Journey of Worship

Posts Tagged ‘baptism’

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. There’s been lots going on. We’re currently in a series called “Grow Up!” and we are focusing on the first section of 2 Peter 1 where Peter talks about the different qualities we are to add to our life as we grow in Christ.

The concept of growing up has a lot of connotations in today’s world. Becoming more independent, self-sufficient, and the like. But the picture that God paints of growing up is one of becoming more like Jesus and becoming more dependent on Him. The end product is way different that what we’ve been trained to think, but way better.

This week was different from our normal Sunday morning picture. Instead of doing two services and Sunday School, we did what we call Time to Serve Sunday. This is something we started doing last year. Every spring and fall (twice a year), we change what we do in order to help our church serve the community together. For the fall piece, we totally restructure our Sunday morning schedule to allow people the opportunity to serve together as an expression of worship, and many of them for the first time. Every gathers at 8:45am, and we do a brief opening service together. Then we break into teams and go out to serve, and then come back to sing, share stories, and baptize people. It’s a long morning, but well worth it. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

I’ve missed doing this the last few weeks, but we have continued unpacking the concept of “One” laid out in Ephesians 4:4-6. This week we looked at the fact that baptism is more than a religious ritual. The water baptism of a Christian is intended to communicate a strong message both to the one being baptized and to those watching the baptism.

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When someone is in their final days, those who are close to the person often lean and listen hard to their final words. As Jesus hung on the cross, the Scriptures record Him saying seven final phrases that those who were gathered near Him listened to and recorded. What do they mean for us today, and why should we still listen to them?

This was the final week of the “Final Words” series, as well as Easter. As we gathered we looked at the final phrases of Jesus from the cross (John 19:30 and Luke 23:46) as He declared that it was DONE. It was a great day together celebrating, remembering, and proclaiming the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross and the transforming power of that work. Read the rest of this entry »

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt

As I continue to learn about worship history in my online class, the focus recently has been symbolic actions that have been a part of worship expression. The two most obvious things that fall into this category, and that are widely accepted as sacrements across Church lines, are baptism and communion (or the Eucharist).

To me, symbolic actions are a huge way of expressing truth, worship history, and our connection and engagement with Christ. Read the rest of this entry »