Tomorrow marks our fourth public worship meeting as a church. We’ve had lots of friends family come by and wish us well and encourage us, and we’ve had a few visitors as well. I’m often asked by friends and colleagues and other pastors how things are going with the church plant and I didn’t know what to say for a while. Do I talk about how many people came? Do I focus on what we preached on or our liturgy? Maybe I should talk about the things we are hoping to do as a church and the mission we’re on. But none of these seemed to hit on how we were doing as a church.
But as Ben and I talked and debriefed and examined what Sundays were like for us a phrase came to mind that seems to capture what church planting has been like. It has been gloriously ordinary. We’ve said from the beginning that CGC won’t be flashy because it’s being pastored by a couple of boring guys who just want to focus on the ordinary means of grace - the pathways of discipleship and growth God has laid out in his word. We gather together as a small body to hear God’s word, sing God’s word, respond to God’s word in prayer, preach God’s word, and partake of God’s word made visible in communion. We are ordinary. And there is something glorious about that.
You know why? Because God meets with his people in the ordinary. He meets with us through his Word and by his Spirit. God’s presence with his people isn’t determined by our emotions as if an unemotional Sunday meant God wasn’t with us that day. No! God is always with his people and promises to inhabit our praises (Ps. 22:3). So our Sundays are ordinary and that is exactly the way God wants them. There’s nothing wrong with style. But the substance is what matters. And this is true in every church in every place in every age. The Lord’s Day gathering of his church is gloriously ordinary. So whether you meet in a centuries old building that communicates grandeur and glory in it’s very architecture, or if you meet in a clay hut or on a grassy hill, the gathering of God’s people tomorrow is glorious because God meets with his people in the ordinary means of grace. Come, let us worship and bow down before the Lord God, our Maker, Redeemer, and Friend.