So, I was running a little bit late to church Saturday afternoon. Thirty minutes, to be precise. My response to these situations is to make a doubly concerted effort to find some quiet time, do a little reading, catch a music fix where I can, get focused, and otherwise bask in the presence of God as best as I can. Whatever I can do to break the cycle of feeling like I've got work to do on a day of rest, I tend to do.

More often than not, that sometimes means putting the service up on the big screens in the 4th Floor Loft and enjoy the service remotely rather than head downstairs to the sanctuary. There are some pluses to this - I don't fret over fitting into a packed seat down front and feel like a sardine; I'm less likely to run over people in a rush to get back upstairs in a timely manner; and the quiet, relaxed time that I have in doing this really is a huge antidote for busyness.

That said, there are some minuses, too - the sense of community approaches zero; the ability to soak up some of the music the way you can do in a crowd is minimized a great deal; there's the occasional distraction that prevents any of those pluses from happening; and it's hard to do communion unless someone hauls wafers & kool-aid up the elevator just for the few folks sticking around upstairs.

So it's those minuses that sometimes creep into my thinking to make me ask which is a better use of my time - hanging out upstairs, or hauling it down to the sanctuary for Saturday service. Add to this, the notion that there is what seems to be an extravagance of having a room designed for 1000 people filled with somewhere between 2-6 people watching the service being projected onto the two big screens of this room. I haven't calculated the cost or carbon footprint that equates with, but my sense is that each may be a bit higher than if I didn't bother doing that.

Cut to last night. There's an above-average number of people who have trickled into the Loft and are taking in the service. And that's after one of the regulars even requests this. So I'm already feeling a little justified in my mission for the night. A few of the folks, I don't recall seeing before.

Standard operating procedure is for me to play the service all the way through the salvation prayer. It's a time of the service that I continue to think is the most powerful even after being born again or recommitting your life to Christ. Of course, that's also why I stay in my seat until that's all done with at service and recommend it highly for those who haven't been doing so ;-)

Anyway ... Saturday night. Marcos' sermon was beyond words and probably ranks as one of the more powerful sermons I think we've heard so far this year at Lakewood. There's a point when he has the audience reach out to one another and pray. I notice the familiar regular of our bunch praying over the newbie who was sitting at her table.

Marcos then queues up the salvation prayer at the end. Those of you familiar with Lakewood probably know what it's like seeing a lot of hands raised every service by those who have prayed it for the first time or are recommitting. Again ... words fail to describe what it's like to see that at EVERY service in the sanctuary.

Saturday night, that happened in the Loft.

Marcos said the words, our faithful regular prayed with him, and the new guy that was up there with us raised his hand. It's amazing what you see if you stick around long enough. God truly works in odd and mysterious ways.