How do we communicate without language? As a writer and publisher—someone who relies on words—this is a question I like to avoid if I want to pay my rent. Two recently published children’s books, Luli and the Language of Tea by Andrea Wang and Quiet Time with My Seeya by Dinalie Dabarera, confront language barriers and find community and love in play, in gathering around a table, and in sharing a cup of tea.
In 2018, the University of Arts London conferred an honorary doctorate degree on the Chicago artist Theaster Gates. He concluded his acceptance speech performing his bedtime ritual, singing: “Guide my hands. Guide my hands. Guide my hands, while I am on this tedious journey. Guide my hands.”
Most historic, mainstream Christian churches in the United States of America by now should be experts in conducting hybrid or multimodal worship services, but, surprisingly, they are not. Some of them were already good at recording and posting or even livestreaming their worship services before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The rest of those churches had the opportunity to learn and develop the art of online worship during the two years COVID kept most churches shut down.
In every time and place, God has called music out of human hearts. I’m an organist, so my primary instrument could hardly be more bound to a specific location, yet the walls of a church can’t confine all the music in the worship of the triune God. A drum circle on the Gulf Coast of Florida initially opened my eyes to the Spirit’s creative nudges when the pandemic prevented us from glorifying God within our beloved church sanctuary.
One of my favorite things to hear as we walked out of my African American Baptist church in North Jersey as a child was, “Yes, yes, we had ‘chuch’ today!” The mothers of the church would intentionally leave out the “r” to emphasize the power of the service and its hoped-for residual spiritual effects on their lives, their families, the community, and maybe, just maybe, the world.
It is appropriate to celebrate the Sacrament of Communion as often as every Lord’s Day (according to the PC(USA)’s Book of Order W-3.0409). In addition to the members who gather in the place of worship, the community has a responsibility to minister to those members who are unable to participate in person by taking the sacrament to those who wish to receive it.
O God, we thank you for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, for creatures of the sea and creeping crawlers of the earth. We praise you, O God, for the gift of everything wild. The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it!
Over the past fifteen years, I’ve served three congregations: FPC in Manchester, Tennessee, FPC in Cleveland, Mississippi, and now FPC in Cookeville, Tennessee. In each of these communities I have been blessed to officiate a variety of liturgical celebrations outside of the sanctuary and Lord’s Day worship.
Every week church choirs of all sizes, ability levels, and contexts gather together to prepare music to lead the people of God in worship. What happens is nothing short of a miracle!
© 2024 Call to Worship
Lovingly made by Worship
Times, Websites for
Ministries
