Meaningful Worship

If you haven't noticed, I have not written for a while.  So there are a number of comics and even more thoughts that I have been thinking about for me to write on.  Yet this one has been on my mind and my heart, WORSHIP.  Now I am thinking of a particular God, the One God.  I am not thinking of money, football or success in academia.  Though I know that each one of these are at the focus of many in these days with rise and fall of the stock market, the start of a new football season, and the start of a new school year. 

However, it is also the start of Sunday School, Confirmation, and so many other programs or ministries that happen within the church.  I have also seen a growing number of people returning to the church services.  Yet the question remains, why did they take three months off?  In talking with many people, I have found that worship simply did not fit within the schedule.  They used the weekend to go out to their cabins so that they could enjoy the time with nature and connection to the creation that we as humans have been placed to care for.  While this is not a bad thing, the person and their families did not attend the Wednesday evening service so that they were able to attend during the week.  However, then the scheduling of baseball, softball, soccer, and other sports were happening or the family just did not want to take the time to attend the worship service.  

This for me as a Pastor means that these people are not being fed by the worship.  While this is the worship that they grew up in and even is mostly familiar, it is not something that gives them life or energy to face the week energized to help others around them.  In talking more with people it does bring them comfort but does not do what it is suppose to do. Give them life. Many people return to church once a month so that they can be reminded of that feeling, that comfort.  It would be like going home from college.  It is great to be home but you long for your freedom, you long for independence and living life once again.  

I realize this phenomenon is going on throughout the country but still leaves me to wonder, what would help people engage their faith and lives together.  The church is a place where people go for comfort but it should also be a place in which we experience life. While wrestling with all of this, I have returned to the root, what makes up worship and and can be meaningful to people.  When I ask people, they like things just the way they are. People do not want to be taken out of their comfort zones.  So I will ask you the reader, What do you like about worship? What sticks with you after you leave?  Why would you come back to a church?