European Rhythms

After a long, 2 month summer break from leading worship, I was ready to get back into it.

I lead worship for a men's prayer meeting, that creatively enough goes by the same name, "Men's Prayer."  I took over for Ross Parsley in January of 2010 as he prepared to plant his church that fall, and have been doing it ever since.  I have to be there at 6am each Thursday for sound check and a 6:30 start time, and since I live about 30minutes from the church, I get up at about 4:45 on Thursday's.

After the service, I head to Chick-Fil-A with the band; a tradition we've carried on together since very early on.  Some days we talk about the set, the service, or ways to dig deeper into what we do each week with the men of New Life.  Other days the conversation diverges to work situations, avant-garde chiptune concerts, and the varied perplexities of life from just as varied generational perspectives.

Usually, but not as regularly as I'd like, I head to Starbucks right afterward.  I arrive at about 8:23 each week, and have discovered the beauty of routine.  Specifically, I've seen the same elderly couple at this specific Starbucks whenever I come - for at least the last year.

There's something mysterious and beautiful about them; him with his hard-of-hearing loud-talking, her with her too-strong-for-public perfume - and the both of them with thick Jersey accents that endear them almost immediately.  And there's something about their routine, a rhythm that every Thursday helps me feel I've been transported to a side-street bistro somewhere in Italy, and that time itself has somehow been made to wait for the day to really begin.

I look forward to this moment, coffee in hand, like an "after worship dessert" every week.

I think it's the rhythm of it.  The respiration, the sipping of the hot coffee, the morning sun, the familiar faces all help me pause and reset - just in time for the weekend as fate would have it.  These moments help me remain, and become, the person I want to be: someone centered by a routine and not bound to it.  A person who can "lean back in the saddle" of life, and take a look at the scenery as it goes by.

I've grown to cherish my early, sleepless Thursday mornings.  Time with God, the men of New Life, and an hour of solitude with my coffee has helped shape my vocational ministry in a should-have-seen-it-coming-but-didn't kind of way.  For that, I'm thankful.