Our first service went well at 8:30 yesterday.

But the band thought it could have gone better. Part of the praise set included O Praise Him, a richly textured song by David Crowder. Yet Crowder's stuff can be difficult to sing, and our church has just never gotten the hang of that particular tune.

As a result, that moment in worship lacked some participation and energy.

So as I was shaking hands after that first service, I heard the band rehearsing Sing To The King, which our church not has the hang of but loves.

Without prompting from me, they changed things in the middle of a Sunday.

That's very unusual for us.

But they pulled it off. Brilliantly. It helps that no one leads Sing To The King with as much passion and power as our own April Geiger.

So while 8:30 went well, 10 and 11:30 went better. All thanks to the leadership and flexibility of our musicians. My only role was to shake hands and stay out of the way.

We have begun to think about much of the ministry at Good Shepherd in terms of making space.

Here's how it works: as a church we make space -- other terms include "design experiences" or "craft environments" -- in which the Holy Spirit can then move in powerful ways. What happens inside those spaces is then up to the people involved and the Spirit who is running loose.

We as pastors can't necessarily control everything that happens inside the space, but we are responsible for opening it up in the first place.

This approach explains much of what we do:

• We offer our Pathfinder program to grow community. We can't make the people in a given Pathfinder group really like each other or develop strong bonds. That happens organically, naturally. So Pathfinder launches and groups become the space where relationships form and community blooms.
• Our Healing Services give space for the Holy Spirit to be released in people's bodies, minds, and spirits. During the Without Limit series, we realized if we were going to talk about the Holy Spirit, we needed to give him opportunity to move in the people of the church. So we had healing services every week in February of this year.
• Our First Serve ministry gives people space in which to impact the community. With a wide range of monthly options, our hope is that people find the area of service that best fits their spiritual gifts and the needs of the city of Charlotte.

These are just a few examples of the ways in which we try to make space for God to move and for people to connect.

That's why we do what we do.

What will you do in the spaces God and this church provides for you?

Good Shepherd's focus on simplicity is changing how we do serving ministries.



We want to give the people of the church a simple, monthly, meaningful serving opportunity through what we call First Serve.



The concept is similar to our Pathfinder approach to small group ministry. With Pathfinder, if you want to get involved in group life, simply come to one of our periodic launch events (the next one is April 22).



Same idea with First Serve. If you want to make your life count for something larger than yourself, if you want to be part of our ministries that serve the community beyond the church's walls, simply come to our monthly event (held on the first Saturday) and we will send you out and put you to work. Three hours every thirty days. Simple, focused, strategic.



Check it out here:







The ministry launches on April 3-4. You can sign up here.



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This week's posts on simplicity and church life are inspired by the book Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger. I believe it's the best book on church leadership in years.