So far this week, I've had the joy and privilege of participating in two worship services that were not at Journey but were highly significant. Briefly...

Sunday morning, our church was invited by Revival Center Church to worship with them. RCC is a predominately African-American church led by a good minister friend of mine, Michael Jones. Michael and I have met and have prayed a few times now for the Lord to grant us favor and wisdom as we consider what a multiethnic ministry might look like here in our Delta region town.

I invited Mark DeYmaz and Stephen Weathers, pastors of Mosaic Church in Little Rock down a few months ago to help us being that dialogue. Mosaic's church DNA is wrapped around the concept of every people, every tribe. Their vision is a multisite, multiethnic church.

At RCC Sunday, I was blessed to be able to preach to both our congregations about "Thankful for Joy." You can listen to the podcast here. However, greater than the message proclaimed was the message of the Gospel in the pews. We loved meeting with them and worshiping our Savior together. We're looking ahead already to the next time.

The second worship opportunity was last night at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at UAM. I served there from 1995-2003 as the director before resigning to start Journey. Last night was the final worship service of the semester. They call it "Refuge" these days. (We called it FIRE back in the day). What was significant is that it wasn't just the last Refuge of the semester. It was the last Refuge in that building forever.

The BCM will be moving into a brand new facility built by love, faith, and vision in January. They will move in debt free after at least 10 years of prayer and fund-raising. Their current facility was built by Southern Baptist Churches back in 1954. In fact, the BSU (as it was known then)at UAMwas founded in 1932.

It was deeply surreal for me to be able to stand in the back, listening to current director Tracy Reed teach and participate in the student-led worship time. I loved every minute of it and thanked the Lord for the generations of students that have been touched for eternity through God's people ministering in that location.

As I reflect on both opportunities for worship, I'm confident of one thing in relation to each... it is not an isolated worship service that marks a ministry. It's the overall direction of that ministry in relation to the teachings of Jesus Christ. In both cases I would say that the path ahead is bright indeed!