Coincident or Convergent

As you may know, I spend many Monday afternoons over at the State Training School in Eldora.  I play a few worship songs at the start of the chapel service and when that is done, I will give music lessons to interested students.

For the last six months or so one of the students has been regularly accompanying me for the worship songs at the chapel service.  He’ll play some percussion alongside me playing guitar and it was neat to have a “worship team” with one of the students.

This student successfully completed the program at the STS while earning his high school diploma and he was discharged at the beginning of June.  For the last chapel service before his release, he had made a request of a song for us to play.  It was a modern, hip-hop influenced arrangement of Jesus Paid it All.  We even broke out a little keyboard so he could play some electronic drums for this song.  We practiced it several times in the preceding weeks and for that song we even had two other students join on guitar.  It was a lot of fun, very memorable for me, and hopefully meaningful for those students.

That was on Monday. 

On Friday I went for a run out at Prairie Bridges in Ackley.  As I rounded a bend in the trail, I heard someone shout my name from down by the lake. 

It was this very student who had been playing music with me for months and had just been released from the State Training School!  For his first day out, he was fishing with some family, and I got a chance to stop and talk with him for a while.

Even though he regularly attended the Christian Chapel service at the school, this student had always been forward about his lack-of-interest in God or anything spiritual.  But in that moment of our “coincidental” meeting at Prairie Bridges I was able to share with him that I believe these situations are orchestrated and arranged by God for His purposes.  Perhaps the Lord was trying to get his attention on his first day of release, in a way that helps him stay on a path out of incarceration.  What are the chances that on his first day of release, at that specific time of the afternoon, when I happened to be on a run (which I do not do often) we happen to be in the same place at the same time?  To call that a coincidence would seem illogical.  To call it supernatural seems accurate. 

In that moment I felt acutely aware of God’s presence, because I knew it was not a coincidence and that the Lord had something planned for this meeting.  Circumstances like that could be referred to as “convergent space” where the Holy Spirit allows a unique glimpse into how the spiritual reality and physical reality come together.  And I think it is important to our faith not to write these times off as a coincidence and to share them with others.  Because often others have a story of a time when an experience or encounter “felt” different because they were very aware of God’s presence. 

There are no coincidences, but there are places of convergence between our limited perception and God’s full reality.

2024 NAB Triennial

On an unrelated note, the NAB Triennial is happening this month in St. Paul, Minnesota (an easy 3-hour drive from our church – according to Apple Maps) from July 11-14.  This is an international gathering of churches that the North American Baptist denomination hosts every three years.  And this year the worship team from Steamboat Rock Baptist Church gets to lead the musical worship at all the morning session of the conference. 

The team is made up of myself, Janie Strickler, Amy Wright, Nolan Luther, Ryan Rolph, Steve Blair, Daniel Stahl, and Ben Low.  They are working hard to practice and prepare a large slate of worship songs and special-music pieces to help make this conference experience meaningful and powerful. 

Now, I know that many of you will not be able to join us for the whole conference, but the NAB has just opened the option of single-day passes rather than the whole conference.  So, rather than the financial and time-cost of the whole event, you could join us for a day and still have a positive experience. 

You can find more information about the day-pass here: https://nabconf.swoogo.com/triennial24/registration.