(Re-blogged from 2019)

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

It’s another Sunday morning. The weeks seem to go by so fast, yet there are still only 52 of these opportunities each year. It seems that – 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.

Public worship is a curious thing because it’s both about Creator God and about us; notice I didn’t say about “me” but about “us”. Christianity is much more than the individualistic “me-and-God” religion our culture often tries to make it. The church 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 emotional 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.”

Unity, not uniformity!

According to Jesus, the number one tool we have at our disposal when it comes to sharing 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 where we live 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.

There is nothing any one of us could be doing that is more worthy of our time. Sunday morning comes around just 52 times each and every year – so let’s not miss this one.

Peace, and more peace – DEREK