A Member Congregation of the South Carolina Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Worshipping and Doing Ministry from 7420 Highway 9 - Inman, SC 29349

Weekly Devotional

October 8, 2007
God’s peace be with you all.

Psalm 100:1-3 NRS Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Worship is a large part of our faith. Every week we come to the church to worship our God and Maker. Every week we make joyful noises, praising God with our songs and music. We celebrate the things that God has done for us, and continues to do. It is our chance every week to truly be present in God’s house. It is our chance to increase our relationship with God, to make it more meaningful and important in our lives.

Having grown up in a Lutheran Church all my life, there is one aspect of Worship that is very important to me. That aspect is the liturgy. The reason it is so important is that to me, the Liturgy connects us to every other church out there that is worshiping the same God, as well as all the saints who have gone before us. If we were to look at our liturgy, what we would see is that it really hasn’t changed all that much. Many of the things we do during worship that are a part of our liturgy has been a part of the liturgy for a long time. Now I know the word “liturgy” and even “liturgical” scares some people. But the truth in the matter is that EVERY church has a liturgy. It may not be like ours, but they do have a pattern of some sort that they use regularly. Even the Israelites had a liturgy that they followed.

The Liturgy is what makes worship so meaningful to each and every single one of us. William H. Willimon once wrote: “Worship, like all human behavior, has meaning. A person’s selective interest in worship leaves clues concerning what is meaningful to him, where important centers of his emotional life are to be found, where his sources of anxiety lie, and how he deals with them.” I know that our current liturgy that we use is not everyone’s favorite. Week after week, I hear people say “it’s too slow” or “it’s too old” or “it’s too high church”. The truth is that I could hear a new excuse every single week. Instead, what I would like for you to focus on is what makes our worship service so special for you. What are the things that you get out of worship every single week. I pray that the positives always outweigh the negatives.

In the coming weeks, we are going to be learning the liturgy for a new setting, which is Setting 5 out of the WOV. Along with moving to this setting in Advent, we are also going to move to having the Holy Eucharist every week. I would like to see people get excited about the directions we are going. Yes, some Sunday’s we will probably sing hymns that sound like funeral dirges. But rather than being disappointed about that, I encourage you to find something good out of it. How many of you actually pay attention to the words you are singing? Or do you just follow along? Our psalm calls us to make a joyful noise. It doesn’t say that the noise has to be on key, fast, slow, or whatever else you can think of. When we worship, we worship God, and for that reason alone, we ought to have a joyful worship service.

In our prayers this week: Shirley Kallam (having surgery today), Buddy and Ann Kelley, Linwood Hackett. We give thanks that Olga will be joining us again soon, and that Alma is returning back to her home.

God's Peace,

 Pastor Judson



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