Today’s church service\u00a0was a good example of why I love 2 Rivers Church.\u00a0 But first, a little background information for those who are not familiar with 2 Rivers:<\/p>\n
Our services are about 1:45 minutes long, the first half is praise and worship, then we have intermission so kids can be taken to sunday school, then we have teaching of the Word.<\/p>\n
During the praise and worship, anyone who feels they have received a word from God\u00a0is encourage to use the open mic to share this word with the congregation.\u00a0 “Order” is kept by the pastor, who screens these messages and limits them to a reasonable number.\u00a0 As a church we believe that God is always wanting to communicate to us in various ways and thru various people, and so I think it’s exciting when someone shares a word they have received because it is an expression of the movement of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 These “words” can be words of wisdom, knowledge, exhortation, prophecy, encouragement, it really varies, but it’s interesting that there’s always a common thread between all of the words shared, a message for the Body of Christ.<\/p>\n
Our church is also very big on sharing testimonies because it allows others to\u00a0be\u00a0encouraged by\u00a0what God is doing in our midst and brings him glory.<\/p>\n
Anyway, this morning we had 3 words\u00a0shared\u00a0(2 of which where from adolescents, which I also think is way cool), and we had 2 testimonies.\u00a0 This is a little more activity than normal, so the starting time for the pastor’s teaching\u00a0was later than normal, late enough that he considered not doing the teaching he had planned at all and instead\u00a0saving it for next week.<\/p>\n
But then\u00a0Pastor Tom\u00a0said something that I really appreciated, he said, ” ah what the heck, it fits into the message”, meaning: time may be short, but I should go ahead and do it because it’s in line with what God is doing this morning.<\/p>\n
Usually when a pastor refers to “the message”, they’re talking about their message, the sermon they prepared and planned on preaching.\u00a0 In this case, Tom was referring to the message being ministered by the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Pastor Tom was demonstrating his desire to lead a church that is led by the Spirit, not by him.\u00a0 That’s pretty cool.<\/p>\n
In contrast, we once visited a church where a couple of testimonies where shared following the praise time.\u00a0 The pastor said, “wow, those were great testimonies.\u00a0 I wish we could do spend the entire morning talking about what God has done in our lives.” \u00a0 Then he proceeded with his sermon.\u00a0 Becca and I looked at each other and asked “why can’t he?”\u00a0 Sure, you wouldn’t want to do that every week, but it was as if this pastor believed that there was a magic formula somewhere that stated that church must include [his] teaching.<\/p>\n
I’m glad to be in a church where people come expecting to have an encounter with God and our own agendas are not the most important thing.<\/p>\n
-Nate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today’s church service\u00a0was a good example of why I love 2 Rivers Church.\u00a0 But first, a little background information for those who are not familiar with 2 Rivers: Our services are about 1:45 minutes long, the first half is praise and worship, then we have intermission so kids can be taken to sunday school, then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","wpcat-9-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p504YJ-gL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10263,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/church-hunt","url_meta":{"origin":1039,"position":0},"title":"Church Hunt","author":"Becca","date":"December 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"After 3 months of church hunting, we've come to realize just how blessed we were to have been members of Two Rivers Church - Gilbert, AZ and Gardena Valley Assembly. It's hard to find that wonderful balance of worship, word, and move of the Spirit. -Nate","rel":"","context":"In "Becca"","block_context":{"text":"Becca","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/becca-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1042,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/whats-my-name","url_meta":{"origin":1039,"position":1},"title":"What’s my name?","author":"Nate","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I received a word from God today during the praise and worship.\u00a0 I thought about sharing it with the church but decided not to because I remember hearing from others about the Sunday we missed on New Years.\u00a0 Basically the word I received was nearly the same message preached on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nate"","block_context":{"text":"Nate","link":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/cat\/nate-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.themoehrings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/testimony.jpg?fit=512%2C341&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1938,"url":"https:\/\/www.themoehrings.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/the-spiritual-gifts-are-for-everyone","url_meta":{"origin":1039,"position":2},"title":"The Spiritual Gifts Are For Everyone","author":"Nate","date":"April 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"John14:12\u00a0 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. 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