Worship

Sunday Morning

Sunday School 9:30 a.m.

Worship Service 10:30 a.m.

Worship

At Jennings Church we enjoy fabulous worship with great music and preaching. It

is our chance once a week to gather and connect to God and each other. While we

worship all through the week on a personal basis, once a week, we gather in

celebration of Jesus in our lives and hearts. We are a casual group and welcome

all to “come as you are” without worry for dress or manners.

BUT, what is worship?

In Psalm 42:1, the writer says, As a deer pants for streams of water, so I long for

you, O God.

Breathing is hard to explain. It’s hard because it is first nature to us and something

we hardly ever think about. We can describe breathing as a movement of air in

and out of our bodies, and we know that it supplies life-giving oxygen to our blood.

So, while it serves a vital function to life, we hardly notice it when it serves us well.

If breathing becomes difficult due to illness or panic or extreme exercise, then we

think about breathing. But, in the norm, we don’t think about breath because it is

such a natural part of life. We only think about it when it is missing.

Worship is like breathing. We can describe the movements of worship and the

forms of worship that have developed over history and through out traditions. We

know when worship is not happening and when our form of worship is not

connecting to our souls. Be because God created us to pant after and to worship

God as first nature, it is sometimes hard to put words to the moments of

connection that we call “worship.”

Worship literally is translated, “worth-ship,” which is a condition of giving worth and

value to someone, in this case, to God. People worship God in different ways, but

when we strip away the form we are just falling forward before God (falling into

God instead of away from God) with our heart, mind, body and soul. We are

humbling ourselves before our Creator and remembering who we are and who

God is, as we become comfortable in our natural position of “created.” We are

praising the Creator above all else, worshipping only One God, and adoring the

One who loves us enough to be present in our lives. God is the One we cry out to

when we end up in a heap of trouble! And the One we go to for wisdom and peace.

Our souls pant for God, and the panting is like breathing. We were born for this

kind of panting. It is a life-giving, hope-sustaining, toxin-removing movement of life

that we can’t even begin to explain…