Not long until we’ve stuffed ourselves with pancakes and got down to the serious business of Lent... And I don’t just mean ‘giving up’ something – Wikipedia says “The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour).” How can this justice be explored in your church’s worship over the next few weeks? Why not use the Tearfund Youth Global Poverty Prayer Week resources, or Matt Osgood’s ‘When our songs (Have mercy)’ song and PowerPoint? Or ‘fast’ your band for a season of more reflective worship and prayer? Or you may have other creative ideas – post them below!
And then before you know it Holy Week will be upon us – what are you doing to help your church and community engage with the life-changing truths of Jesus’ death and rising again? What creative, innovative forms of engagement with God can bring the ‘resurrection and the life’ to life?! Again we’d love to know either things you have done in the past or plan to do this year, so post your ideas below or email stuff to us so we can share the best on our Worship Ideas page.
I’ve been challenged recently by Tom Wright’s book ‘Surprised by Hope’, to think of the resurrection as the ultimate demonstration that God is in the business of resurrecting and restoring all things – he doesn’t want to bin creation and whisk us off to a disembodied eternity. Rather he wants to recreate all the broken and dying things of this world – societies, artforms, individuals, the environment – putting them back together the way that they were supposed to be. As the Message version translates Col 1:18-20:
“He [Jesus] was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.”
And the amazing thing is that we - creative people, church ministers, doers of justice, prayers of prayers – get to partner with Jesus as he does this work of recreation and redemption of all things. What can you resurrect this Lent and Easter season, what can you redeem, what can you find to join in the resurrection parade?
Sam co-leads engageworship.org with his wife Sara. He completed the LST degree in Theology, Music and Worship, and now teaches in the department two days per week. He also co-leads RESOUNDworship.org, the free worship song website, and has led musical and creative worship at events like Spring Harvest, New Wine North and the Baptist Assembly alternative stream. Their book 'How would Jesus lead worship' was published by BRF in 2009.
