At different times and places, people have sat, reclined, stood, or knelt during Eucharist. Individual worshipers have received the bread and cup from leaders, passed the bread and cup from hand to hand along the pews or around a circle, or served themselves from plates or baskets set on a table.
I began my vocation in information technology during the birth of the modern Internet, and now as a pastor I am captivated by the next great shift: from the Information Age to the Age of Intelligence, with its potential to transform not only how we live and work, but also how we preach.
There are few things that permeate most people’s lives in nearly every cultural group across the globe as thoroughly as music, and this has likely never been truer than in current days, when the majority of us carry pocket computers holding thousands of songs, with Internet access to seek out thousands more.
Christian worship has always had political implications, whether for or against the current rulers. This is not to say that everything has been seen through a partisan lens, but rather that how Jesus is depicted in both words and images reflects what Christian communities believe about the connection between what he says and does and the relationship between the powerful and those who are sick, poor, or otherwise without power.
Wow! What was that? And how do we get more of it?” These words of Beyza, a Turkish Muslim woman leader, rang like the church tower bell that tells the neighborhood something significant is happening.
In Call to Worship volume 59.2, I wrote about the PC(USA) congregation that called me when I had both feet out the door of any church after many years as a church musician.
On a bright late August morning, after just dropping off our toddler at preschool and while pushing an empty stroller home, I prepared to cross a major north-south corridor through our neighborhood. Seemingly out of nowhere a police car screamed past me, lights and sirens blaring.
Like funerals and memorial services, liturgies at the graveside, vault, or columbarium are opportunities for the living to remember and mourn the person who has died.
These days most places seem to have hospital waiting room vibes. The usual noise of ordinary places—grocery store lines, school parking lots, traffic jams, sidewalks and lobbies, pews before worship—even places that celebrated the last election, sounds different.
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