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Funerals are for worship
Dealing with the shooting death of Charlie Kirk and its aftermath demonstrates the political minefield for Christians in modern politics.
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Outside or Inside
The difference between church outside and inside isn’t just the location or formality. It’s what we bring to it.
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Announcements
I truly value communication. It has always been one of my top priorities. For a church, I’ve built a website, set up social media pages, published a weekly email newsletter, not to mention planned the weekly liturgy, written letters, visited with people, and made the obligatory announcements on Sunday morning. And strangely, one thing has…
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Nicene Creed
The strangest moment in worship happens in the middle. For many of us it is sitting right in the center of our worship. And everything around it is far more worshipful and embodies the people at prayer. We open in prayer and we read scripture and we sing and pray a psalm and we proclaim…
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Epiklesis
The epiklesis is the magic moment of the Great Thanksgiving. It is the great crescendo of the service of Holy Eucharist. It is the “shhh, everybody, shh! Here it is!” moment of the preparation of the table for communion. The prayer, which begins in a great gathering, tells of the great story, and reminds us…
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Words of Institution
The Eucharistic Prayer begins with the Sursum Corda, a conversation between the presider and the people. The Lord be with you! And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give him thanks and praise. This is…
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Peace
I’m not sure there is a more foundational element to the Christian faith than peace. We want peace, we crave peace. Peace to us is safety and security. It is silence and quiet. It is solitude in chaos. It is the sound of birds chirping and streams bubbling when we are resting in the grass.…
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Absolution
For some churches, it’s all about sin. For others, it’s all about that grace. And for still others, there is the regular insistence that we don’t talk about one without the other. We don’t talk about Good Friday without Easter. It makes a certain sense, doesn’t it? that we so often tend to focus on the…