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Dear Covenant Friends,
Last Sunday the Communion Table was beautifully set with multi-ethnic bread to symbolize the inclusiveness of World Communion Sunday. The choir’s music drew from global traditions, and even included a bit of dancing! The Word was read and proclaimed, prayers were invoked on behalf of the community. The Spirit was at work in ways both obvious and hidden.
The biggest challenge for a worship planner is creating a space for worshippers to encounter the living God. This is not easy, because we all have different tastes in music, favorite scripture passages, and assumptions formed through life experiences about what makes us feel like we’ve gone to church.
Modern life desensitizes us to awe and leaves little space for silence and reflection. A church sanctuary is designed to draw our attention heavenward and to create space physically and spiritually to encounter God. We can’t always predict what will happen, no matter how much planning goes into the service or the bulletin. Which is why this quotation from Annie Dillard comes to mind:
Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?… On the whole I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke?… We should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake some day and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return. (Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters pp. 40-41)
Last Sunday, in between the serving of the bread and juice (commemorating the victory of Jesus Christ over the powers of sin and death), Rev. Robin Craig took a little tumble. She fell backwards from the platform on which we were standing and landed on her head. She was not wearing a crash helmet! Other than a large bump, she is absolutely fine and her normal cheerful self. This Sunday she is leading worship elsewhere and I am away for a close friend’s wedding. The Very Rev. Tracey Lind will be preaching and the Spirit will be at work once again. Through prayers, music, scripture and silence, may you encounter the Living God anew. Even without life jackets and signal flares.
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