A Bizarre Beautiful Day

Sunday was a bizarre beautiful day — filled with divine appointments.

First, I got to worship at Riverfront Family Church this morning. Their worship teams rocks, the sermon was great, and it is always a blessing to be there. The message was about getting “nakedly honest” with God and in community (especially the church). Really powerful, challenging and well done.

The message also included a testimony from a woman who shared her coming out story and how she was rejected by her family, her church, etc. It was a powerful testimony.

While sitting in the service, I got a text message from a friend telling me that Ted Haggard was preaching at a church in Manchester and that I should meet them there. I wasn’t going to, because I was already in church and had to work later in the day. But she texted back and said they had talked to Ted, told him my story, and that he wanted to meet me. Not sure how you say no to that.

So I made an early exit from church in Hartford and headed to Church of the Living God in Manchester, arriving in time for their 3rd morning service. Again, great worship and good to be church. It has been months since I had a Sunday morning not working, so it was great to get to go to two services!

Ted’s sermon was powerful. As he described what led to his crisis, the initial months after crisis and how people totally abandoned him and he was functionally ex-communicated, it felt like he was telling my story.  It was powerful and hard to listen to. And then he shared more about his ongoing healing, reconciliation and God’s work in him… a lot to chew on and think about.

I had a chance to talk personally with Ted after the service. Because he already knew my story, we were able to dive in pretty quick. It was interesting to talk to someone who fully and totally understood what the last 9 months (and in someways, longer) have been like… He had to catch a plane, so we didn’t get a chance to talk a ton, but he did ask me to email him and stay in contact and that is my plan.

After the service, I went to lunch with the three friends who invited me to hear Ted. All three are important friends in my life and people from my former church whom I have just recently been able to reconnect with — and it has been literally amazing grace to do so. Today was no different and it was amazing to get to worship beside them and then just enjoy fellowship together at table.

Then I went to work… a pretty good day working the line, but not much else to say there.

Tonight, another good friend is actually crashing at my place; also from my former church (and really all the way back to my Young Life days), he recently moved away and is interning with a great missions group. It was really good to see him, catch up, and just talk. I didn’t know he was coming up until he texted me late last night…

So today was a great day of unplanned divine appointments — and a somewhat bizarre yet beautiful day of grace and fellowship.

I will blog more about Ted Haggard later this week… both the sermon he gave and our conversation…