This post is in no way a reaction from Sunday it’s just something I think about when the Holy Spirit changes our plans.

We have two services at my church and they are very different from each other.  The age make-up of the congregation, the expressiveness of the groups as a whole, and also in their responsiveness.  With that in mind, when the Holy Spirit moves me or someone else to speak or change something in the first service should we automatically make that change for the second service?  Sometimes yes but keep in mind that the Holy Spirit may have something entirely different for the second service.

One situation that I can remember was my “official” audition for the worship leader job.  In the first service during the first two songs a couple of people “whooed.”  A weak shout so I tried to encourage them to shout…that fell completely flat.  So while John was preaching I felt God saying to me, “they didn’t shout because no one has taught them how.”

During the songs after the sermon we were getting to the end of a slow song and for whatever reason that week I planned poorly and didn’t have a good transition to the next song, a faster song.  So I started asking God what to say or pray.  That’s when he said “Teach them how to shout to me.”  And in my head I said “Are you nuts?  I’m trying to get a job here.”  After a little more arguing I said fine but told him if this went bad it was His fault.  (I know, real intelligent thing to say to God)  Well I proceeded to share that I had asked them earlier to shout and apologized for not teaching them how.  What followed was some of the craziest worship I have ever been a part of.  The sound from the congregation was so loud I couldn’t hear my in-ear monitor.  I turned around to the band and all of their eyes were about the size of dinner plates.  This was a completely new experience for our church.  My keyboardist at the time was just going on and on about how awesome it was.

So along comes second service.  I probably shouldn’t have done the same thing but I did, thinking the result would be the same.  It was good but nothing like the first service.  God was specifically doing something in the first service and if I hadn’t been caught up in the excitement I might have seen what God wanted to do differently in the second service.

Anytime God moves you should always pray to see if this was just for that one service or for both.

Any other thought on the Holy Spirit changing our plans?