So what do 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. God gives us everything we have and all He asks in return is that we love and worship Him with all our heart, soul, and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The “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. In regard to the community worship, we are going to include training for those of us that are involved in leading the worship service, but also for the whole congregation. For instance, the instructed Eucharist we did this past year was a great way to remind us about the significance of our worship service. Look for us to repeat this in the year to come as well.
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 Spirt when it come to our corporate worship. As I have said, this is different for each of us. But it is a journey we can make together and I will share with you more of my thoughts along the way, and I want to hear yours as well.I believe I have found a guide published by Forward Movement that can help us in our journey. It starts with individual preparation and then moves to corporate worship. The name of the publication is “Instructions in the Life of Prayer.” I am planning to hold an Adult Education series based upon this publication and disseminate the information as well.
I am also planning to offer, starting in Advent, a prayer discipline known as the Divine Mercy Chaplet using prayer beads held in Adams Chapel on Wednesdays at 11:30 am. This would end in time to attend the mid-week healing Mass. Finally, I am looking at a way to use a group of “Prayer Warriors” to help support the spiritual life of the church. If you are interested in either of these ideas, please let me know.
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