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December 07, 2005
Great Worship
Last Sunday I went to the Wytheville District in the Southwest Corner of Virginia to preach at the Mountain Plains UMC church in a combined service with their partner church Island Creek. These two congregations are served by Vickie Neese, a local pastor. It was such a meaningful, moving and spirit-filled worship experience. The most meaningful for me was the beginning of the worship with the lighting of the Advent Candle. This was done by a husband and wife team of Ted and Diane Webb. They talked about the partnership between Mary and Joseph with Diane pointing out the lonely proposition that Mary faced of bearing a child out of wedlock.
Ted then said to her and to all of us there, “Yes, and that is why God gave her Joseph. God knew she needed a partner.” And then he went on to say to Diane, “And God also knew I needed a partner and that is why he gave you to me and I want to thank you for being my partner throughout the years of our marriage.”
Well, about that time those of us sitting and taking this in began to wipe tears away, including the bishop. Ted and Diane blessed us with this wonderful display of love and helped us to catch a glimpse of the love between Joseph and Mary the chosen parents of Jesus. And it was then that I realized that we were in a spirit and an attitude of worship. We had been ushered into the presence of God.
They topped that off with a moving rendition of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It was a great time of worship, I believe, because we started out right. In fact, even after worship we continued to bask in the presence of God as the Holy Spirit moved us to demonstrate in fellowship what we had experienced in worship.
When was the last time you left church and felt empowered to witness to the love of God and believed that God was indeed with you? Great worship can do that for you and I believe those of you who have experienced this don’t need me to tell you what happened because it is like Maxwell House Coffee, “Good to the last drop.”
Thank you Mountain Plains and Island Creek for a glorious worship experience.
Posted by Bishop at December 7, 2005 04:44 PM