Blogging Towards Worship on February 10, 2013
In worship this week we’re doing prayer stations as our response the freedom of faith as we hear in three testimonies from anonymous children who encountered Jesus.
Baptism is our entry into faith – the bath we take before we come to the part of the kingdom – the way we wash our hands before we come to the table. It’s not just an ancient ritual but a visible experience of an invisible truth or grace.
When we are baptized, the apostle Paul says that we are baptized into the death and life of Christ. We die with Jesus – drowning in chaotic waters – and are raised up – out of those waters of death – to new life, free from all that enslaved and held us in bondage.
But living as a new creation isn’t easy. Freedom isn’t doing whatever we want whenever we please. It’s seeing the world as it is, seeing each other and ourselves as God first sees us. It’s accepting that each action has a consequence. It’s embracing that we don’t live on an island or in a vacuum, but rather in a community that Jesus calls his kingdom.
Today as we hear the word and respond we do so with several prayer stations around the sanctuary. [HERE is a definition if you’d like one.] Each station has an active way for you to pray, responding to the testimonies of children who experienced Jesus, articulating your prayer-full response to the freedom for which Christ lived and died and which we often overlook, undervalue or forget.
Learn more about prayer stations and worship ways with such stations on the blog of local PCUSA Pastor Theresa Cho (Still Waters) [link]
Here are some clever prayer station ideas from a pinterest page: http://pinterest.com/samtoo/prayer-stations/
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