel it. “It’s Church Jim, but not as we know it!”

John Scotland spoke about Acts 27 and Paul’s shipwreck onto Malta. I heard him speak on this at SloshFest recently – it’s a powerful and not at all comfortable word. However it is a good word. I suggest you catch the UStream video of it. At the end of his talk he asked Godfrey to revisit a golden oldie and do “Outrageous Grace”. It’s been a while since I played this one and I’m not sure I’ve ever done it with Godfrey but as there is no drumming until about ¾ of the way through it’s not too hard!
Woody asked everyone to come out to the front to pray and commit themselves to hang on to Jesus even in the face of shipwreck and whatever else may happen. Then there was the usual pile up of people getting blasted by God and doing some serious drunken carpet time.

Wow! I love these guys in Charleston. There was such a great connection there I wish I could come more often. If more churches were like this on Sundays then we wouldn’t have much to complain about.

We then went for lunch at “Ruby Tuesday” as we had a 200 mile drive to Charlotte to get to MorningStar. We also met Amy the waitress (see Blog on Day 5 for back-story on her) and Godfrey told her the CD he’d promised her had been put aside for her by another member of staff as we were told she wasn’t going to be in.

Paul, the keyboard player, offered to drive as Godfrey was pretty tired after the morning meeting so I jumped in the back and Dave went with John and a girl who’d been at the Charleston meetings but needed a lift home to Charlotte. We arrived at MorningStar at about 7pm. They had their formal “Valentines Ball” running to raise money for work in Haiti so we did feel a bit out of place checking in wearing jeans and t-shirts! We’ve got a room each, which is good. The music from the disco at the ball has just stopped (at 00:15) which is better! The MorningStar complex is HUGE. There is some serious financial commitment to run a place like this. It’s pretty weird to drive through the car park and see reserved spaces for Rick Joyner, Bob Jones and Todd Bentley. We saw Rick and Bob sitting at a table in their tuxedos when we were checking in. We’re not doing our meetings in the Grand Ballroom anymore; we’re in a smaller room off ‘Main Street’ – a fake street indoors with shops on both sides and a pretend tram-car in the middle! I presume this is a left-over from the complex being a hotel and amusement park. I’m glad we’re not in the main stage and so is Godfrey. The room is far too large and open. If it wasn’t absolutely heaving then it would feel pretty strange with a couple of hundred people rattling round in it.


I suspect it’ll be interesting tomorrow night. What we’re bringing will be quite different to anything they’ve had before; which hopefully will be a good thing. Help us Jesus.

1 comment:

  1. go for it....full steam ahead....this is what you are there for.....blow it up! X :0

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