Worship is the open-hearted, fully engaged, Spirit-led communion with the one, true living God.
It is work. It is the work of the people.
Worship is our once-a-week expression of thanksgiving, prayer and praise, our repentance and our joy as a Christian community.
It is not an obligation to God. It is an obligation to one another.
It is not a club meeting where we have to show up once and awhile in order to maintain good standing, it is a gathering of the people of God.
It is not something you do if you don’t have anything else to do, or if you have out-of-town company.
It is majesty. It is beyond cosmic and beneath humble humanity.
It is love expressed and received.
It is the outpouring, overflowing, transformational encounter whose only practical value is in the communal expression of humanness before God.
It is more being than doing.
We are a worshipping community at Faith Lutheran Church. We are connected and our common relationship is an expression of our uncommon relationship with God: worship.
Come this week and sing (or just listen), hear the Word, share communion with God.
We need you.
Come and worship.
Come and worship.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Let's Talk About It
Here’s an exercise to help develop your Spiritual Relationships, the mark of discipleship on which we are concentrating this month:
Find a way to include, with their Christian meaning, any of the following words in your conversations this week:
Jesus, church, Bible, justice, God, integrity, struggle, forgiveness, faith, and grace.
If you can do this without blushing or feeling really weird, you are probably engaged in a spiritual relationship.
I read an article recently (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/may/footwashers.html) about a doctor in Ethiopia who attended a lunch meeting for people who were interested in addressing a newly discovered disease. As the food arrived, he asked “if anyone would mind if we thanked God for the food.” People immediately approved and, as they talked, they found that they all were “fully vested Christians.”
Our relationships only take on a spiritual character if we are intentional and specific in listening to the voice of God within us, and give voice to that presence to others, and listening to that voice in others.
We are witnesses to what God has done and is doing in our lives. Let’s talk about it.
Find a way to include, with their Christian meaning, any of the following words in your conversations this week:
Jesus, church, Bible, justice, God, integrity, struggle, forgiveness, faith, and grace.
If you can do this without blushing or feeling really weird, you are probably engaged in a spiritual relationship.
I read an article recently (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/may/footwashers.html) about a doctor in Ethiopia who attended a lunch meeting for people who were interested in addressing a newly discovered disease. As the food arrived, he asked “if anyone would mind if we thanked God for the food.” People immediately approved and, as they talked, they found that they all were “fully vested Christians.”
Our relationships only take on a spiritual character if we are intentional and specific in listening to the voice of God within us, and give voice to that presence to others, and listening to that voice in others.
We are witnesses to what God has done and is doing in our lives. Let’s talk about it.
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