The Importance of the Worshiping Church and Nurturing Our Connection to It that is our Work at Home...

What Worship Is...

Worship (from the old English weorthscipe, "worth-ship") is our gift to the Triune God who has created and redeemed us.  Finding that this God, who has found us, is worthy of our devotion, service and very lives, we gather at least weekly on Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, to offer our adoration, our love-song, our love-letter in response to God's love that has so generously been poured out.

What Worship Is Not...

In the consumer orientated world that is much of North America, it is urgent we take note that the focus of worship is God.  The focus is not what we, especially as individuals, do get or would like to get out of worship.  This is not to say that our worship must not change - there are ways to and not to "word" our love-letter to God - but rather to make clear what is most important.  It is also noteworthy that worship is not based on our feelings of love toward God (though, thankfully, in any one congregation there will be at least some folk that day who are feeling loving towards God).  As Hugh Bishop of Mirfield has observed, "Love is not an emotion.  It is a policy."

Importance of Worship...

Worship is likely the most important thing that Christians do.  In this act of service, of ministry, we place our bodies into the gathered Body of Christ.  We become God's people, to be broken and shared that the world might taste and see that God is good.  Worship is the one ancient mark of the church that holds within it all of the five ancient marks of the church as found in Acts 2: 43-47: worship (leiturgia), proclamation (kerygma), fellowship (koinonia), service (diakonia), and training in discipleship (didache).  If a church is at least undertaking faithful worship, it can be said that it is fulfilling (one of) the definition of what a church is and ought to be.

At Home...

Our work at home, therefore, is of nurturing our connection to the worshiping church that all of our life lived might be an act of praise.  This website seeks to help with this through the seasons of the Christian year, which are integral to our worship together as the Body of Christ.