Worship

The first time I looked up “Anglican” in a church dictionary the article began, “This group is hard to define…” They were right.  We don’t have “hot-button” issues that we use to tell who’s “in” and who’s “out”.  The article went on to say that the best way to define Anglican was to attend one of their worship services.

Worship is what fuels us.  We express our beliefs, understanding and commitment in our worship services.  We use  liturgy–words written, often long ago, and repeated each week–to guard ourselves against fads and fashions.  We read Scripture–lots of Scripture–because God’s words are the most important of all.  With rare exception, we read from the Old Testament, Psalms, Gospels, and New Testament every week.  We preach, pray, and take communion, believing God leads us and joins us in these activities.

And we tell a story.  Over and over, year after year, we tell the story of Jesus.  Because that’s really all there is to tell: Jesus died and rose again for us.  We have six “seasons” that divide the year into two parts.  In the first part (December through May) we tell the story of Jesus, from the prophecies of his coming to his ascension into heaven.  The second part (June through November) is “the rest of the story”–the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in the world.

We use a lot of things to help us tell this story–colors, lights, music, words, robes, postures and positions for our bodies–anything.  It all begins and ends with worship.