Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I have a serious faith in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross but they know also that I haven’t regularly gone to church in a number of years. I don’t have anything against church. I’m sure my absence is due to a few psychological issues and not finding a church that “clicked.” Well, this past Sunday I attended Bayfair in Pickering for the second time in as many weeks. The praise and worship was good. The pastor turned out to be quite biblically sound and much deeper than I thought he was before. But what happened in the closing hymn was something that I have rarely felt.
The (very) young worship team leader introduced the hymn as a very old one, 500 years old “but still good”. That hymn was A Mighty Fortress is our God (lyrics; youtube). Surprisingly, the young worship team sang through all of the verses and delivered excellently. The result was two hundred or so believers singing powerful doctrine together in unity. You could sense something special was occurring right then and there.
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Selah.