On Weekend Service Building

Psalm 127
1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.

I find myself thinking about this verse many times over the course of a weekend service. The challenge with service programming is that it's easy to come up with a great service on paper the week prior, but the all-telling sign of whether or not the Lord built "the house" is when you get to the actual service. In reflecting on this verse, I am convicted more than ever about the importance of prayer and seeking the leadership of the Lord as our team puts together services each week.

I think one of the biggest ways God reminds me of this in the midst of technical difficulties. A couple weeks back, we arrived for our 30m run-through on Sunday morning, after the Saturday rehearsal and service, to find that all of our audio settings had been erased. With a digital board and lots of patching and presets, it got a little panicky from about 8:05-8:30. While these difficulties are never fun, our whole team was reminded that "unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain".

We are dependent on God at each step of the way and we need to acknowledge Him in all of them.