The word “sin.”

Funny thing happened yesterday as I was getting ready for our church service. We’ve decided to try to make the time before church starts, at least in our sanctuary, a time of “preparation” from a spiritual point of view. We built a new entry way and sanctuary in 2003 – but before that, the entry way was small and the sanctuary itself was often used as just an overflow entryway. Lots of visiting, chatting, etc. We decided we wanted to give people a space to prepare their hearts for the worship service, and since we have the entry space to do that without taking away the also very important visiting, reacquainting, friendly space, we’re navigating the change.

Anyway – to help make this a meaningful time, I’m making some powerpoint slides to help give people some things to think about as they’re quieting their hearts before the service. I decided to use the A.C.T.S prayer model – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication and give some descriptions, Bible verses, and instructions on the slides. Basic format is to give the word, say what it means, give some instructions, give some supporting verses. Adoration works fine – here’s the definition, and now – the instruction is to “Spend some time Adoring the Lord.” Pretty basic…

Then I get to C. I cut and paste a definition for confession, and then get to the instruction aspect, and find myself struggling with how to word it. This is the odd part for me. Spend time adoring the Lord – no problem. Spend time Thanking the Lord – no problem. Spend time “Supplicating” – or asking the Lord to meet your needs – no problem! Spend time confessing your sins – problem. For some reason, I kept finding myself wanting to soften it. I typed out “asking God to forgive you for the things that come between you and Him.” Erased it. I typed “Spend time…. Examining your heart.” Erased it. I even typed and erased spend time “Confessing your sins.” Several times, but erased it. It just seemed so harsh – and then I had to really ask… Why is this such a big deal for me this morning? It wasn’t a prompting from God that was leading me to not put the words “Confess your sins” up there – it just made me nervous that it might (*gasp!*) make someone upset that I was calling them a sinner.

But we are! All of us. We’re all guilty, and all sinners, and all in desperate need of the forgiveness only God has to offer.

So finally – I just typed the words and put them up there.

Made me curious, though. I wonder why I reacted so strongly to those words yesterday. I think that, inside, there’s always a part of us that doesn’t like being told that we’ve done something wrong. Perhaps that part was rearing up yesterday. Just thought I’d share something I found strange.