It was easy for me to fully embrace God in worship when I was an early believer. I had just come up out of the ditch and was really feeling the Love and I was broken and open and a spiritual sponge and completely clueless to how hard it would actually be to follow Jesus.

Today, for me, it takes intention and energy and calming of breath to create a place and space where I can fully be in worship…and it’s often not on Sunday mornings during worship time…yep, I said that. My worship time is in the praying and listening and struggling and creating the space and being in community with people doing the same. There was a moment during this year’s prayer vigil setup when I stepped back and just watched the men and women working on creating the prayer space…planting flowers, pushing dirt, arranging rocks…and in that moment, I felt God’s breath…I turned to Ricky and said; “THIS is the Kingdom of Heaven…right here.” He didn’t argue…he could see these beautiful children of God following their calling and giving their gift and stretching and stepping into their fears and feeling into their creativity and God was in it and it changed me…forever.

I have a creative teacher…I call him Matthew. He’s actually annoying…mostly because he can create just about anything out of nothing. Many days I hate that man and the mirror he is for me, showing me potential…teaching the gift…taking minutes to create what takes me hours. I pray he knows how important he has been in helping me to believe in my self and my ability to create anything that I can possibly imagine. My tears flow as I type this…I just don’t think he has a clue to the influence he has had on my creativeness and my desire to create…or how much I love him…or how jealous I am of his ability…or how I see God in him. And, I’d tell him how I feel, but I really don’t want to feed his ego…or let him know that I worship the creative ground he walks on.

I see this God Thread…in Matthew…the Prayer Vigil…the worship team…this community we call Journey. The God Thread is where I truly feel compelled to worship…God’s movement among us. The God Thread connects everything…it flows and weaves through the worship team as they pray and listen and select scripture and music and images and poems and stories and it follows them home and enters into relationship with their families and it shows up on Saturday night and Sunday morning and it’s pouring out the tips of our fingers and into the art that is created and being created and the people who come to worship get tangled up in it and it sticks to them and they carry it outside where the sun warms it and the humidity dampens it as it leaves our site and shows itself here and there and just when we think the thread is gone it reappears to love and feed and comfort and nurture the broken before moving and circling back to this place where old and new and different people join in while the thread grows long and light and flowing before its weave and stitch send it out and back for all of us to see again…or for the very first time.