Journey of Worship

Mathematically, one is a cardinal whole number. In computer programming, one combined with zeroes become a binary code. Relationally, the 1970’s band Three Dog Night wants you to believe that one is the loneliest number. It can also be a very selfish number of we are only looking out for “numero uno.”

Biblically, the number “one” is pregnant with meaning. The Scripture teaches that God is one. One captures the heart of Jesus’ prayer for the church (John 17). The apostle Paul urges believers to guard the unity of the church in Ephesians 4:3. The Spirit’s emphasis on “oneness” inspires Paul to rehearse all the other “ones” that should matter to us: there is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

We are unpacking the concept of “One” laid out in Ephesians 4:4-6 over the next weeks. This week we dived into the triune nature of God, one of the core distinctives of Christianity – that God is one yet three. Our desire wasn’t to explain the concept away or to answer all the questions, but to help people grasp the mystery, be okay with it, and to realize that there is more to God than we often think. And that’s one of the awesome things about God that makes me glad He’s in control.

Service Flow: (Song links go to AmazonMp3 where the songs are $0.99 and DRM free.)

Welcome/Announcements
Call to Worship – come and enter into the mystery of God and worship
Our God Saves (Brown/Baloche)
Greeting
Drama sketch
Message (Deut. 6:4-5; Rom. 10:8-13; 2 Cor. 3:17-18)
Praise the Father, Praise the Son (Tomlin/Cash)
Confession (using this resource from theopensourcebook.org) 
Communion
Offering (using this video about the Trinity from Highway Video) 
Holy, Holy, Holy (Heber/Dykes arr. Chapman via HymnCharts Band)
Reading of Nicene Creed together
We Believe (Kendrick)
Dismiss (2 Corinthians 13:14)

It was another great week, but not without its challenges. This past week was Vacation Bible School, which was a great thing, but made for scheduling practice and getting prep done a bit more challenging. I’m still feeling a little lacking in the energy area, and then my son ended up sick over the weekend which meant Beck had to stay home and wasn’t able to serve on the worship team. Also, one of the other guy singers (who was doing Praise the Father, Praise the Son), was a bit touch-and-go for a while with his voice.

But as we seek to serve and honor the Lord, He takes our offerings and uses them for His glory. As we met on Sunday, folks really engaged and took away some great truths about God and who He is from the service. We again tried to draw out the mystery of God and that we cannot (and should not) put Him in a box. Just about the time we think we have God figured out, hopefully the Holy Spirit helps us realize we are not even close.

We started with a home written dramatic sketch with a comedic flavor. We wanted to start with talking about some of the ways we’ve tried to explain the Trinity and how inadequate those illustrations are (H2O, egg, apple). It really helped to break the ice (no pun intended) and then allowed our pastor to get up and dig into the topic. We covered a lot of ground with the firm understanding that we weren’t even scratching the surface of this wonder.

As we moved through the rest of the service, we intentionally chose songs, prayers, and corporate readings that reinforced the doctrine of the triune God while allowing us to connect with the generations that have gone before us in establishing, clarifying, and declaring these truths. There were a lot of different elements in the service, but they all hopefully pointed to the great nature of God as manifested through being One, yet Three in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We did Praise the Father, Praise the Son as a special leading into confession and communion. It is a great song, and we invited the congregation to sing along on the last chorus. It went well, and we will be definitely working that into a regular rotation. Both because it is an easily sung song, and because of what it conveys in its content.

There is so much more I could say, but if you want to catch the message, you can find it on our church’s website at www.codycma.org.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Gregory of Nazianus. “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish the Three than I am carried back to the One.”

And then there was a nap .

Thanks for stopping by. If you were there, please leave a comment about what stood out to you.

For more insight into what other churches are doing, check out Sunday Set-lists over at Fred’s blog.

Related posts:

1. Sunday Setlist: 3/8/09
2. Sunday Setlist: 8/02/09
3. Sunday Setlist: 8/30/09