God’s Story
While being examined for ordination, I was asked this question: “You state that your preference is for a liturgical service. You are in your 20’s. What place does liturgy have within your generation, and if you are tasked with leading a modern worship service, how will you defer to your preference for liturgy?” There is a faulty assumption underneath these questions. Liturgy is not defined by the call and response chanting I experienced from the man in a robe carrying the gold cross in my childhood church.
Being liturgical is not a worship style preference. Every crafted service communicates a liturgy. Liturgy is simply an intentional order of worship that communicates something specific about God and his people.
So we have been talking a lot about the liturgies of Chapel Hill. We wanted to share a bit of insight into the ongoing conversations happening during the worship planning gatherings. We are being more intentional about talking about our stories through the videos you’ve been seeing. We also are being intentional about teaching how to tell our stories through the sermon series with Frog and Amy Orr-Ewing. So, too, with the worship service itself, we are being intentional about telling the grand story God has written for us (and writes with us today!).
God’s story begins with creation and our fall into sin. It progresses in spite of the faithlessness of God’s people until the Faithful One, that is Christ, appears in human history. Our redemption through Jesus’ death and our hope in his resurrection propels the story through Revelation to our eternal hope! We are going to be telling this story through our worship liturgy. We craft an intentional order of worship that communicates this specific salvation story about how God relates to his people.
So we invite you to peek in behind the scenes, so to speak, and see where you can pick up on the elements of this story, this liturgy, that we will be teaching through the Sunday morning worship services. Expect to see God’s story in the call to worship, the lyrics of hymns and songs, and the wording of the benediction. We invite you to come back here to the blog and to comment on what you’ve seen! If you have questions about this liturgy, fire away! One of the pastors or our worship coordinator, Kathryn McIvor, will be happy to respond.
Our story, members and visitors of Chapel Hill, is the story of God telling us who he is and who we are. Let’s learn and live that story in order that we might make his name known!
Blessings!
Pastor Megan