I visit different churches throughout the year. Each one has a slightly different template, so I follow that one. The basic order is similar to the four fold traditional service.
I add a children’s or learning time to every service, and look for stories that offer examples of God’s living presence and love happening in the world. Often I highlight a young person for their wisdom and empathic insight is sometimes remarkable.
I welcome participation with a variety of instruments that I bring along, and use a guitar in some songs. I sing, and invite other soloists to join in worship with their gifts and talents.
Why do I do it this way? I guess because the congregation I am visiting has a certain way of doing worship, and as I am a visitor, I would like to respect this.
I do include a Land acknowledgement and sometimes a sung acknowledgement with a drum for variation. If we say the words by wrote too much, we don’t really embrace them. Changing them slightly help us hear them in new ways and hopefully helps our understanding to grow.
We can never predict where God will show up in our services, but God always does. It may be a verse of music, a melody of song, a choice word spoken, a handclasp on a shoulder, a connection of our eyes, or passing the peace. But when God shows up, we still and Know that Holy Presence and want to take our shoes off. It could be in the ordinary moving from prayer to song, or the cry of a child. God inhabits the praise of God’s people and I find it so humbling to be a small part of this amazing experience each week.
Some folk come with deep agonizing sorrow upon their shoulders, some come with lilting praise, joy and celebration, but as we are all drawn together in Holy Presence, we are like live coals that warm in the fire, and light of Christ. I’m not sure we move from despair to hope in our Hallowed Hour, but we move together and embrace the One who moves us in Grace and Mercy to what we can bear for this moment, and each moment beyond the service. We are not alone. We live in God’s world our creed say, and God will see us through. That is our hope.