Each week I look forward with great anticipation to our worship together, and this weekend especially so. On Saturday @ 6:24, our Congregational Life Director, Alycia Erickson, will preach at MCC Austin for the first time. On Sunday, the Moderator of MCC Churches, Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, will bring us the message in both services. In addition, our sanctuary choir will sing at both services on Sunday as will our good, good friends Out4Joy: Ken, Kim, Kay, and Doug.
So I've been thinking about what a wonderful thing it is to practically wish the weekdays by so that I can get to Saturday and Sunday worship. I mean, that's a really good way for a pastor to feel, right? I hope a good number of you feel that way too...
But on the other hand, last night I had an experience that reminded me that worship can happen in all kinds of ways and in all kinds of places.
I shouldn't have been surprised by my worshipful experience last night; after all, I was at church! But I wasn't in the Easter adorned sanctuary. I was in the social hall, sitting at a yellow plastic covered table, drinking watered down iced tea, eating stale pretzels, and making my way through an ambitiously full agenda with the rest of our Board of Directors.
Low and behold, worship happened.
As we entered the portion of our agenda titled "Grow as Spiritual Leaders," we read several times through Philippians 4:4-9. I asked the Board to share how those verses spoke to their personal lives or their service as Board members. What many of our reflections included was an acknowledgment of how we begin to lose our fear and find peace and accomplish more when we give our decisions and actions over to God. After our sharing time, we offered a prayer thanking God for direction and for the peace that passes understanding and headed into the action items on our agenda. We ended up working for another 2 hours, and we took up some challenging topics, but our spirits were calm, our hearts and wills were united in purpose, and we managed to laugh many times before we finally blew out the Christ candle and went home.
Here's what I took from this experience: Worship is ceremonies, prayers, or other forms by which we express our love for God. Many times this happens within a stated worship service, but many times it happens outside of those services. We worship together at Seders and socials, when we collect our history and welcome diversity, when we tend the grounds and decorate the sanctuary, when we teach the children and host IHN families and write checks for MCC Cares and pray for our Board of Elders. Whenever we express our love for God, we are worshipping.
Don't get me wrong-this is not an invitation to skip Saturday and Sunday worship services. Rather, it's an invitation to add to them in whatever ways speak to your spirit. Attend a class; join a ministry; participate in church meetings, go to cluster conference. God doesn't wait for the weekends to bless us; we need not wait to worship.
Grace and Peace...
