I have been commissioned...

Yesterday at church our London Team was commissioned. I have never actually been commissioned before and I always thought of it as sort of nerve-wracking. And let me tell you it was... at first. I really dislike getting up in front of a bunch of people I don't know, who don't know me and that are all staring at me. Now I know that they are not only looking at me, but also looking at the 12 other people standing up there, but it's still intimidating. One of my fears going into it was that when our pastor asked people to come down and pray for us that no one was going to come over to me. My fears came true a bit, but it turned out better than I suspected.
Let me tell you what happened:

• First Service (The Scary One) People began coming up to pray. Lot's of people were heading for Mike on my right and whoever was on my left. Finally after what felt like an hour (it was probably about 10 seconds) Anthony Lammons (he works at CBU) and his daughter and a student from my Bible Study came up to pray for me. Relief washed over me.

• Second Service (The Awkward One) Again people begin coming up to pray. Again lot's of people were heading for Mike on my right and whoever was on my left. Finally a lady comes up and it looks as if she wants to pray for Mike but there are too many in front of Mike so she suggests everyone links hands, which I do, awkwardly take her hand because some other lady takes Mike's hand as I went to reach for it, and she prays. This was probably the most awkward of all of them because the lady didn't know my name so when she prayed for me she called me, "This young one here." This makes me think she assumed I was one of the high school students going.

• Third Service (The Awesome One and maybe a bit awkward): This time when our pastor asked people to come up I could pick out the people coming towards me. Mainly because this is the service with many of our students and they know who we are. The funniest or maybe a most awkward moment of the whole thing was that when Jon McWhorter came up to us he put his hands on mine and Mike's shoulders and I reached up and patted his hand. Now my whole meaning behind this was to say thank you nonverbally. I am hoping that's the way Jon took it (Jon- hopefully you will read this so you know my meaning behind it) and I hope there will not be an awkwardness between us now. I told Mike and he thought it was funny. As I write this I think I am thinking I need to write a post about how awkward I can be (that will be for another day). Anyway, this one was very cool having our students support us in prayer, even if it was a bit awkward too.

I looked up commission on dictionary.com and this was one of about 20 definitions:

to authorize; send on a mission.

I think this is a great definition for what we are a about to do! We are being sent to do a a mission for God and we may only come back with a few results, but we are doing what Jesus commanded us all to do in Acts 1:8. This time next week we will be done with our first day of ministry and I'm sure tired, but I believe it will comfort me to know that our church will be praying for us and especially that we have students who are praying and supporting us too. So, even though I was dreading my first commissioning experience it turned out to be pretty sweet!

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