Order of Worship
- Meditative Music: Judy Blue
- Prelude: Judy Blue
- Announcements
- Music: Video with lyrics. “Here I am to Worship” by Chris Tomlin
- Hillsong – Here I Am To Worship [with lyrics] (also printed at end of the Light this Week).
- Children’s Moment
- Prayer Concerns
- Pastoral Prayer
- Message: “Worship is …”
- Scripture: John 4:23-24
- Open Worship
- Benediction
- Postlude: Judy Blue
Good morning, and welcome!
Flowers today are provided by Jacque Robinson, technology by Joe Dawley, Michael Barrett & Michelle Barrett. On the facing bench is Pam Chambers, who is holding our time together in God’s Light.
As you probably know, today is the first time we’ve had the meeting-room open for worship since March 8. Things are a little different, because we still have a pandemic going on, and we need to adjust in order to keep the risks to a minimum.
That said, it’s time for a mask check. Make sure your mask covers your nose and your mouth; then make sure your neighbor’s mask covers their nose and mouth. Now hold out your arms and make sure you can’t touch anyone’s hands except your family – front and back, side to side. 😊
Announcements
- In a few minutes, we will be sharing a music video online. For those of you who are here, I will play the music, and you may wish to find the lyrics on your phone, in The Light This Week. We’re working on being able to project videos, but we’re not there yet.
- We are live streaming on Facebook and the church website (wichitaquakers.org). Please feel free to share our worship with your Facebook friends by posting a link.
- Among church activities this week
- Today at 1:00 is our Monthly Meeting for worship with attention to business. We’ll be meeting in the Fellowship Hall with a Zoom option. If you would like paper copies of minutes or reports, please print them from the email that went out Friday.
- The 205 Sunday School class will not meet today.
- Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., we have both bell choir rehearsal and the Listening Group that’s hosted by John and Sue Wine.
- Any other announcements?
Music: “Here I am to Worship” by Chris Tomlin
Children’s moment: Andrea Suttle
Prayer Concerns
- Rosemary Nettrouer fell on some stairs and injured her knee. The doctor suspects torn ligaments.
- Greg Newby is scheduled for a PET scan on October 24th to see where things are with his shoulder cancer.
- Steve Grether is struggling with quite a few health problems these days, including an infection in his ankle bone.
- Lynn Hankins as her heart is recuperating
- The Loesch family as they celebrate the life and mourn the loss of Cliff’s mother, Cleo Loesch Mills
- Our church during this time of transition – May we find clarity and energy for the tasks at hand and the decisions we will need to make as we find our way forward. May we find ways to use our assets wisely and well. May we discover ways we are to be a beacon of love in our world. May we be looking for the doors you are opening, and may we have the courage to walk through them. May we see what you are doing in our world and join you in it.
- Any other prayer concerns?
Prayer
God of the seas and skies, God of the wind and rain, we open ourselves to your Spirit.
We are grateful to be here this morning. We are grateful for your presence.
We ask that you would minister especially to the needs we have mentioned.
We ask that you would minister especially to the needs that have not been mentioned.
Message
During the late 1980s and through the 90s, I served as a pastor of two congregations in Indianapolis, part of Western Yearly Meeting of Friends. Western Indiana, that is. Indiana Yearly Meeting got the eastern part of Indiana.
During the time I was the pastor there, Western Yearly Meeting sponsored what they called Pastor’s Short Course. Quaker author Phil Gulley wrote about Pastor’s Short Course in his book, For Everything a Season.
I’m going to read you a few paragraphs.
When Quakerism was launched in 1650, its founders were suspicious of paid preachers. Hirelings, they called them, who took pay for doing something God-fearing Christians ought to do for free. Nobody ever gave Jesus a paycheck, they said. After 250 years of toeing the line, we caved in and began paying pastors. If I weren’t a pastor, I would oppose it too. But since I am one, I can offer any number of reasons why pastors ought to be paid.
The decision to pay pastors was a contentious one, with some Quakers for it and others opposed. They compromised by paying us, just not very much. The first four years of my ministry I received forty dollars a week and tithed fifty – a losing proposition. Nevertheless, I stuck with the pastoral ministry for fourteen years because I loved the work and because if I weren’t a pastor I couldn’t attend the annual Quaker Pastor’s Short Course, which is held every February at Turkey Run State Park Inn.
The purpose of the Pastor’s Short Course, according to the pastor’s handbook, is to provide the pastor further opportunities for education, fellowship, and spiritual growth. A committee of people who never attended the Pastor’s Short Course came up with that. The same committee hires a speaker every year, an expert on church growth or Bible study or something of that nature – whatever the committee perceives we need (pp. 96-98).
Phil goes on to talk about dancing at Pastor’s Short Course. Yes, we did.
I bring it up this morning, though, not to talk about whether to pay pastors (like Phil, I’m in favor of that) or to talk about dancing (I’m in favor of that too). But I’m remembering an experience I had one time at Pastor’s Short Course.
This one year, we had broken up into small groups to quiet ourselves and pray. I don’t remember what we were supposed to be praying for. Here’s what I do remember.
A few of us had gathered and circled some chairs in one corner of a large room. As people in our group trickled in, we sat and began to center down. So far, so good.
But, as I remember it, some other people had also decided that this large room was a handy place to get together, and they had taken some chairs to another corner. Nothing wrong with that either.
But instead of quieting down, these people were talking, fairly loudly. And because of this loud conversation, I was having trouble centering for worship and prayer. Then my friend Nick came in. I may have complained to Nick about those loud people. I may have. 😊
And Nick said something to the effect that my ability to center had nothing to do with those loud people. I could center down and pray, he assured me, regardless of a loud conversation in another corner of the room.
Nick was right. I closed my eyes and centered down, giving my attention where it belonged – to God. That was a good lesson.
These days, we’re trying to limit our time inside together to promote safe gathering. We do not want to make news by being a COVID cluster. That’s really not up for negotiation at this point.
As we reopen for worship, we are also trying to find a balance between programmed and unprogrammed bits, with a satisfying amount of music, a satisfying amount of talking, and a satisfying amount of silence. We’ll probably tinker with it a bit and change things as needed.
As the Worship Committee has given attention to these things, I have become aware that some of us see music as essential to worship, while others see silence as essential to worship. So, which is more important – music or silence? The answer is both or neither.
One author asks what worship is. “Is it singing love songs to God? Is it intimate prayer and communion with [God]? Is it acts of service and obedience to [God]? Is it encountering” God through the Bible or through the Spirit?
Yes. “Absolutely,” he says.
This particular author has collected 60 definitions of worship. Don’t worry, I’m not going to read them all. 😊 But here are a few:
- Worship is the interaction of [a person’s] spirit with God in a loving response.
- Worship is celebration. All of life is a festival: being persuaded that God is everywhere present on all sides, we praise [God] as we till the ground, we sing hymns as we sow the seed, we feel [God’s] inspiration in all we do.
- To worship is to experience reality, to touch life. It is to know, to feel, to experience the resurrected Christ in the midst of the gathered community. It is breaking into the Shekinah (glory) of God, or better yet, being invaded by the Shekinah of God.
- Worship is time spent in active awareness of the presence of God.
How would you define worship?
The definition of worship that I hear most often in my head comes from the Richmond Declaration of Faith, written by orthodox Quakers in 1887:
Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God. It stands neither in forms nor in the formal disuse of forms: it may be without words as well as with them, but it must be in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24) We recognize the value of silence, not as an end, but as a means toward the attainment of the end; a silence, not of listlessness or of vacant musing, but of holy expectation before the Lord. Having become [God’s] adopted children through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is our privilege to meet together and unite in the worship of Almighty God, to wait upon [God] for the renewal of our strength, for communion one with another, for the edification of believers in the exercise of various spiritual gifts, and for the declaration of the glad tidings of salvation to the unconverted who may gather with us.
Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God. It stands neither in forms nor in the formal disuse of forms: it may be without words as well as with them, but it must be in spirit and in truth.
It may be with music or without music. It may be in silence or without silence. But it must be in spirit and in truth.
These days, some Quakers gather for unprogrammed worship: people arrive at the meetinghouse and sit together in silence, with spoken ministry arising at the leading of the Spirit.
These days, some Quakers gather for semi-programmed worship: someone may give a prepared message, but much of their time together is quietly open.
These days, some Quakers gather for programmed worship: music and announcements, an offering, and a prepared message with a substantial amount of time that is quietly open.
These days, some Quakers gather for a worship service that includes only a moment of silence.
These days – these days – some Quakers gather for worship over Zoom. 😊
Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God. It stands neither in forms nor in the formal disuse of forms: it may be without words as well as with them, but it must be in spirit and in truth.
With a nod to Dr. Seuss,
- We can worship on a train.
- We can worship in the rain.
- We can worship in this room.
- We can worship over Zoom.
- We can worship here or there.
- We can worship anywhere.
We can do that. We can worship anywhere because worship is….
Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God.
Worship is time spent in active awareness of the presence of God.
Worship is celebration.
Worship is being invaded by the glory of God.
Prepare to be invaded.
Open worship
Benediction
May you find ways to celebrate God in your life, here or there or anywhere.
Postlude
We are meeting in person and also streaming our sermons on Facebook at 10:00 AM CST. Watch live:
https://www.facebook.com/universityfriendschurch/
Not on Facebook? You can see all of our posts and videos on our site here!
