Worship & Arts

Last night I met with Worship & Arts Committee. Present were: Wayne TeBrake (chair), Terry Flanagan (organist/choir director), Ruth Barton, Joanne Dobson, Denise Schutz, Hugh Sigmon and Paula Sigmon. What a fine team!

I asked the committee to reflect with me on some questions adapted from a book on The Spirituality of Welcoming. (It's about how to transform Jewish congregations, but readily transferable to churches--indeed many of the ideas come from author Ron Wolfson's encounters with Christian churches, including Rick Warren's Saddleback Church.) I thought that the questions might interest others as well.

1. Think back to a time when you were spiritually moved by a worship service.
2. What was it about the experience that worked?
3. What do you recall about the music, space, liturgy, clergy, other participants, etc. that contributed to the experience?
4. What is keeping us from having these experiences more often on Sunday? How can we overcome the obstacles?

The Worship & Arts Committee remembered:

• an interfaith baptism,
• a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in which our own pastor preached, 
• worship where the music invited the whole congregation into participation,
• a sermon that included a personal commitment from the preacher: "I will never be silent again."

We talked about the many things that are meaningful to us in worship, and then went to work to plan for worship that evokes Spirit, engages,  and transforms. Special attention went to:

• World Communion Sunday (Oct. 3)
• Terry's Organ Recital (Oct. 22)
• Stewardship Sunday (Nov. ?)
• Advent and Christmas (Nov. 28-Dec. 24)

In Wayne's devotions that started the meeting, he read from Jeremiah 29, providing a positive counterpoint to last Sunday's challenging scripture. V. 11 announces God's intention to bring "welfare and not evil, a future and a hope."  I believe we can claim that as applying to our own community!

--Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor