The Presence of Presents and the Presents of Presence

In church last Sunday my pastor was praying as the service opened.  At one point in his prayer he said something along the lines of “we thank you for your presence.”  At that point, in a very clear voice a child was heard to exclaim, “Presents!?”

Even as I write this I am assuming that my pastor meant presence and that the child meant presents.  Since his prayer and the child’s response were not written I could be mistaken.  Presence and presents are not technically homophones, but close enough.  Maybe Tim said presents.  It would be appropriate in worship to acknowledge God’s presents.  (Although in most evangelical circles we would use the word “gifts” because it doesn’t sound so worldly.)  And maybe the child said “Presence!?” because he got excited that God might actually be there.

But I’m going to go with my first instinct and assume Tim said presence and the child said presents.  While this was an obvious failure to communicate however innocently and unintentionally it happened, I must say it was one of those serendipitous moments in worship in which the Holy Spirit took an ordinary occasion and breathed into it the extra-ordinary.

For the next few moments I lost track of the prayer (sorry, Tim) and thought about how much I appreciate both God’s presence and His presents.  Like the presence of children in worship who remind us of God’s presents.  Like the presents the Holy Spirit gives to each believer to be used to display God's presence.  Like the presence of brothers and sisters in Christ who are presents to the Body of Christ.

Next time you’re in worship see if you can identify both God’s presence and His presents.  You may discover presents and presence you've been missing.