Princess Di

The Café has been quite full the last couple of weeks. It’s been great. It’s different than being in a worship session on a Sunday morning in church somewhere, but it’s sure sweet when there are a bunch of people all engaged in worship or reflection or enjoyment of God all at the same time in the same place. (Is it okay to use the word ‘bunch’? Perhaps I should have said ‘flock’ of people…)

This past Sunday Graham Ord was at/on Worship Café. This was his second visit, the first having been in January of this year.

The first time he was at the Café Graham was joined by Scott Matthies on percussion. Scott was with Graham again this time, and they were joined by Dave Moore on bass. Dave is an old friend of Graham’s; Graham introduced him as being the best man at his wedding. There is something about old friends doing music together – doing worship together – that is very engaging (although, truth be told, Dave did object to being labeled “Graham’s old friend”; he made it quite clear he was Graham’s young friend).

In one of the many interesting points of the session, Graham shared the story of when his oldest daughter was in hospital back in England years ago as a really young toddler. While he and his wife were there at their daughter’s bedside, concerned for their child and feeling helpless at not being able to do anything for her, Princess Diana made one of her visits to the children’s ward. Graham told us how amazing it was to be sitting there talking with the Princess, comparing notes on their kids, chatting about what each child liked to eat, and so on. It was very surreal, Graham said.

It made me think of worship. We get to hang around with royalty (the ultimate in royalty, in fact) and can chat about anything that’s on our mind. Sometimes we formalize it, sometimes it is completely casual. (I’m learning, actually, that formalizing is not necessarily a bad thing; for a while there it seemed like anyone who formalized worship in any way, shape or form was being très un-cool and not really being true to the heart of God. I’ve come to realize I was being presumptuous in thinking that. So I’ve discarded that mindset to a large extent. Nuff said.) (Okay, here’s a bit more: you can check out the Filid in the Worship Café archive for an example of a more formalized time of worship. That was cool).

Anyway, we get to hang around with royalty. And even though in worship we are often expressing our love and appreciation for what’s been given, even when we’re not expecting anything in return and are happy just to tell our Creator how much we love Him, we somehow come away changed. I don’t really know how that works. But I’m very glad when it happens.

The last song in Graham’s set was his well-known “The Lord is Gracious and Compassionate”. He shared a brief story of how the song came to be (which I won’t relate here), and it made me think how great it was when God smiles and a guy who walks in humility writes a song which impacts so many people.

If you missed the worship time with Graham feel free to catch the rebroadcast. And see you next week.