Church this morning was wonderful I thought.
I need to get out of the habit of missing the people who aren't there and thinking it's some kind of personal affront. I need to celebrate the faith community that is there and that is growing in its relationship with God... usually I do that.
I really took on board what Rozina preached about last week- the need to be more creative in our worship. The topic this week was the parable of the sower. (Mark 4).
I made up pots of the different kinds of soil that are mentioned in the bible and we sort of acted out the parable.
Then I asked people to move to the pot that described where their hearts were at right now. I prayed for people at those different places and asked God to plough over the hard, rocky and weedy hearts so that we could all produce more fruit.
I talked a little about the kinds of fruit God wants us to produce.. while we all have different gifts, we can all be reproducing the kingdom of God in our workplace, home, school etc.
We made some little plant stakes and put initials of people whom we know who do not yet know Jesus. We planted the stakes in the soil that we feel describes where they are up to now with God. Then we asked God to change their hearts and make them more receptive to Him.
Finally we made up some little pots with potting mix, planted a little seed in each pot and placed our plant stakes there. These are to remind us to pray for our people and to seek to be a part of the process that God can use in changing their lives.
I think that you did really well with the sermon yesterday. I know it takes lots of work but I think it is definetly worth it. When people actually have to respond and say where they are or what they are doing they actually have to think about it for themselves - it isn't just something abstract that they can ignore or think doesn't apply to them. You could have asked those questions in a normal sermon and nobody would have had to answer them for themselves. I can remember the 2 questions you asked that we had to do something about but not the one we didn't have to!! I also think it was good because the younger ones could be involved in all of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you are saying.It's not always possible to be that concrete or participatory, in my opinion. Sometimes there is a need for "solid" propositional teaching... but the need may be far less than we often assume. Maybe we just have to try harder to be grounded rather than theoretical. Not easy after a couple of centuries of tradition and expectation, and a couple of decades of personal practice and no training... oh and very few models to copy.On the other hand, Jesus managed to be pretty in your face with very little abstract teaching.I guess I'll have to go week by week praying for personal inspiration.The hard bit is maintaining it. When the going gets tough it's easiest to revert to previous practice because the rut most travelled is the way of least resistance.
ReplyDeleteYeah - not an easy act to keep up - you need to rely much more on God than on your own strengths to do it creatively. If you want to talk out creative ideas let me know. Maybe we could pray together or something. I don't think you need to do it every week and I think if you do it all the time people get too used to it and know how to react. I think some of the effect comes in the element of surprise and people letting their guard down. I think things wrok best if people don't know what to expect!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful way to illustrate the lesson! We so need to be aware of the fruits we are producing.
ReplyDeleteHi cakkleberrylane,Yes as a church we are looking at fittng creative story-telling and the arts into our worsihp services.It's a long process of learning and seeking inspiration from the Holy Spirit.Keith
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