Intentionality of Gathering - in person and in spirit!

Screenshot of praying together online;
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Wangaratta

This past week, I had the privilege and pleasure to worship with a number of friends and colleagues from around the world.

Not that any of us had traveled; but through the gift of technology we were able to let God’s Spirit guide us in Zoom Rooms and live-streams, in worship that included live prayers and recorded hymns, in a New York chapel, a Swiss office, and an Australian Cathedral.

While the past 2 years have been giving us new ways to worship, there are mixed feelings; pros and cons of online and hybrid church. Yet as we are emerging from COVID restrictions and developing our new realities, we know that online and hybrid church services are part of our lives – and are here to stay. They are not replacing gathered community, they are merely a different expression of it; giving us the option to increase (or decrease) our connections with each other in praise and service.

While these options allow us easier access to special events (like my friend’s ordination Down Under) and collaborative celebration (like the conference forum in Manhattan), they also create missional opportunities for our local community, connecting with those experiencing mobility challenges or illness or who lack transport…

And what we do with these multitude of options – the ordinary Sundays and mid-week prayers – is entirely up to us. We can choose to be engaged with the liturgy, following along in the bulletin, and praying for the Spirit of God to move in our hearts - or we can not; the choice is ours.

And we can be more intentional about our time together in the buildings; ensuring we are healthy when we go, and interactive in meaningful ways, and mindful of the space and place of what the building’s beauty has to offer.

The Spirit of God continues to move. She is dancing, singing, embracing us – wherever we are. She is not limited by distancing or intermittent like the WiFi; she moves. In us and through us, with us and for us.

So the invitation lies before us: to re-frame our thinking of online church in order to embrace the gifts that are offered, to be excited by the possibilities opening before us, and to be creative enough to continue our shared sense of being the gathered worship family. Let’s honour the ways the Spirit of God is moving through our efforts as the church to BE the church in the world of today.

Definitive Spirit!

One of the benefits of working with ecumenical colleagues appears in the nuances that we bring with us. This week, I got to plan some liturgies with some amazing and inspiring folks of a variety of contexts, backgrounds, time zones, and denominations. A blessing!

One of the differences that came up among us was our language around the third ‘person’ of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit was referenced both as the Spirit and Spirit.

In the first, the definitive article intimates a formality, a position, an understanding of God: the Spirit is comparable to the Father and the Son.

My friend, however, eliminated the ‘the’. She calls the Spirit ‘Spirit’ as a name… she speaks of God, of Jesus, and of Spirit. This naming speaks of a personal connection, a friendliness.

In one of our prayerful discussions, she was invoking Spirit to come and dance among us; to inspire, to move, to play with us as we were doing our best to faithfully write prayers that would be appropriate to the setting.

It was a lovely time to consider the Spirit of God interacting with us, breathing new life to our bodies and new ideas into our minds. That she was hovering over us, floating on our laughter, buoyant by our happiness, embracing us (even over Zoom!)

It was a refreshing way to contemplate my interaction with the Spirit – and to seek ways to deepen my relationship with her: as friend and companion, in a close relational manner: where we call each other by name.

Come, Spirit, let’s continue the dance!

The Lord's Day

    In our calendar, our days of the week have drawn on some creative sources (planets and deities) for their interesting names: Hellenistic astrology for Sun Day and Moon Day; Norse gods Tiw, Odin, Thor and Frigg; ending with the Roman god Saturnus.

    So with these sources, where does the Lord’s Day come in?

    In scripture, the day dedicated to the Lord was a day dedicated to worship; this was how the weeks began – first pray, then work. The Early Church Fathers were clear that the Sabbath, the day of rest, was to be a distinct day from the day of worship – and so the week ended with rest.

    Pray, work, rest.

    As our society morphed this pattern over the centuries into the calendar, the industrial revolution combined rest and worship days into Sunday.

    In living memory we saw the politicisation of the Lord’s Day – even having the legal “Lord’s Day Act” from 1906 until 1985, which forbade Sunday shopping, horseracing, concerts, and movie-going. (Some extreme folks even forbade tobogganing on Sundays!) Yet even in those times, some acts of commerce still took place, as people needed food and fuel, for example, for necessity. Medical and police professionals still worked. Farmers still farmed. …

    And in today’s globalised society, the concept of having a day entirely off may seem unattainable.

    Yet: we are not required to change the whole of society, but we are able to change our own lives. We can choose to include a Lord’s Day in our calendars, and it does not need to be restricted to Sundays.

    We have the option to make every day, in fact, a Lord’s Day: when we bring the Lord into our days. When we consider the presence of the divine in our business meetings, and shopping trips, and recreational activities. When we engage in prayer, and work, and rest, as a regular rhythm that guides and directs us.

    So let’s re-instate the Lord’s Day in our hearts. Let’s renew our commitment to the rhythm of God in every aspect of our lives. Let’s remember, every morning, that “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!”