What is Worship?

Palm Sunday provides a great opportunity to ask the question, "What is Worship?"

On Palm Sunday it is easy to get caught up in the excitment and the drama of worship. Everyone is waving palm branches and shouting, "Hosanna!" In the midst of the excited crowd, it was easy to cheer and worship this king who came into town riding on a donkey. Even now, centuries later, we still get excited about waving Palm fronds and shouting "Hosanna!"

Worship certainly is celebration. But, as we worship God, we realize that there is much more than simply celebration. We see as the rest of Holy Week unfolds, that worship also involves listening, following and upholding God's word (think of Jesus' acts in the Temple). Worship also means serving others (Jesus washed the disciple's feet). Worship means spending time in prayer and keeping watch over friends who are in trouble (Garden of Gethsemane). Worship meanss that we, like the "beloved disciple" need to stay close to Jesus when everything else seems to be going wrong.

Worship is celebration for all that God has done, but worship is so much more. True worship happens through the way we live our lives.

How can we be more intentional about living and worshiping in God's presence this week?

Blessed to be a blessing...

"We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." -
1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

This week's theme is Christian Service. We are going to share the stories of some of those who faithfully serve our church. I love the above verse because it shows how Paul encouraged his congregations in their service. Paul believed that "whatever we do, whether in word or deed" we should "do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (Colossians 3:17)

So, this week, as you go about your normal average daily jobs, ask yourself:

How am I serving God through this job?
How can I give thanks to God through my work?

I pray that you may be able to find special ways to serve God this week.

Spiritual Disciplines

Here's what we've been doing throughout Lent...

As March begins, so does the season of Lent. Lent is a time for reflection and meditation and getting ready for Easter. If you were an athlete, Easter would be the Olympics. The Olympics are full of pomp and circumstance and celebration. At the Olympics, you get to see the very essence of what it means to be an athlete. The Olympics make all of the hard work of training worthwhile. And, similarly, Easter is full of celebration and festivities, and it is that moment when it is most clear why you are a Christian. As we celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection, we are reminded why we became a Christian in the first place.

During this Lenten season, you have been invited to participate in the “Olympics.” We are “spiritual athletes” that need to get in shape for Easter. And, so, to help us on that journey toward Easter, we are going to be focusing on the Spiritual Disciplines. The word “discipline” often carries with it ideas of harsh fear and punishment. However, fear and punishment is not the purpose or intention of the Spiritual Disciplines. Instead, the Spiritual Disciplines are long-held Christian practices that help us in our Christian journey. Just as an athlete trains for hours and hours to finally get to a place of freedom of movement, the Spiritual Disciplines help us to train our spirit to get to a place of freedom in our relationship with God. John Wesley called these practices the “means of grace,” because through these Disciplines, we come to know and see God’s grace more clearly.

To help us in our journey, I will be using the book Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. In his introduction, he compares growing one’s spiritual life to growing a seed. He reminds us that only God can grow the seed. The farmer is very important in the growing process, helping to create the best conditions for growing the seed. But, after the soil is tended, irrigated, weeded, etc., the farmer still cannot guarantee that the seed will grow. It is God who grows the seed. And the same is true in our spiritual lives. I believe that the Spiritual Disciplines can be very helpful to us to create the right conditions for our spiritual lives to grow. But in the end, we must remember that only God can grow the seed.

I pray that you may be blessed as we journey together exploring these Spiritual Disciplines during this Lenten Season.



This Year’s Lenten Journey looks like this:
1st Sunday March 1
Simplicity & Submission
Nehemiah 1:5-11 Matthew 6:19-24

2nd Sunday March 8
Study & Guidance
Deuteronomy 11:18-21 Acts 15:22-29

3rd Sunday March 15
Meditation, Prayer, & Solitude
Psalm 119:97-105 Matthew 6:5-15

4th Sunday March 22
Fasting & Confession
2 Samuel 12:1-14 Psalm 51 Matthew 6:16-18

5th Sunday March 29
Service
Leviticus 19:1-2;9-18 Matthew 25:31-46

6th Sunday April 5
Worship
Psalm 118:1-2 Psalm 118:19-29 Mark 11:1-11

Getting Married

I shamefully realized today that it has been over a month (almost two months) since I last posted anything. Why the lack of activity on the Blog?

...well, I got married. And my mind, and my time, was consumed with trying to get all of the last minute details ready for the wedding. I worked and worked trying to make sure that everything would be just right. I scoured the Bridal Magazines, looking at every checklist, trying to determine if I was on the right track, and trying to figure out what I had forgotten. It seemed to me like a massive undertaking, and without the help of my family and friends, the wedding would not have happened.

In the weeks leading up to the wedding, I heard lots of "wedding horror stories" about how badly things can go at a wedding. I was determined to maintain calm on the day of the wedding. I told myself, "something will probably go wrong, but it doesn't have to ruin your day. The most important thing that has to happen is that at the end of the day, you actually are married." I told myself that over and over. Focus on what is truly important. But, it wasn't always easy.

I think that living a life following God is similar to this process. We all desperately desire to have that perfect life, wrongly assuming that after becoming a Christian, life will somehow be perfect. But, just as no wedding is perfect, no Christian is perfect either. As United Methodists, we are of course, on the road to perfection, but it is not always an easy journey.

I did some research and looked up every time the word "bride" is used in the Bible. I found some interesting verses. Many of them describe us dressing up as the Bride getting ready to meet God. Others describe God longing to be in relationship with us just as a bridegroom longs for his bride.

We want the Christian life to be perfect, but there will certainly be moments of difficulty. The most important thing is focusing on what is truly important. The important thing is not the little details of the Christian life. The important thing is building our relationship with with our "bridegroom" (God).


"I delight greatly in the LORD;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." -- Isaiah 61:10

"No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah,
and your land Beulah ;
for the LORD will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
As a young man marries a maiden,
so will your sons marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you." -- Isaiah 62:4-5



"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God." --Revelation 21:2-3