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How to Love God

A bumper sticker reads, “If God is your co-pilot, change seats!” Christians believe that God is our center, our true north, our Pilot. And that is what we seek to proclaim and experience when we gather in worship. Worship refocuses us from trying to “bring God into our story” to asking God to take us into His story.  It helps us focus our Sunday mornings on growing in our trust of God. We are reminded that holy worship is our weekly chance to participate in God’s story, God’s narrative. That narrative is both profoundly simple and deliciously complex. It is this: Remembering the past and God’s mighty acts on our behalf. Anticipating the future coming Kingdom eternal which is promised. And in between them experiencing God in our lives through Christ Jesus. This is what we do when we worship.

Let me explain. The past starts in the Garden of Eden and God’s creative giving of life. The past includes not only all of creation but also the constant offer of redemption---God’s constant hunting of us wherever we are hiding to bring good news that His love is stronger than whatever evil has befallen us or we have embraced. So “remembering the past” for Christians is not dead history, but finding ourselves as subject of the drama of God’s work. Then there is the future (I’m jumping from step 1 to step 3; we’ll get back to #2 in a moment!). The future we envision is God’s eternal garden of peace and justice, God’s garden of grace and glory, which we often call heaven, but which Jesus calls the “Kingdom of God.” This kingdom is available here and now as well as after the grave. In worship we anticipate this future we are promised in Christ. Holding the past and future together is God present in Jesus, the incarnation (in-fleshment) of God. Jesus
is the center of our worship of God because He is the human example of what God desires us to be, and He is powerful to transform us from who we have been into a more perfect image of Him. These three movements (remember God’s acts in the past, experience God present, anticipate God’s future kingdom) are the core of our worship experience. We seek for us each to find ourselves weekly in the grand story and sweep of God’s story. This is the way centuries of believers have become new people in Christ.

Our three services are each a bit different as we seek to experience God’s truth afresh. The 8:15 is simple—one pastor, no bulletins needed, more intimacy together. The 9:30 is more contemporary, with music guiding us through our time with God, the sails being used throughout worship. The 11:00 will highlight more of the traditional church service with the congregation participating with the choir in music which is not only familiar in the past decades but also which sustained believers in the very earliest centuries of the Church. Worship really is our chance to change seats with God and to ask again for Him to pilot our lives. What a grand flight we will be having Sunday by Sunday. We look forward to seeing you in Church!

~ Pastor Paul Watermulder