Heilig Bist Du Herr

*Blink*

Ok, I think I'm awake now. Nothing like jet lag and running straight to work from a trip from Germany to keep one away from his blog. Oh, and soccer night with the boys. And worship practice...

Anyway, I am happy to report about Calling All Nations from July 15th:

Wow.

I think it is hard to fully express what it is like to be part of 25,000 people praising Jesus Christ as Lord. It definitely is a miniature picture of what heaven will be like, considering that 30+ nations were together in worship.

There was warfare involved. Prior to the event I had to deal with some sin, and it was not pleasant. However, I would rather have the Lord expose me than to go into something like this without being as clean as I can be. It was a hard confrontation, but the Lord disciplines those He loves.

My only complaint was the punctual, nay...EARLY Germans! We didn't account for how long we'd have to spend going through the entrance line, and were searching for our seats lost outside the huge stadium when we started hearing the Psalm Drummers lead off. That was my only disappointment is that it started a few minutes early and we weren't RIGHT THERE. But the drum group pounded away while a flag corp performed, followed by another group carrying many of the flags of the world.

The day was split into 3 sessions, as we were there from 11 am-9 pm. The initial session focused on praise and God's love. The second session had more of an intecessory/prophetic bent. The third session directed us to the call of missions as a natural outworking of worship.

There was a main stage at one end of the stadium, then a small set-up opposite this. Acts would alternate between the main stage and the fore stage, in order to stagger acts without big delays. It actually worked quite well, since the stadium is large enough that we had to look at the large monitors to see anything anyway.

We alternated between English and German worship songs throughout the day, even though English was dominate. It worked well, as it seemed most Germans were quite familiar with the "big" English worship songs.

Five of our group, including my wife and I, were part of an international choir that performed with Brian Doerksen (two of our team were gracious enough to tackle our boys in the stands!). We only had a couple hours of practice the day before, and none of our team realized we'd be singing in German as well as English. The spirit of worship carried us through, and it was just a time to lift Him up, no matter what language (although I'm glad I didn't have to sing a solo!). It was a powerful time to join together with these brothers and sisters and be a small part of the whole event.

I think I'll share about the 2nd and 3rd sessions next time, then talk about my impressions of the event - what I've taken away from it, and maybe encouraging all of you in some of it as well. Until then, "Holy is the Lord!" (the translation of the title of this post). Also, check out this blog report from CAN. As I can find other posts on this, I'll link to them here.