Ken Edwards, Senior Pastor

Somewhere in my readings, I came across the suggestion that worship is a blend of wonder and imagination. This thought has stayed with me over the years; it is a thought that comes to me during moments of worship gatherings week after week. The thought of worship as wonder and imagination comes to me in the breaking of the bread, the pouring of the cup, the splashing of the baptismal waters, the collective voices singing hymns, and the sharing of the gifts of the people

Worship is wonder! We wonder at the majesty and awesomeness of God’s presence and grace. We wonder at the possibility of God creating the world and everything and everyone in it and giving the world and its people meaning and dignity. We wonder at the generosity of God’s forgiveness. We wonder as we see God in the faces of those around us, each created in God’s image. We wonder at simple things. I recall my college sociology professor, a beautiful person who was a self-avowed agnostic, tell me tearfully one day that she was tempted to believe in God every time she saw a baby’s tiny, perfect hands.

Worship is imagination and by that I do not mean that we imagine things that aren’t there, but  that we allow our minds to imagine what God is like and what God is doing in the world. We can never completely grasp the fullness of this God who proclaimed through the prophet Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (55:8-9) Worship is seeking to know God’s ways, discerning God’s call, and understanding God’s dream for the world. Over the next few weeks we will explore what it means to live God’s dream, and we will gather to worship and together allow ourselves to wonder and imagine.