By Melissa Jensen

Part actor, part choir director, part storyteller, Joseph Garlington approaches preaching as a participatory event.  Joined by Denise Graves and Clarence Grant, his associate worship pastors at Covenant Church of Pittsburgh, Garlington demonstrated his unique style at the Purpose Driven Worship Conference + Festival on July 13 at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. 

Leading 2,400 worshippers through humorous stories of his grandchildren, infectious ditties, and grounded biblical truth, Garlington created what he refers to as "a no-limit atmosphere."  After singing the line "I'm lookin' for God stuff," Garlington led conference attendees in the anthem of his message: "No limits! No boundaries! I see increase all around me. Stretch forth -- break forth. Release me. Increase my territory."

Recognizing God stuff
"How do you find God stuff?" Garlington challenged attendees.  "How do you prepare?"  Looking to the examples set by Abraham's servant and Rebekah in Genesis 24, he suggested that the keys to realizing and acting on God moments can be found in the synchronicity of prayer and the kairos of worship.  

People outside the frame of reference of deity have to create another term for God moments, Garlington explained. Swiss philosopher C.G. Jung created the term "synchronicity" to describe such moments.  "More than coincidence, it's when a universal conspiracy takes place and events conspire together to produce meaningful changes in our lives," Garlington said. 

Unlike chronos, the Greek word for linear time, kairos is an interruption or happening that disrupts the normal sequence of time.  Kairos is a breakthrough; a critical moment in time in which history is changed.  "Rhetoric says that kairos is a passing instant, available only for a moment, in which it is necessary to drive through it with force if success is to be achieved," Garlington said.

Achieving success today
Recounting the servant's prayer in verse 12, Garlington focused on the importance of the opening words "and he said." "Nothing happens in the Kingdom of God until something is said," Garlington declared.  "We create worlds with our words. What are you creating with your words?"
 
After requesting that God grant him success today, Abraham's servant proceeded to set out parameters so he would know the woman God had chosen for Isaac.  "Before he had finished speaking, before he had framed his prayer, she appeared," Garlington said.  And she gave him exactly the answer he was looking for.

"Remember, kairos is a passing instant," Garlington said. "When I think of this story, I'm thinking, God, tell me about this setup. How did you work this, so that the exact prayer he prayed was fulfilled precisely the way he prayed it?" 

Garlington related the servant's synchronicity moment to his own several years ago.  Temporarily unemployed, he and his wife, Barbara, had run out of both groceries and money.  "We were living by faith -- it wasn't intentional," he said.  "Faith is making it up as you go along. There are no rules. So I thought, okay, I've got to buy some time here." He asked his wife to sit down and write a grocery list.  His wife did, and just as she finished, women arrived at the front door with a car full of groceries.  "Now, look," Garlington cautioned, "I'm not just preaching, I'm telling the truth."  Like the servant, he watched as these women carried bag after bag into their kitchen.  And every item that was on his wife's list was in those bags. 

"Do you have a list?" he asked attendees.  "Did you know the Bible says he knows what you have need of before you ask?  But you still have to ask." 

Getting back to the passage, Garlington continued: "Now notice, [the servant] doesn't wait for an invitation, because he realizes he's in a kairos moment, and he's going to drive through with force.  Did you know that there are certain things God has for you that are passing?"  When you have to have success today, sometimes you have to forcefully drive through that kairos opening, he said.


Releasing blessings
Considering Rebekah's day and frame of mind, Garlington paraphrased Ephesians 6:8: "The good you make happen for others, God will make happen for you." He mused: "Here is Rebekah watering camels, and it never occurred to her that the camels you water may be your own.  She had no idea. What is it about me that I forget that sometimes in order to release blessings in my life, I've got to be a blessing to someone else's life?" 

When Rebekah tells the servant who she is, he bows and he worships.  "You know, the best thing about bowing is it elevates your heart above your head," Garlington said. When we find ourselves in a God moment, when God grants us success today, we must not forget to worship God for his faithfulness. 

Garlington commissioned attendees with a prayer: "Lord, would you give us the instinct, the intuition to realize when you've given us an opening, that we would proceed with passion and with force, because in that passing moment we have the opportunity to seize the moment, to seize the day.  Please teach us to not be afraid, to understand there are no limits, no boundaries, but there is increase."