Worship

Worship is one of the most significant things that we do together as a religious community. In weekly communal gatherings we discover a deeper sense of identity, strengthen and encourage one another on the journey of life, mark important milestones, and encounter the sense of mystery and wonder that permeates our life together and the world around us. Worship shapes our moral character, our ethical actions, our intellectual explorations, our spiritual yearnings, and our emotional maturation as sacred beings, both individually and in relation to one another in community. In worship, we learn the stories that shape us and give meaning to our lives.Worship is experiential, engaging the senses, the mind and the heart in a symphony of sound and silence. When done well, it can be transformational, leading us to see the world and our lives with new eyes, offering ourselves in dedicated service.

I believe that the creation of worship is a communal enterprise. Certainly everyone who enters the worship space on a Sunday morning helps create the fullness and richness of what is offered that morning. I also have found the creation of collaborative worship teams to be an effective means of creating dynamic worship that speaks to a broad range of people. Musicians, artists, writers, dancers and others who specialize in movement, as well as those who are simply interested in worship, come together on a regular basis to plan and dream and create. Together, these teams explore themes and theological understandings, brainstorm songs, visuals, and other sensory and participatory elements of each service, and coordinate the details for developing the flow and emotional arc of the service.

Worship works best in a Unitarian Universalist context when the worship experience is linked with our Seven Principles, and in turn, connects with our lives during the week. I work diligently to ensure that the worship life and the religious education and faith development life of the congregation are integrated with each other. This allows wonderful conversations to take place during the week within families, among friends, and in other gatherings of the congregation. It also reinforces all that we are trying to do in shaping faithful and integrous human beings and a dynamic religious community. I also draw from the full spectrum of sources in keeping with our living tradition.

Links on the Worship blog will give you some samples of orders of service and some experiential emergent worship ideas that I have used in various settings. A second link offers selected Orders of Service from worship at UUCC.