One of the great honors and privileges I have as a pastor is to officiate at a Celebration of Life & Service of Death and Resurrection for the saints of the church when they pass away. This past Friday, we joined together in such a service for Mrs. Elma Voisin, one of our 88-year-old saints who has gone on to the next stage of life. What is so interesting about preparing these services and homilies is to revisit their life and their faith journey, and find out about how they saw God at work in their life. I was fortunate to get to know Mrs. Voisin well through our monthly communion visits, and even had privilege of worshiping with her during the final worship service she attended a little over a year ago. What struck me most was that when we talked about it, she could not stop crying. Just bawling. This was rare for me to see, so I asked what was happening. She told me that I just didn't understand; it was such a joy and overwhelming delight to be in worship with her church, her people, in the house of God. She went on to say that she missed it so much and that she would do anything to have the ability to attend every week, just to be with the people of God in the house of God. After she talked, it made me weepy as well.
Mrs. Voisin is not the only one of our shut-ins who has these feelings about Sunday morning worship - they would give anything to be able to be a part of the worship of the saints each week as we gather, hear and respond to the Word, give thanks and participate in communion, and are sent forth as the people of God to live out the kingdom of God.
The question you and I face as we hear these stories is, 'What is my attitude toward morning worship?' Is it something that is optional - something that is not really important and I can get along without it? Or is your attitude such that I will not allow ANYTHING to get in the way of my being in morning worship every week because it is what God's will is for my life and it is what I gave my word I would do when I joined the church?
I promise you that when we put ourselves in such a position that we drift away from worship on Sunday morning we are putting ourselves in position to drift away from what God's desire is for our lives. Trust me on this one. As as been said on more than one occasion, worship is about God, not us. Not our desires, our temperaments, our personalities - it's about God.
Since the beginning of January, various things such as secular holidays, weather, and other things have been allowed to get in the way of our worship attendance - let's make sure that we take TODAY to re-orient ourselves toward a life where our week is not complete without worshiping with our fellow Christians on Sunday mornings.
See you Sunday!
Lamar
Mrs. Voisin is not the only one of our shut-ins who has these feelings about Sunday morning worship - they would give anything to be able to be a part of the worship of the saints each week as we gather, hear and respond to the Word, give thanks and participate in communion, and are sent forth as the people of God to live out the kingdom of God.
The question you and I face as we hear these stories is, 'What is my attitude toward morning worship?' Is it something that is optional - something that is not really important and I can get along without it? Or is your attitude such that I will not allow ANYTHING to get in the way of my being in morning worship every week because it is what God's will is for my life and it is what I gave my word I would do when I joined the church?
I promise you that when we put ourselves in such a position that we drift away from worship on Sunday morning we are putting ourselves in position to drift away from what God's desire is for our lives. Trust me on this one. As as been said on more than one occasion, worship is about God, not us. Not our desires, our temperaments, our personalities - it's about God.
Since the beginning of January, various things such as secular holidays, weather, and other things have been allowed to get in the way of our worship attendance - let's make sure that we take TODAY to re-orient ourselves toward a life where our week is not complete without worshiping with our fellow Christians on Sunday mornings.
See you Sunday!
Lamar
No comments:
Post a Comment