distracted - who me?

honestly, I wasn't distracted. what was there to distract me?

it couldn't have been the three girls with skin tight low-riders and shirts that rode up to reveal their midriff. or the fact that they chatted and giggled with tell tale gestures of infatuation with one or another boy in the next row up.

it couldn't have been the fact that the 'worship' was altogether too long. that new song that he introduced was lame the first time not mention the third time and this after we were forced to sing along to a recording - for the benefit of the kids

And speaking of kids - I definitely was not distracted by the fact that this service was billed as a kids/family service and they only that gave indication that it was such a thing was the fact the kids did not get to go to children's church and a few were invited onto the stage.

it couldn't have been the lady warbling away in 'harmony' to the music. or for that matter that we ended up singing, "God of Wonders" at precisely the time when my back and my legs were pleading with me to sit down.

or the fact that after the kids finished showing off with their two songs the worship leader said something like, "it's not just the kids that can worship we adults can approach the throne of worship as well." And then proceeded to lead us in a hymn - rather slowly too.

and I definitely was not distracted by the business man who clearly was scoping out which of his clients or other business contacts were in attendance at the church.

I wasn't distracted by the fact that the preacher, although relatively humorous, preached three messages instead of just one.

And I absolutely was not distracted by the lead pastor lifted his head toward heaven every time he prayed directly to God. Even though it was so different than when he was praying to the people - you know with his head panning across the congregation - giving us the mini sermon in his prayer.

Because he was the guy that told me I should not be distracted. In fact he ask the 'worship' dude to play a little longer just to make sure that all of us had not been distracted and were able to 'engage the spirit of God'.

what did distract me though was after the service - running into one of the kids from my youth group. One of the last ones I thought I'd see inside a church willingly. It really caught me off guard when he told me that he had put his enormous musical talent to work on the Psalms and that they had just opened up for him as he read through them. Usually distractions make me frustrated but this did something altogether different.