Worship resources

Worshipping in isolation

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In the last few weeks we have all found ourselves in a new and strange world.The video acts of worship that follow are a gift for you to use as you like.   I’m offering what follows not in an attempt to teach grandmothers (or grandfathers) to suck eggs but as a reflection on things I’m learning as I go along from these new ways of connecting and being community. 

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One of the characteristics of this new time when we meet with others, worship and work in our homes through computer screens and phones is that we no longer get to travel.  I’m finding I miss the journeys and the space it gives to prepare before and reflect after each event.  So I suggest that before taking part in the worship on this site you set aside time to prepare, to look out of the window, walk in the garden or simply sit quietly and then again at the end to reflect on the worship and allow it to resonate.

 

I don’t know about you but I often watch the television while doing something else.  It rarely commands my full attention.  Worship cannot function as an also ran.  It needs the attention of all that we are.  So I suggest you set aside time to worship and to do nothing else.  That you do so with as few distractions as possible in order to give God your full attention.

 

Quite often when we view a screen we do so passively.  We are an audience.  Someone else has done the work.  All we do is receive.  This cannot be the case for worship.  Worship requires our active involvement.  So I invite you to sing the hymns or to meditate on their words, to add your own prayers and to breathe through the silences.  In other words to contribute to and be involved in worship as much as you would be if we were all worshipping together.

 

Although I deeply miss worshipping in a gathered community and the shared act of worship we produce there.  I know that we are no less a community as we worship together from different homes and that God is with each of us and continues to bind us as one.

 

With blessings for now and hope for tomorrow,

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Rachel

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All resources are covered by Church Copyright Licence 635383 and Streaming Licence 1425513.