written by David
Have you ever seen something dead come to life? If you belong to Christ, you’ve experienced it in your very own heart, but there’s something truly moving about seeing it happen in someone or in a group of people. We recently had another Wednesday night of Teens Adelante in which we faithfully pushed into a time of group worship which was mostly sung by the volunteers. Nonetheless, I strapped the guitar around my neck expecting to fearlessly lead the teens in an inevitably distracted and self-conscious expression of singing to the God of the Universe. There wasn’t anything noticeably different about the setup or even the mood that Spring evening, but something happened that night. Something new in the teens came to life.
After finishing with the second song, the teens started to become somewhat restless with tambourines, egg shakers, and claves still lightly clamoring in their hands. And then, all of a sudden in the middle of the silence between songs, Salma blurts out “Why don’t we sing Somos el Pueblo de Dios?” I started to tell her that we were planning on singing other songs that evening, but I realized almost immediately ( Holy Spirit moment ) that her heart wanted to sing that song to God, and that she could lead her peers with the passion she was ready to express. So I said “ Alright everyone, Salma is going to lead us in this song, so follow her.” What happens next almost makes me drop my guitar up there on the stage and forget what song I’m playing. Salma proceeds to stand up on her chair followed by every single one of the the other kids, and they start belting out the words to the song at the top of their lungs. It was so loud that I literally couldn’t hear myself singing through the sound system! This level of worship continued on the next song, and the following song after which they actually chanted, “otra vez! Otra vez!” which means “one more time”. By the time we finally finished I was as tired as I’ve ever been from doing worship with them, but I had the biggest smile across my face.
The breakthrough had finally happened, the breakthrough that had to happen, and they got to experience the joy and blessing of worshiping God in spirit and truth. There is a rebirth that happens when you decide to put yourself out there in corporate expression to the one who saved you. You give Jesus an inroad past your flesh and into the deepest part of you where spirit resides. I don’t know a greater joy than seeing a group of broken teenagers die to themselves and all at once be swept up in a beautiful chorus to be brought to life into Christ.
“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” - Romans 8:11
More worship pics from 3.30.11
