The Way of Love – Worship


“Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”  Psalm 29:2

The next ancient practice in following Jesus is worship.  Worship is a unique activity that invites mortals – the created – into a sacred space with the divine – the Creator.  It acknowledges our need, our dependence, on God to be loving, liberating, and life-giving.  We made the time to show our love and adoration through prayers and music, hearing the Word of God and reflecting on it, and then (in our tradition) enacting the sacred Feast to which we are called to partake and take with us into the world.

Our Catechism offers this reflection:
Q. What is corporate worship?
A. In corporate worship, we unite ourselves with others to acknowledge the holiness of God, to hear God’s Word, to offer prayer, and to celebrate the sacraments.

As a sacramental church, we believe in the sanctity of the seven Sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Ordination, Holy Matrimony, Reconciliation of a Penitent, and Unction [anointing with oil for healing, including Ultimate Unction, also known as Last Rites]).  When we think of church services, or rites, most of the time we think of one of these sacraments as the reason for worship.

However, worship does not have to contain a sacrament to be worship. If our intention is to offer praise and thanksgiving to God, we are offering our worship.  The essential element of Christian faith is making the decision that some entity (which we choose to call God) is WORTHY of our time and SACRIFICE of our place of importance in the world.  What I mean by that is we choose to recognize that God is more than we are and make the space for God to be God and for us to be human, in need of God’s salvation expressed by a love almost beyond human understanding.

I believe our practice of worship allows us to develop our understanding of God’s love for us as individuals and as a community.  It is from our shared experience of worship that we then move to fellowship and become beloved community (more on that at a later date!). 

We strive at St. Barnabas to make a worship experience that follows the Episcopal tradition while making room for the newcomer.  We use Worship Folders to make the liturgy easier to follow for those who may be unfamiliar with our style of worship and to allow us access to the many liturgical resources not in the Book of Common Prayer. We blend the traditional with a little more modern sensibly (specifically the New-old version of the Nicene Creed that gives agency to Mary and the Holy Spirit for Jesus’ birth and gender neutralizes the terms used to refer to the Holy Spirit). 

My intention is always to create a personal and shared experience of the holy.  I hope you feel that.  If there is something you would like to have in our worship, please let me know.  I have been told there is a desire for more praise music, so we are working on that.  If you have any question about the liturgy, I am always happy to talk about how we make meaning through our words and actions. 

Like the words of the Psalm state (several times!), we want to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.  So, consider what is beautiful and we’ll strive to achieve it!

In Christ,
Rev. Valerie+

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