VC Weekly Worship – Epiphany 2006

09Jan06

Yesterday was our first Weekly Worship Celebration/Gathering/Thingy. It ROCKED!

I don’t even know how to describe it…. It was simple, profound, moving, meaningful, normal, and hopeful all at the same time. I would love to reflect more on it… to talk about how it was a great start to what promises to be a very significant corporate spiritual practice for our community… or about how it was a wonderfully collaborative effort of many people using their gifts… or about how edifying it was to be in St. Elizabeth’s worshiping in the footsteps of where others have worshipped for the last 103 years… or the wonderful food and hanging out afterwards… or so much more, but I’m really tired… drained actually.

I’m sure some readers would love to hear about “Why”… why is this organic network of house churches having weekly worship services?! I could ramble on and on about that, but it would be best to just listen to what Kevin, Janet, Thurman, and I shared yesterday at the gathering. We had a “Town Hall Meeting” where we addressed that question and more. The audio file is here (21 MB, 43 min.).

Some other folks might be curious as to “what exactly are you doing”? Well, here’s our skeletal structure of our liturgy (the whole of our gathered time, our “work of the people” – which is what “liturgy” means):

• Greeting and Announcements for the Community
• Worship in Song and Prayer
• Hear the Word of the Lord
• Learning as a Community
• Thanksgiving and Communion
• Sending blessing

Also, if you are so inclined… you can download The Whys Behind VC Weekly Worship Gatherings (a document, pdf, I created mainly for my own “thinking through” of our gatherings) and VC Weekly Eucharist Liturgies (three different Eucharist liturgies that I created/adapted/re-mixed for our community based on the Episcopal, Anglican, and United Methodist liturgies).

Peace to you. Much Peace.

Filed under: Reflections   |  Leave a Comment