Weekend Panorama - Part Two

After a much needed night of rest, this day has only heightened our sense of praise. It began with a marvelous Morning Worship at Salem Covenant in New Brighton, with inspiring Organ and choral music and Glen Wiberg preaching on "Views from Mt. Nebo" from Deuteronomy 34. There Moses is given to see the whole land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Though not allowed to enter it he is content nonetheless, as God not only takes his life in Moab but buries him in a place known only to himself. The right view of life, Wiberg proclaimed, is that hopeful view based on God's promise, as Martin Luther King, Jr. later evidenced in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in our own times. Wanting only to do God's will must be our will if we are to build his kingdom in our time and place and continue to experience his blessing.

Getting in then on part of Pastor Mark Pattie's Sunday school class on "Listening to Scripture" as the key to knowing his presence and will, we then left to attend 11:00 a.m. worship with our extended family at Sanctuary Covenant Church, a multi-ethnic, multi-national inner city congregation meeting in a Minneapolis Middle School Auditorium and pastored by Efrem Smith.

There too God blessed us with no less a Pietist spirit. Though the worship sprung from within the African American culture, avowedly to reach all nearby who are part of it, there was both great warmth in the welcome of the people, and great passion in the sharing of God's word and will. People ready to say "Yes" to God and turn their lives over to him were invited to stand in their places and come up later for prayer and counsel. It was refreshing and inspiring.

After an informal lunch with family we had time to return home for a much needed nap before yet more awaiting us in the late afternoon of this same day. Impressions of that follow in Part Three.