I Feel the Need for Stream

It’s impossible to put into words how God moved me last year at Stream DFW. I can’t tell you — I don’t even know where to start — all the ways God used people and events and his Holy Word and circumstances and songs and sermons and his Holy Spirit to break me, wake me, and shake me.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from my first ever Stream. I’d never attended a Stream event. But it turned out to be so much more than I imagined. Through the use of congregational singing and dramatic readings and timely video dramas and silence and meditation and prayer, Ken Young and the Hallal Singers took all of us straight to God’s throne room, right into his presence. An hour of that and then another hour of Jeff Walling. Three times. A true focus on God’s surpassing love for us and our response to him through our own love for the Father and for one another and for the world.

Wow.

This year’s Stream DFW is approaching quickly. September 10-12 at the South MacArthur Church of Christ in Irving. And I need it. Oh, brother, do I need it.

It seems like this whole year has been so incredibly hectic. At times, frantic. Changes within our body of shepherds. Ministers coming and going. A trip to Ukraine. An abundance of difficult situations with over-burdened families here at Legacy. Church budget issues. Speaking engagements. Programs. Classes. It’s been go! go! go! non-stop, it seems, all year long.

I feel the need for Stream.

It’s so easy to get so caught up in church. Church issues. Church people. Church programs. Church meetings. Church politics. Church business. Church planning. Church. Church. Church. I feel like it’s been a long time since I just sat in silence before God and reflected on his great mercy and love. It’s hard to do that in our church worship assemblies. There’s so much to experience, so much to soak up, so much to acknowledge and share when it comes to God and his people, it’s impossible to do it all in the 75-minutes we have on Sunday mornings. Impossible. Sometimes we try, and that makes everything feel even more rushed. And hectic. And frantic.

Stream is a time to settle down for a whole weekend and enjoy the transforming presence of our God. No cell phones, no clocks, no meetings, no other place to be or other tasks to accomplish. We lose ourselves in long extended times of praise and worship and prayer and deep reflection on God’s revelation to his people.

Terry Rush is the speaker this year. I’ve never listened to anyone more humble, more completely aware of the grace of God, more grateful for his status as a child of the King, more encouraging to those around him than Terry. The theme is “At the Cross.” Terry is going to share with us the simplicity and the power of the cross that gives us eternal life. The good news of the cross that heals the wounded, strengthens the weak, and gives hope to the weary. Terry will be excellent. Stream DFW will be excellent.

And I need it.

Hope to see you there.

Peace,

Allan