Welcome to July! What an exciting month for our country (July 4th), and our church. I say this because we are here! We continue to worship, and we continue to support Our Churches Wider Mission (OCWM) as well as our community!
I love Sunday morning! My greatest joy is worshipping with you all. As I wrote this article, I began to think of the word worship. How would we explain what we do on a Sunday morning to someone who has limited church experience or none at all? What is Worship?
In the Bible, Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Worship is an act of love. It is a demonstration of love. We serve God and we worship God each Sunday when we gather together to sing his praises and listen to his word, but there is so much more to worship than that.
We worship God when we serve by helping with a youth or children’s program. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
We worship when we share God’s word and his love with new believers. Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
We worship God when we speak out for the marginalized and the forgotten. We worship God when we speak out against violence, discrimination, and persecution. The marginalized and forgotten, the victims of violence, discrimination, and persecution; these are our neighbors, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of religion, regardless of gender, regardless of age. We worship God when we love our neighbors, and we worship God when we recognize our past failings and work to make amends.
We worship God when we support our food bank. Jesus said, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me.”
We worship God, when we visit a friend who is struggling, or encourage each other over coffee or tea. We worship God when we pray for ourselves, and when we pray for others. We worship God when we celebrate a birth, a graduation, or a wedding. And we worship as we mourn with those who have lost a loved one. We worship God when we share a meal and celebrate the friends he has surrounded us with.
A church filled with love, with care and with joyful laughter is a church filled with the Holy Spirit! God Bless You,
