the gathering

I have not posted this yet on this blog but it is becoming such a huge part of my life that I feel like I need to put it out there. About a year ago I began to find some like-minded people at our church and we began to discuss what it means to be community and what it means to worship together. We have become community and we have worshiped together through weekly meals and discussions. We are now going to begin a weekly worship gathering that will meet at New Albany Nazarene every Saturday evening. I am very excited and a bit anxious for this new phase of ministry in New Albany. I believe that what we are doing is right and that we have taken the necessary steps to bring about authentic worship. Our corporate worship is flowing out of a true sense of community and now we hope to offer our worship to God in a way that will in turn create authentic communities of faith.

I am very excited to take what we learned from Christ Community about worship and let others experience a very focused worship experience. We will be following the classic fourfold pattern of worship. It is depicted in the picture of the stain glass window.

Here is a brief explanation of the fourfold pattern;

We Enter to Worship - Here God awakens our whole being and begins to move us from the “scattered community” to the “gathered community.”


We Hear The Word - Having been prepared through Christ's Spirit in our Acts of Entrance we are now ready to receive what the Spirit has to say to us through God's Word.


We Give Our Thanks - Now we express our thanks to God for the gift of His Son by giving of our means and/or partaking of His holy meal, the Lord's Supper.


We Leave to Serve - We're now sent out as the "scattered community" once again to live and share what we have learned with a world who longs for a relationship with God.



To all of my friends who read this, your prayers are appreciated. I am sure a more liturgical, classical and convergent (although similar, not emergent) form of worship will not be accepted well by some people in the church even if they don't attend the gathering. I would also appreciate prayers for our community as we continue to live life together and proclaim the Kingdom.

Also, if you play guitar and would like to play on Saturdays we would love to have you.