Fellowship "Elbow Bump" for January 20

"Glowing Hearts" courstesy Judi Bontius

We continue our Epiphany focus on worship. We continue to encourage everyone to participate in extra opportunities for online worship throughout the week, especially with the Calvin Worship Symposium. With whom have you been worshipping? Have you had any “aha moments” as you have joined in online worship?    How has your heart been warmed, your faith been challenged? 

Several things stand out for me.  Top of the list were two sermons, one by Najla Kassab of Beirut, Lebanon and the other by Lisa Weaver of Decatur, Georgia; both of these women spoke powerfully from the ground zero of their lives. As well, I am enjoying opportunities to worship in sign language and in clapping.   In sorrow and lament. In silence and in joyful shout!

Two things unite us through all of these worship experiences:  Our common humanity, experienced in a global pandemic, and our common Lord, who is worshipped around the globe. Both are as real as the air we breathe.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about creativity.  These Symposium worship services are so creative. I could only dream of being so artistic!  But the fact is, we all have creativity to offer, all of which is acceptable to God if offered freely. 

A friend gave my wife a surprising, wonderful little book for Christmas entitled, All That Is Made: A Guide to Faith and the Creative Life. Do you know it? In it I read,

The call of the creative is the call to imagine another reality. To rearrange the materials of the earth into something new is to extend possibility into the world. This is our stewardship. It is a part of our fruitfulness and multiplying. And when we do our making together, we are living out our life with God in a full and real way. Our making in community is a part of our returning to the old things that were true at the foundation of the world.  And it is good. Amen.*

Continue to explore ways for your creative nature be put to use in worship! May our worship together be a creating together of extended possibilities.  Don’t hold back!