Worshipping God With Feeling

We were privileged to join with brothers and sisters from Saint Thomas' Anglican Church in Werribee on Friday morning for the Good Friday Ecumenical Stations of the Cross Walk. It's our first time participating in such an event, and we were heartened to learn that the event, which has gone on for 6 years now, is jointly organized by the Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran and Uniting Churches of Werribee. What a wonderful way to celebrate our unity in Christ!

STAC has 5 services to cater to different worship preferences: the 8 am traditional Anglican service, the 9.30 am contemporary service, the Wed 9 am Holy Communion Service (which is the most traditional and is conducted in olde English, with its Thee's and Thy's), the 1st Wed Healing and Teaching Service, and the 3rd Wed Cafe Church (a very casual service with meal and service conducted around tables in a sit-and-listen style).

On its worship brochure are these words: Worshipping God With Feeling.

This is what parish priest Father Max Bowers says in the brochure -

Thankfully we are all different and have different interests. If this were not so it would be a very boring and sterile world to live in.

Worship also falls into same understanding. We believe it is the responsbility of the parish to provide a diverse number of worship styles. As a result, we now cater for the interests of most current and future parishioners.

Whilst we may each choose a different worship style, we are still very much a part of the parish as a whole. This is evident in the various home groups or social occasions that bring people together from all the worshipping styles.

As a result of this diversity, in the course of a month we are able to offer five distinct and different worship services to choose from.

We are pleased to be able to encouage you to experience what we have to offer and then decide which service best meets your spiritual needs.

With every blessing,
Father Max Bowers
Parish Priest

Reflection
I am often guilty of worshipping God (when I worship Him at all) in a clinical way, as though God were concerned with the style I use or my choice of words or their presentation. God is so much more than all these! And I need to remember that. He knows my distractions and the preoccupations of my heart. He understands when I struggle to find the words. He is compassionate towards my private fears and inhibitions and will never mock me for them.

What He wants is all of me, and that includes every ugly thought and motive and deed - not just the parts I choose to display. There is nothing I have said and done and thought that He does not already know about. Let me then worship Him freely in spirit and in truth - with the help of His spirit, in full confession of the truth: that I am but a sinner. There but for the grace of God go I.