As someone who helps plan worship each week, I wonder if I often forget about the “wonder” of worship.
When I was considering putting in my application to be the Minister of Music at First Baptist Greenville, one of the elements of the church that most attracted me was that there was only one worship service, one time on Sundays when the entire body of First Baptist Greenville comes together for corporate worship.
Many of us who grew up in church lived through the “worship wars” when congregations literally split over styles of music or translations of the Bible or dress codes or “early versus late” services. I bear a few battle scars from some of these conflicts and feel blessed to be at a place where much of that has been resolved.
I’m currently reading the book “Worship Like Jesus” by Constance M. Cherry. She turns the familiar WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) around to HWJW (How Would Jesus Worship?) and makes the claim that “the perfect model for worship is Jesus himself.” In the first chapter of Cherry’s book, I found the best description of worship I’ve ever read.
“All Christian disciples are formed in worship by worship. The scriptures we hear, the songs we sing, the prayers we pray, the sermons we heed, the offerings we give, the Communion elements we share, the sense of love we feel from fellow worshippers, all of this and more unites in the power of the Spirit to change us toward Christlikeness. Worship is a highly transforming event.”
I look forward to worshipping with you each week here at First Baptist Greenville.
Laura Ritter, Minister of Music