Joyce Borger

The following service was written for a devotional time before a church meeting, but it could easily be adapted for congregational worship. It is centered around Psalm 103 and the petition “give us this day our daily bread,” which would be fitting for Thanksgiving Day or any other service with gratitude as its central theme.

In my circle of Reformed folk, we like to talk about our “world and life view,” or a way of looking at life through the lens of faith—a faith that believes that the Holy Spirit is at work in this world, claiming it for Christ and building God’s kingdom on earth. As Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” (From Kuyper’s inaugural address at the dedication of the Free University, in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Eerdmans, 1998), 461). This is a faith that sings, “Every inch of this universe belongs to you, O Christ. For through you and for you it was made. Your creation endures by the order of your hand. So you must have in all things the first place” (Matthew Westerholm, “The First Place,” © 1999 Matthew Westerholm, Lift Up Your Hearts #15). Yet so often our professed faith and our lived faith don’t align. Instead of seeing our daily life as an expression of our faith and as part of the larger mission of building God’s kingdom on earth, we relegate our faith to an hour of corporate worship, a small group or Bible study, and maybe a few moments of daily prayer or personal devotions. But that’s not the way it’s supposed to be—nor does it need to be. One way to help our congregants understand that all of life is under the lordship of Christ and should be lived for his glory is to teach and show how our corporate worship should affect the rest of our living—and that our daily lives should affect our corporate worship. As Ron Man says, “Worship as a church and worship as a lifestyle are in a mutually enriching relationship” (“Living Worship,” p. 3). “Every inch of this universe belongs to you, O Christ. For through you and for you it was made. Your creation endures by the order of your hand. So you must have in all things the first place.”—Matthew WesterholmThat relationship between corporate worship and all of life is what we’ll be exploring in the next few issues of Reformed Worship. This certainly isn’t the first time we have addressed this topic, but now we will be doing so in a more focused way. In this issue we are paying particular attention to the relationship between corporate worship and our daily vocations, as seen in the worship series “Work and Worship” (p. 7), a reflection on “Daily Worship and Vocation” (p. 15), and “Songs for Work and Worship” (p. 19). Future issues of Reformed Worship will explore the connection between worship and mission. As always, we encourage you to submit your own resources related to these topics or related to the liturgical seasons. To learn more, visit reformedworship.org/how-submit-article. As we think about the connection between our worship, our work, and our faith, I can think of few people who have exemplified it as well as Laura Meyering. Laura recently retired after ten years as the subscription manager for Reformed Worship. She may not have written for the journal, but her servant’s heart and wisdom have profoundly affected our ministry, and we are grateful for her. To fill the gap that Laura leaves, and as part of the ongoing transition of Reformed Worship to our new home within the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, I invite you to join me in warmly welcoming members of CICW’s central office to the Reformed Worship team. With their help our rhythm of work and worship continues.  

As I read through the lectionary readings for this season, many of them centered around love: God’s love for us and the call of Christ’s followers to love each other. Thus, that refrain echoes throughout these resources.. Another theme that began with Mark’s account of the women at the tomb is that of doubt and faith and how closely the two reside in each of us.

As we enter the final week of Lent and begin to think more seriously about the Sunday after Easter here are some resources to adapt for your context or use as inspiration.

On Ash Wednesday instead of looking at the dark that surrounds us from the comfort of a lit room we sit in darkness, and see the light.

Do you remember learning how to swing or teaching a child how to? I vividly recall the repeated directions “in and out, in and out” spoken in a sing-songy voice to encourage the proper pumping action of the legs. But once the pattern was internalized, oh, the heights that could be achieved! And we are never too old to swing.If you listen you can hear the “in and out” refrain throughout this issue. We aren’t trying to teach folks how to swing, but we do want you and the church to soar—spiritually, that is. To do that we need the Holy Spirit to work in and out. As we are reminded in the article, “Pentecost: The Absurdly Unified” by Chris Walker, in worship we need to attend to the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in us as individuals, among us as a community, but also outside of us in how we live out our faith. In this issue, then, you will find articles and resources that highlight the work of the Holy Spirit within us, such as through the songs for the season, “Holy Spirit, Keep the Fire Burning in Us!” You will also find articles and resources that prompt us to join in the restorative work that the Holy Spirit is doing in the world and some that highlight both the inward and outward working of the Spirit, such as the worship series “Joining the Spirit’s Work.” Just as the joy of swinging can only be experienced when the legs go in and out, so our worship ought to give expression to both the inward and outward working of the Holy Spirit to help God’s people to soar spiritually.But we cannot jump over Ascension Day. Our worship is possible because Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father and has sent the Holy Spirit to be with us. It is the Holy Spirit who brings our prayers and praises to Christ, who perfects them and intercedes on our behalf with God the Father. It is the risen and ascended Christ who gives us hope for our own resurrection. It is the ascended Christ who calls us to join in the Spirit’s work. So once again we encourage churches not to neglect Ascension Day. Finally, both Ascension Day and Pentecost remind us that we as Christ’s followers are one. We have much to learn from one another. In this issue we are privileged to learn from the Baptist, Methodist, and Waldensian churches of Italy, who express that unity each week by sharing the same worship material, which arises from the shared understanding of worship they worked to articulate together. You can find a portion of that unifying work in the article “How Shall We Worship?” and the “Ascension and Pentecost Services from Italy.” As always, our prayer remains that the Holy Spirit may use this issue of Reformed Worship to bless the church. May the Spirit be present in your planning, leading, and living. 

Are you looking for resources for your Ash Wednesday worship and the Sundays of Lent? Whether you are looking for an entire series, a prayer, litany, or other creative idea Reformed Worship has something for you! Check out just a few of the resources available online at ReformedWorship.org.

God-shaped change won’t happen without prayer. To be an agent of such change one must rely on prayer—fervent daily prayer. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of prayer. In this blog we share one of them. 

The sky was a perfect azure blue stretching up above the sandy hills and the edenic green of palm trees and other foliage. As my gaze moved over the water, I couldn’t believe that I was there, looking out across the Sea of Galilee as Jesus would have done so many times. We saw the ruins of a synagogue where Jesus would have spoken, the hills that Jesus would have traversed, and even enjoyed a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. It was an absolutely perfect day. Over the next days we visited a Holocaust museum, and our hearts broke. We heard from a rabbi and Jewish settlers. We saw the walls, the barbed wire fences, and the checkpoints. We witnessed poverty and the indiscriminate, and intentionally demoralizing actions against Palestinians. And we heard from Jews and Palestinians alike about the complexity of their shared history and contentious politics. We also heard about and saw the places where peace had a foothold, displaying a beautiful vision of shalom. Last spring as we journeyed through Israel and Palestine, we saw that evil and beauty live side by side. Even as I am writing, events are unfolding that have escalated the historically rancorous situation beyond what anyone thought possible, with a thousand lives lost in a few days alone. Who knows how the situation will evolve in the next few hours let alone by the time you read this? It is horrific. It is messy. It is complicated. Things were messy and complicated in Jesus’ day as well. The Roman occupational forces controlled all things and taxed its subjects heavily. Babies were massacred. Jesus and his parents had to flee and were refugees in Egypt. Family members were arrested and then beheaded on a whim. But there were also weddings, friendships, fellowship, and so many fish! Evil and beauty lived side by side. It was messy. It was complicated. Jesus didn’t shy away from any of those complications. Christ spoke truth to the powers of the day, addressed the injustice, and intentionally befriended the marginalized. He engaged with the messiness. During my pilgrimage in Israel and Palestine, I was encouraged to see that our time there was not just about walking where Jesus had walked, but also walking where we believe he would walk today. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ is still present in messy places and in complicated situations. Today, Christ calls us to be used by the Spirit, to be his voice speaking out against injustice, to be the voice of the voiceless. Christ calls us to see the world as he sees it and to seek the flourishing of all people. In this issue of Reformed Worship, you are invited to journey with Christ through the complicated and the messy, to engage with issues of justice in worship even when we don’t have all the answers, to lament in solidarity with those who weep, and to create places where all can flourish, including the 117 million individuals in this world who do not have a place to call home. Christ calls us to engage the complicated, even in worship. So let’s roll up our sleeves and get messy.

We fear saying the wrong thing, being judged, or labeled. We wonder if we shouldn’t know more, have some sort of expertise before praying. But as those given the priestly task of leading our people in prayer it is so important that we courageously step into the space of the both/and.