“Take courage; I have conquered the world!” – Jesus, John 16:33

November 10, another Sunday. The weeks seem to go by so fast, yet there are still only 52 of these blessed mornings during the year. It seems to me – the way life comes at us with such velocity and, sometimes, ferocity – this world could use a few extra Sunday mornings to help us along the way.

For me there is only one place to be, and that is in worship with my church family. But worship is a curious thing because public worship is both about Creator God and about us; notice I didn’t say about “me” but about “us”. It’s an interesting truth that Christianity is not the individualistic “me-and-God” religion North American cultural predilections often try to make it. The religion that emerged in response to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was – and is – very much a corporate experience vested in the practice of community.

The heartfelt prayer Jesus shared at the end of The Last Supper (John 13-17) made it clear how The Master felt about our relationship to one-another as followers of the Living Way: “I ask not only on behalf of these (the disciples with him around the table), but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word (that, friends, would be us), that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

According to Jesus, the number one tool we have at our disposal when it comes to sharing the essential truth of the Good News is our unity. Not our uniformity, but our unity.

It’s okay to disagree about stuff. Good grief, it would be beyond tragic if we were all in lockstep when it came to just about anything. Public worship remains our best opportunity to communicate the real power of the gospel message to a world hungry to see, to believe, and to experience the impossible-to replicate joy that is life together as a church.

So join us, why don’t you? Immerse yourself in the good company of good people who gather to celebrate the good news.

The town of Wake Forest is absolutely a more compassionate, more inclusive, more positive, and a more generous community because there is an active, committed, faithful, life-charged, love-saturated Presbyterian Church on Capital Boulevard.

9:00 contemporary worship, 11:15 traditional worship. There is nothing you could be doing that is more worthy of your time. Sunday morning comes around just fifty-two times each and every year – so don’t miss this one.

Peace, and more peace – DEREK