Worship is giving to God all that we have and are. The hymnist Horatius Bonar (1808-89) helps us to sing in prayer:
“Fill Thou my life, O Lord my God, In every part with praise,
that my whole being may proclaim Thy being and Thy ways.
So shall no part of day or night from sacredness be free;
but all my life in every step, be fellowship with Thee.”
However, there is also the time and place for individuals to come together to worship as a body. This is what we refer to as corporate or communal worship.
A hymn writer of our time, Barbara Young (1970-2012) of Belize wrote:
“We gather in your name, O Lord
In thankfulness we come,
To raise our song, to sing your praise,
Jesus we celebrate!”
From Voices in Praise © 2017 The Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas
When we meet for corporate worship though, we do not only share in prayer and praise. We receive God’s word.
Our corporate worship is Word-centred. We do accept the biblical message as written in 2 Timothy 3: 16-17 that “ all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”
Hence the preaching and teaching of the biblical message is an indispensable part of our corporate worship. Indeed, with the enabling of the Holy Spirit, that enlivens the praise we seek to being and guides the prayer we open ourselves to share in with God whom we worship.
So then, in this page dubbed Worship & Preaching, you can expect to find singing of praises, prayer, preaching and all that makes for our worship life together in God.
Welcome aboard!