Worshiping in Prime Time

We gathered for prayer half an hour before our prime time worship: 8-10 PM, but had some trouble finding a place to pray in peace.  The church’s prayer rooms had been taken over by nursing mothers with their babies and small children.  They needed a quiet corner, too.  I understand.  So we went to the sanctuary to look for a quiet place there.  But being prime time, there were people all over the place, in every little corner, even in the coat room.

Then Giuseppe suggested the music storage room.  It’s small and crowded with instruments, but it’s just big enough and quiet enough to do the trick.  So we crammed in there and prayed together that our worship would truly glorify God, and that we ourselves would stay humble and submitted to Him.  Amen.  And we got briefly drunk in the Holy Spirit, laughing like idiots.

Then Giuseppe looked around.  There’s a problem.  Where is the bass guitar?  It wasn’t there!  Then we discovered that the electric guitar was also missing.  We did eventually manage to find a bass guitar, and just did without the electric guitar.

Giuseppe, as musical director, had Daniele take the acoustic guitar, and Felicity concentrate on singing.  Her voice is very sweet, but sometimes it’s a bit tentative and often hard to hear.  Perhaps it was because she didn’t have a guitar in her hands that her voice was stronger, and being stronger, it was lovely and lost none of its sweetness.

As worship leader, Felicity made no song list this time, deciding just to wing it and see what songs the Holy Spirit leads us to do.  This led to long pauses between songs, and songs that repeated and repeated and repeated.  I don’t know how the musicians felt, but it was sort of driving me crazy.  It had the same effect on Bethany, who tried suggesting songs when we seemed to be stuck for a direction.  But when a direction was found, it was wonderful.

During one of the livelier songs, I pulled out a couple of whistles and handed one to a boy that was dancing near us, while I blew the other.  He was hesitant at first, but then blew the whistle with great gusto.  A big fellow seated in the front, right in front of me, got up during a lively song and started to dance just like Dancing Bear on Captain Kangaroo (for those old enough to remember).  Then he grabbed a tambourine and started keeping time with the music.  Several young girls picked up flags and started dancing and waving flags.  I love it when we share a moment like that.  It was such fun!

There was a definite anointing, which everybody felt.  That made the two hours fly by before we even knew it.  When the next group came in and started to set up, I felt such deep disappointment at having to stop that I didn’t even want to go back to the hotel to sleep.  The big fellow hugged me and thanked me for the worship session.  All thanks and glory and praise goes to God!  God is good!

Worship in the Wee Hours

Team Italy’s first worship session was 2-4 AM on the first night of the Feast of Tabernacles.  Here is our team:

Giuseppe – Bass player and musical director of the worship team

Roberto – Drummer and Giuseppe’s very talented son

Daniele – Electric guitar player

Felicity – Acoustic guitar player and worship leader

Bethany – Chorus and intercessor

Me – Chorus and intercessor (and possible dancer), also team leader in things non-musical

Upon our arrival, one of the German teams was playing.  Not being a musician, I didn’t notice anything wrong until our bass player came to me and pointed out that there were no guitars, and three members of our team play guitar: electric, acoustic, and bass.  What to do?

I sent the drummer up as our first musician to take over while we figure the rest of it out.  He went up on the platform and behind the drum partition.  The German drummer refused to let him slide in and take over.  It was a surreal moment.  Meanwhile the rest of the team began pacing in various parts of the room, while the German team played some soft background music, just right for making the changeover.

Just then the techie arrived.  He told me that they don’t have any instruments to loan, which is not what I had been told.  He made a call, and found us an acoustic guitar, which we put into Daniele’s hands.  Giuseppe, clearly unhappy at first about not having an instrument to play, began to pray and worship from below the platform.  Soon his worship became truly joyful.

So with drums and guitar, we made music for the Lord.  Believe it or not, it was really nice, too!  We (the three females) did a lot of riffing, which turned out really nicely.  There were a couple of songs that Felicity launched into that were either not in the songbook or were too unfamiliar to me.  At those times, I stepped from the platform, grabbed an Italian flag, and started dancing.  By that time only team Italy was in the sanctuary, so that gave me a great deal of freedom.

Giuseppe stepped onto the platform and using Bethany’s microphone (the closest one at hand), prophesied that he now had a bigger vision than Italy, and that all this—even not having all our instruments—was a part of God’s plan.

At one point, Felicity had been riffing for a while in a very mellow mood, and I thought it might be too mellow for the hour.  So I stepped back up onto the platform, riffing the title of a lively song that she had planned for our first session, but perhaps had forgotten about.  She gave me a big grin, and launched right into it, which gave Roberto something to really sink his drumsticks into.

Before I knew it our replacements were in the room, dancing joyfully to our music and preparing to take the platform.  I don’t know how two hours passed so quickly.

On the way out of the church building, Giuseppe told me, “We need to get instruments somehow.”  Yes, somehow, we do need to get instruments.  But thank You, Lord, for this first session and what it taught each of us about the heart of worship.  The heart really is more important than the music, and we had plenty of heart.  God is good!

Dancing in the Park

I had no sooner posted that last piece when Miki, leader of the dance team, came to me.  She said that as she was showering she was thanking God for sending an intercessor (me!) to pray for the team.  And God told her, “No, she’s a dancer.”

My jaw just fell open.  It seems that He’s calling me back to dance.  He’s got to do quite a bit of physical restoration to do that, but He is God of Restoration.  We walked to the ferry dock with my head swimming at the thought.

I generally don’t like boats very much, but the ferry crossing was really nice.  The water is the cleanest harbor water I have ever seen—or smelled!  It’s a pretty deep teal color, and there is no oily scum or floating trash that I’ve always associated with harbor water.  Here’s how clean the water is in Valletta harbor: I would actually swim in it!  I haven’t, but I would.

On the other side we took the elevator to the park high over the harbor.  Up there we found Herbie, the guitarist.  He grinned at us, “I had a good morning!  I did some busking, made some money.”  He had his guitar and a battery-powered amp with him.  He was clearly on a high from his successful morning.

I watched the team’s backpacks and prayed while they went to pray and Herbie went to look for a plug to recharge his amp.  Herbie came back at 2, the appointed start time.  He was grinning again.  He had found a plug in the Indian Embassy waiting room.  Inexplicably, they had not chased him off.  Well, not inexplicable, really because I had been praying for him to find a place to plug in.

Herbie warmed up the crowd with a Christian song, done in his own smooth jazz style.  People grabbed their phones, cameras, and tablets and started filming or taking pictures.  Then the dancers did a hip-hop number that looked like a lot of fun.  Herbie played a song or 2 in between each dance set.  Then a bunch of about 10 junior high school kids came along.  One boy started in mocking the dancers and tried to get the others to mock, too.  A couple of other boys did, but half-heartedly.  A couple of girls started dancing a little where they were, and after a while Miki invited them to join in the dance, and they did.  They were clearly having a lot of fun, and a friend filmed them with her tablet.  They stepped back into the group when the song was over, but stayed to listen to Herbie sing and play.  They joined into the next dance even more enthusiastically.

Meanwhile, people came by and put coins in Herbie’s open bag.  I saw one man come by and carefully put in about €5 worth of coins.  Later another man put a €10 bill in Herbie’s bag.  Herbie had a good day!

Then the dancers did a dance with streamers and the mocking boy made a grab for Miki’s streamer.  She gave it to him, and he danced with it, and with some degree of grace and style.  Then the kids announced that they had to go.  The 2 girls that had danced hugged each of the dancers and said good-bye, waving to the rest of us.  It was a really sweet moment.

Because of my duties in watching the backpacks and helping set up the music, I wasn’t able to get around to talk to very many people.  But I did get to talk briefly with one lady who was visiting from Australia.

It was a fun afternoon.  And I got another message from God about dancing, this time from Carrie, a Maltese believer who had come to support the dance team.  Carrie said to me: “You should get out there and dance with them.”  I said, “What on earth made you say that?”  She said, “I don’t know!”

Well, I do know: it was God!  I guess He’ll show me how He wants me to proceed.  God is good!