Camaraderie
Lenten Greetings:
Thursday the women at First Trinity tried to teach me to knit so that I could make a prayer shawl just like the rest of them. Does my brain not think like this? Why is it so difficult to make that loop go the right direction, drop the needle down and slide the other loop off? Sounds easy as I type it. Yet, I all too vividly remember my attempts on Thursday. What an ordeal! It wore me out. I told them I’d much rather give 6 sermons than make 1 prayer shawl. I am determined, with their gracious help, to work on this every Thursday and finish it. I cannot do it without them, and I have made a commitment to do it with them. Why do I go? Why do I put myself through this? :-) I’ve always wanted to knit and wanted the camaraderie that appears in books like “The Friday Night Knitting Club”. Yet at what price?
Why do we go to worship on Sundays? Isn’t our whole life an act of worship toward God? Do we go to be filled up so we can make it through the next week? Do we go to be entertained with beautiful, uplifting music and sent on our way? Do we go out of obligation or habit? What is your reason for attending worship?
The Hour That Changes Everything by John van de Laar addresses how worship forms us into the people God wants us to be. I am totally engrossed in this book and hope to do it for a sermon series and small group discussion during Pentecost since it is a 50 day journey.
Van de Laar says: “The practice of history, of showing up week after week to participate in the act of worship, is what moves our intimacy with God ever deeper. This is why we return to worship again and again. This is why the healthiest worship is when we commit to a community and stay faithful to our companions in the journey, worshiping regularly with the same people through good times and bad.
"In the light of God’s invitation to intimacy - to fill the longing in our souls with real experiences of encounter with God - we are faced with a choice. We can decide that this is all too much work, and we can continue to attend worship as an act of going through the motions - or walk away from Sunday services all together. Or we can choose to answer the call, and embrace the journey of worship as the most significant act of our lives, allowing intimacy with God to be our primary quest, and seeking for all that we do and are to be an expression of this intimacy.”
There is so much good in this book and it has helped me understand why the people of First Trinity persevere after 143 years and many leaders and pastors. They do not come to worship to be filled up for the next week. They do not come to be entertained. They come to find that intimacy with God and one another - to be knit together - and are committed to God and one another. Worship is central to all they do. It is refreshing. It is exciting to be a part of this faith community and to be knit together with them in prayer, worship and life.
God bless your worship!
Hope
