The Word and The Work: A Welcome
A Welcome
Each week Christians across the world gather to do hard work. No, I don’t mean service projects, or mission trips. Those things are important, and they should be done, and done often. No, the work I’m talking about is worship.
Worship?
Yes, worship. As we gather to honor God with our songs and words on Sunday mornings we are actually doing what has been called, at least since the 1500’s, the work of the people. Or, Liturgy. That can be a scary word. Those of us who grew up in the Catholic tradition may view it fondly, and those of us who didn’t may have grown up being taught that liturgy was stale and not needed. I would submit to you that what you do every week is liturgy, you just may have not been calling it that.
If you look up Liturgy in a dictionary you will find something along the lines of “a fixed set of ceremonies, words, etc., that are used during public worship in a religion” (Merriam-Webster). It would seem that what we do here at Calvary would easily fit into that definition, and I don’t think that is a bad thing. On the contrary, I really think that it is of great importance that we define and plan what we are going to do as a body of Christ followers each week. That is why the pastors here spend a great deal of time and energy each week preparing what we will sing and what we will say each Sunday.
Preparation
I’ll let you behind the scenes a little and tell you one of our favorite phrases in our planning meetings is “disrupting the liturgy”. The idea being, that we have a certain rhythm at Calvary. If you have been around long enough you have a pretty good understanding of what that is. We start with the intro video, then someone leads a few songs, at some point someone prays, then its time for the sermon starter video, then the sermon… you get my point. This at its core is our liturgy, but sometimes we have the opportunity and the duty to disrupt the order, put the music at the end, don’t have any announcements, participate in communion, dedicate a baby, or shorten the service. It could be anything.
The Why and the What
Why is this important, and why am I writing it down in this blog you may ask? It’s because this is going to be a space where we focus on what we do each week. Each week there will be a list of songs that we will be singing together with some information about why it was written and who wrote it, as well as why we are singing it this week. We try really hard each week to communicate 1 thing really well. Now it doesn’t always work out that every song communicates the 1 thing, but sometimes they do, and I want you to know about it.
This will also be a place where you can read a little about how to prepare for church. My hope is that it will help you prepare your heart Monday through Saturday for what we will do together on Sunday. May it be a prayer, some of my own thoughts about the text from the week, or some related bible passages to get us focused and thinking about what we will sing and hear when we gather on Sunday morning.
I pray this is beneficial to you, and that it grows us all in mind and spirit, so that we can gather and work hard each week to see God glorified, and for us to be made more into the image of His Son, King Jesus.
