April

1 Apr

Take My Yoke Upon You: WORSHIP & SACREMENTS

It perhaps seems almost superfluous in considering spiritual practices to mention worship. Like prayer, and engaging with the Bible, worship is so central to our understanding of what following Jesus means that we may feel it is somewhat of a ‘given’ with no need to highlight it.

Yet it may be that we regard worship as something much more limited than the way of Jesus actually suggests.

The simple truth is that everybody looks to something or someone to give their lives meaning. Worship reveals the ‘somethings’ or ‘someones’ we value most. What we love and adore and focus on forms us into the people we become.

The word ‘worship’ means, literally, ‘worth-ship’: to accord worth, true value, to something, to recognise and respect it for the true worth it has. Christian worship, whether in fellowship with others or as an individual, is the practice of regularly seeking to bring the complete focus of our being on God. It is the practice of returning to the Lord as the true centre of our existence. The pressures and distractions of life, as well as our own sinfulness, constantly blur our focus and tend to shift us away from centring our lives in God. Worship is the means by which we recover our focus and return to him. The quality and consistency of our worship is what will determine how well we are able to live Jesus centred lives in the world. Discipline, willpower, giftedness and going to church can be good things. But they do not guarantee transformation. Transformation comes through valuing God above all else.

Worship is first and foremost a gift we offer to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God does not need our worship, but does both delight in, and in a mystical way, inhabits our worship and praise. Worship is an expression of our love. The love we find in God draws forward our love for him, and worship is often how our love finds expression.

Andrew Roberts writes this in his book ‘Holy Habits’:

“Biblically, worship is a way of life. A way of life encapsulated in the Jewish Shema – a prayer which is the centre piece of Jewish morning and evening prayer services. It includes these words from Deuteronomy 6:5: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Worship offered as grateful response for all God is and does involves all of our lives: our work, our rest, our enjoyment of creation, our service, our eating, our giving – and, yes, our gatherings with fellow disciples for the focused activity of praise and worship.”

It is true that all of life can be an act of worship, but it is often by embedding rhythms of deliberate acts of worship within our days that our lives incrementally move in that direction. The heart of worship is to seek to know and love God with our whole being, in our own unique way.

Many see the sacrament of Holy Communion as a pinnacle of worship, celebrating and giving thanks for God’s loving acts in creation and salvation. As Jesus invites us to his table, symbols of the natural world become vehicles of the heavenly world, of which we are called to be citizens. We often hear it said that a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible reality. Holy Communion invites us into deeper unity and communion with Jesus and his body. In many ways the Lord’s Supper opens us wide to a divine mystery, which is beyond our explanation, but that does not mean we cannot participate in it. When we partake, we taste what redemption cost God in order to call us home.

As we move through this month, perhaps we could each do a day to day ‘audit’ of what we find our lives centring around. If we discover that is not consistently God, then perhaps we can develop patterns of personal or communal worship which may help change that.

A prayer for APRIL:

Heavenly Father, we desire to engage ourselves with, dwell upon, and express your greatness, beauty and goodness. Thank you for creating us in such a way in which the thoughts of our minds, words of our mouths, actions of our bodies and the movements of our hearts can bring worship to your Name. You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power! Jesus, as we worship you, may the good we adore enter our minds and hearts to increase our faith. You have invited us to be nourished and strengthened with heavenly food. Reig at the centre of our lives and our Church, by the transforming power of your Spirit. Amen.

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ARTICLES, VIDEO, PODCASTS & MORE

Articles

Adele Calhoun – https://renovare.org/articles/worship-a-practical-guide

Dallas Willard – https://renovare.org/articles/cultivating-a-life-of-worship

Richard Foster - https://renovare.org/articles/renewal-through-worship

Lee Cheek - https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/05/lords-supper-means-grace-weary-methodists-perspective.html

Courses on Spiritual Practices

Practicing the Way: A series of free personal and small group resources based around 9 core spiritual practices. These are being released one by one and currently (at April 2024) there are resources for 4 practices available: Sabbath; Prayer; Fasting & Solitude.

All resources can be found here: https://www.practicingtheway.org/

A new 8-part introductory course can be found here: https://www.practicingtheway.org/course

Holy Habits: Small group resources which have been developed based on Andrew Roberts book ‘Holy Habits’. These focus on 10 core spiritual practices or ‘habits’.

https://www.holyhabits.org.uk/

Inside Out: A free small group course from Renovare for discovering a deeper, more transformative life with God

https://renovare.org/courses/io