The Rythym of worship and of our lives

    We are about to transition from the season of Epiphany into Lent. I have found that being intentional about the seasons of worship has really helped me focus on who Jesus is and what he is doing. I just went back to the introduction I gave before we began Advent, and I thought it was worth posting. It also includes one of the most commented-on quotes (outside of the Bible) I have read in a worship service so far.

    Eugene Peterson, in his book “Leap Over a Wall,” says “Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God. Worship is the time and place that we assign for deliberate attentiveness to God – not because He’s confined to time and place but because our self-importance is so insidiously relentless that if we don’t deliberately interrupt ourselves regularly, we have no chance of attending to Him at all at other times and in other places.”

    That is one of the reasons it is so valuable for us to take time, or to make time, to get together to worship God. There is a rhythm to our lives, and this time of deliberate attentiveness to God together frames and guides the rest of our time when we are not together.

    There is a worship rhythm not only within the week, but also in the year. We call that annual rhythm the liturgical year, or the church year. It is not a rule we have from the Bible, but it is a helpful way we have in the church, not only our denomination, but the Church around the world, to focus on key events from the life of Christ that shape who we are.