The Spirit of Everyday Life

We often search our worship experiences for those moments that touch us, change us, push us forward.  Often we find them in small places, sometimes in larger themes, but while we often seek these when we find ourselves in a worship service or church wide events we rarely seek them as much in our day to day lives, letting words, sounds, smells, and sights pass by like they had no spiritual significance.

Here is a one week challenge:  This week seek the spiritual in everyday and then tell others about what it is that you find.  Likewise you will find a series of blogs this week outlining what we found spiritual in the day prior.  So if you feel you don't even know where to look, start here.  We may spend the entire week just finding the spiritual in one thing, or we may find it in so many variations that we don't repeat the same thing twice.  Both are okay, but if we want to see the world change, we must first change how we see the world.

Today, we found the spiritual in the music we were listening to in the car, in this case Mumford and Sons.  You can find a version of the song that is stuck in our head here.   It is a simple song, and the lyrics certainly seem spiritual, but at the same time it's not inherently "Christian."  Yet it speaks to the soul, speaking of the things that connect us all to some greater vision, and the desire to better understand it while we are still here on this earth.  The most poignant moment for us was: "In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die.  Where you invest your love, you invest your life."  This one snippet challenges us to really think about what we put our "love" (passion, energy, spirit) into.  It very much fits a desire to be changed from the inside and touched the spirit and soul today.

Hopefully you will join in the week long journey together, and more so that this will help us all see the world just a little more through God's eyes.

Advent Hymn Reflection - Angels From the Realms of Glory

Angels from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight over all the earth;
Ye who sang creation's story
Now proclaim the Messiah's birth.
Come and worship, come and worship
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Shepherds, in the field abiding,
Watching over your flocks by night,
God with us is now residing;
Yonder shines the infant light:
Come and worship, come and worship
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations;
Ye have seen His natal star.
Come and worship, come and worship
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

All creation, join in praising
God, the Father, Spirit, Son,
Evermore your voices raising
To the eternal Three in One.
Come and worship, come and worship
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Come and Worship - This coming week we will be called to "Worship Services" a number of times.  Each time we'll be Called to "Come and Worship" by God, an invitation offered first at creation and repeated throughout history.  Come live with God and with one another, delight in creation and as those created in the image of the great Creator God.  Come Live.  It echoes again as God calls the Israelites out of slavery, Come to a land prepared and rejoice in what God has done!  Come with justice and righteousness, take care of one another and show others who God is.  Once again it echos in the story of Christ, this time echoing louder as a call in the night, one that brings light to the world that brings Kings and Shepherds together to Come and Worship.  One person, who is also God, who brings all to him by his warmth and light, one who brings food to the hungry, water to those that thirst.  Come delight in the one who Creates, Sustains, and Redeems. 


And yet: Creation Forgot.  Israel Forgot.  We Forget.

Remember . . . Come and Worship