Give Me Faith

It's an oddly shaped week; strange meeting schedules and rehearsal on a Tuesday night.

But, oh, what a great night it was.

I am biased toward the Powhatan Campus this week, as my daughter Sarah is back in town for the holiday. She has enough leeway in her schedule (after running around doing a lot of photography for folks) to lead worship with us. With most of our college students home for Thanksgiving, we were able to put together a band that included Sarah, Travis and Tanner. Matthew and Sean are anchoring things, and Walter and I get to be the old guys on the platform.

Several folks involved in various college ministries around the area have been encouraging me to introduce a new song. Actually, it's not that new, but it's certainly new to us.

Sometimes, songs just have a certain something; in old-school spiritual terms, we'd say that a song is anointed. Something special just happens in the singing, regardless of what's happening in the melody (sometimes nothing special) or the chord progression (sometimes quite standard). I think How He Loves is such a song; Majesty by Delirious is another one. You Are Good. He Is Yahweh. 

And now there's Give Me Faith. The lyrics aren't anything new or sexy. The progression is not unusual. But there's just...something.

And it fits our current series in a unique way. We're talking about being stuck, and the things we can do to get unstuck. But ultimately, we have to remember that the power of God has the potential to do incredibly more than anything we do; and without it, our lives are out of balance.

I may be weak
But Your spirit's strong in me
My flesh may fail
My God, You never will

Give me faith 
To trust what You say
You are good
And Your love is great

In rehearsal tonight, this song came alive. It was incredible and indefinable.

That's a part of faith that is appealing and captivating and utterly fascinating to me; there is a supernatural component to believing in the One who created everything. 

We had a powerful moment in rehearsal, and then the kids came home and we brought extra people with us and built a bonfire and sang it again. Along with a bunch of other stuff.

Sunday is going to be a very good day. My hope is this: If you are headed to PCC, give this song a listen or two. Get familiar with it. And then come Sunday, ready to add your voices to the chorus.

And by the way, I heard some folks talking last week about not singing - about how they don't want to offend anyone because they don't sing well.

Sing. It's not about your neighbor. It's worship, and God made that voice, along with the rest of you. He loves to hear you sing.

Come. Sing. Be part of something powerful. And trust me: if you give it a listen or watch this video and think, "What's the big deal? It doesn't do much for me..." - well, just trust me. It's got that something....

What songs do it for you? Which ones would you say have that special something?