Let’s talk about worship. What are you worshiping lately? Yes, I know most of you reading this are Christians and you think I should know the obvious. Ah, that might be the rub. Maybe it is obvious to others that the Lord God is not getting all the worship He could/should from you. Our check books, our calendars and our amusement can often tell us what we are worshiping.
    First, worship is a not an entertaining experience done on a Sunday morning. Too many churches have evolved to be a good show. Worship is about an encounter with God, a holy experience and refreshment of soul.
    Second, Worship is not about a form. We are liturgical people. Question: do we appreciate and understand why we do the various portions of a worship service? Each is designed to bring us into right relationship and right experience with God. Spirited or formal is immaterial to an expression of worship.
    Worship is about God and His transcendent holiness. (Isaiah 6). It is sacred. We call the place of worship a sanctuary. It is sacred space where we come leaving our baggage behind and meet God. He is encountered through prayer, scripture, music and sometimes silence. So many voices speaking at us today leave us almost fearful of silence. Remember the prophet did not encounter God is the mighty rush of nature but in a small still voice. Are we listening for that still voice.
    Many of my thoughts about worship have been ignited from Mark Labberton’s book THE DANGEROUS ACT OF WORSHIP.
    So, next worship experience (corporate) please don’t mumble about the hymn choice or the attire of the choir or whether the preacher is robed or not, rather look and listen for God.

    She is almost 96, wheel chair bound, grossly overweight, skin shriveling and often just stares out a window or across the room. This snow white haired lady is my mother.
    She was not always this way. Once spunky, filled with a work ethic that would shame the most industrious, meticulous in her accounting of her meager finances has now at best only a fleeing memory. Visits with her are relegated to the same topics and her memory is a thing of the past. She knows me and best of all I know her.
    Having me at an older age than many of her peers she still played catch with me, drove me to ball games and was my chauffeur when I first started dating. She lay awake each night when I was out dating or with friends until I arrived home safely.
    She “drug” me to church where I met the pastor and my first church family but more importantly, I met God and Jesus and learned of the Holy Spirit’s prompting as I tested life in my teen years. It was tears in her eyes, tears of joy, when I made a public decision to follow the call to the ministry. It was the couple extra dollars she sent me to do wash and have a buck in my pocket while in college preparing for the ministry. I knew the few dollars came from the paltry earnings she made cleaning houses 6-7 hrs a day, 4 and 5 days a week.
    On this Mothers Day 2008, I honor my Mother, Almeda Leona Lane Campbell.
She was faithful in the pew and faithful in the planting of good things in my life.