By the time you read this article, we will be in Advent and the beginning of a new Church year. (For those keeping track it is year B) I am thankful you have joined with me for our year of Intentional Worship. As promised it is time for me to start providing you with more information on what I mean by “Intentional Worship.” The simple answer is that I want all of us to focus on how we worship God. Everything from how we spend time working on our personal relationship with God through prayer and reading scripture, to how we worship God in Church on Sunday (and other times) as a community. Primarily it is about strengthening our relationship with God. The word “Intentional” simply means “characterized by conscious design or purpose.” In other words, I want us to be focused on what we are doing and why we are doing it and not fall into the trap of just a habit that does not have a conscious focus.
We are not Christians because we go to Church. We go to Church because we are Christians. We are Christians 24 hours a day 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Intentional worship is not just about how we do church but how we prepare ourselves to live out our faith. But, the attention to the way we worship is a good indication of how we are preparing ourselves. The attention to detail in our worship reflects how important it is to us and it shows others who are visiting how important our worship of God is to us.
But first and foremost, I believe the process starts with each one of us and our relationship with God. This is accomplished through our own intentional time spent in prayer and scripture. As our relationship with God increases, we can’t help but be filled with the Holy Spirit when it comes to our corporate worship. As I have said, this is different for each of us. But it is a journey we can make together.
In Adult In Education we are studying a guide published by Forward Movement named “Instructions in the Life of Prayer.” It starts with induvial preparation and then moves to corporate worship. We have also begun an Advent, a prayer discipline known as the Divine Mercy Chaplet using prayer beads held in Adams Chapel on Wednesdays at 11:30 am.
You can see we have a lot of exciting things happening. Please, come to worship and serve God and to be a part of what God is doing here at Trinity, and as always, bring a friend.
God bless you one and all,
Father Paul+