Today’s Readings: Psalm 1; Acts 1:15-17; John 17:6-19; 1 John 5:9-13
Today, I am not giving a traditional reflection/sermon during worship. Therefore, I’ll include a short posting that captures the essence of what I will be doing during worship…
As a person who reached his teen age and young adult years during the 1980’s, I had the opportunity to witness the rise of the Religious Right. Ever since that time, the face of Christianity in our country has been incredibly fractured – at least that’s what the media would have us believe. You have the Religious Right on one extreme; the Religious Left on the other. You also have a growing amount of disaffected voices that fall someone between the two. Sadly, this has been the case for nearly 30 years now. Needless to say I get a little cynical when I read Jesus’ words proclaiming: “Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life that you conferred as a gift through me, so they can be of one heart and mind” (John 17:11 from The Message). “So they can be of one heart and mind..?” I find myself thinking. “Yeah, right – that’ll happen REAL soon!” As I sat with the Scriptures this week, however, I realized that one thing I love about corporate worship is that we get a tiny taste of what it might look like for a group of people to live in a space of one heart and mind. Each week as we participate in the Call to Worship and the Prayer of Confession, for instance, we hear disparate voices join together and become one. Each week as we hear the singing bowl call us to three minutes of silent prayer and reflection, we feel our scattered energies pull together and focus on the One. Today, as an act of experiencing what it means for the many to become one, we will engage in an age old worship experience called a Hymn Sing. It’s an opportunity to blend a variety of music styles and preferences together in order to produce one congregational experience of worship. My question then for you is this: “What might you do today to tangibly express Jesus’ call for his followers to ‘be of one heart and mind’?” Til next time…
Today, I am not giving a traditional reflection/sermon during worship. Therefore, I’ll include a short posting that captures the essence of what I will be doing during worship…
As a person who reached his teen age and young adult years during the 1980’s, I had the opportunity to witness the rise of the Religious Right. Ever since that time, the face of Christianity in our country has been incredibly fractured – at least that’s what the media would have us believe. You have the Religious Right on one extreme; the Religious Left on the other. You also have a growing amount of disaffected voices that fall someone between the two. Sadly, this has been the case for nearly 30 years now. Needless to say I get a little cynical when I read Jesus’ words proclaiming: “Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life that you conferred as a gift through me, so they can be of one heart and mind” (John 17:11 from The Message). “So they can be of one heart and mind..?” I find myself thinking. “Yeah, right – that’ll happen REAL soon!” As I sat with the Scriptures this week, however, I realized that one thing I love about corporate worship is that we get a tiny taste of what it might look like for a group of people to live in a space of one heart and mind. Each week as we participate in the Call to Worship and the Prayer of Confession, for instance, we hear disparate voices join together and become one. Each week as we hear the singing bowl call us to three minutes of silent prayer and reflection, we feel our scattered energies pull together and focus on the One. Today, as an act of experiencing what it means for the many to become one, we will engage in an age old worship experience called a Hymn Sing. It’s an opportunity to blend a variety of music styles and preferences together in order to produce one congregational experience of worship. My question then for you is this: “What might you do today to tangibly express Jesus’ call for his followers to ‘be of one heart and mind’?” Til next time…
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