We Meet Together

In trying to remember what my inspiration was for writing this call to worship, I am not sure if it was an election season, or if the sermon was on unity that day, or if it was independent of any other prompt.  I do know that God calls us to worship together in spite of all of our differences. He doesn't give us the option of being "Lone Rangers" in our faith; scripture calls us repeatedly to meet together.

I was asked on the spur of the moment this week to share in our early service why it is important to worship corporately.  My first response was that it is great practice for eternity.  Scripture paints a beautiful picture of worship around the throne. Make no mistake, we will worship together for eternity with saints of all backgrounds and nationalities, worshiping as one.  There will be no place for putting people on pedestals. God alone will be the focus of our worship.

 I thought secondly of the fact that, in any given worship service, there are people who are on the mountaintop and others that are in the valley. In the midst of worship we get to acknowledge that God is the God of both the mountain and the valley.  We need to worship in the midst of both.  We need moments of rejoicing and thankfulness and moments of remembrance of those times God has brought us through.  We need opportunities as well to cry out to God in our hurts and for the hurts of others.  In doing so,we need to be able to reach out to those around us and say, "I have been there, and God was with me, even when I didn't feel Him."

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive theology of corporate worship, just a couple of spur of the moment thoughts.  This is a continuing discussion for us in worship. I would love to hear your thoughts.

We Meet Together

(A call to worship for two readers)

      We meet here each week.We meet here to worship.

            We meet here to worship together: 

             Young

             Old

             Male

             Female

2          Wealthy

            Not so wealthy

2          Southerners

1          Northerners

2          And those from other countries.  We meet here to worship together:

     

1          Students and educators

2         Musicians and mathematicians

1         Soldiers and Salespersons

           Democrats, Republicans, and Independents

Both:  together.

1         The quiet and the boisterous, together

2         The staunch believer and the skeptic, together

1        We meet united by the greatness of God’s love for all humanity.

2        We meet united by a love that wishes that none should perish.

1        We meet united by grace and mercy.

2.       We meet united by the Holy Spirit Who brings us peace, healing, and love which reaches across the  barriers  which divide us to make us one body.

1        We meet here each week.

2        We meet here to worship.

Both:  We meet here to worship together.

    Come, let us all worship and bow down together.

    Let us kneel together before the Lord, our maker.

     Both:  Together, let us worship.