So why do Christians gather to worship week in and week out?  The answer is that there are at least three very good reasons:  to acknowledge God’s presence and worth, to remember that we are not alone but part of a community that is growing and learning, and to offer a visible witness to ourselves and others.  But when we gather to worship for these reasons, what do we do?  We celebrate!

The keynote of worship is celebration.  At times in its long and winding history the church has lost its sight of this.  But that is what Sunday mornings are all about—celebrating who we know God is (wow—he is our Father)  –celebrating what Jesus has done for us (wow—set us free from the consequences of our sin)—celebrating that can live in relationship with God through the power of the Holy Spirit (wow—we are not alone).

God is a God who throws parties.  Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Jesus told adults to keep their eyes on the children if they wanted to know what God is like.  Left on their own, adults develop strange ideas of what worship should be. …in the purely adult world, God frequently comes across as a cranky old grandfather..but children seem to know instinctively that God likes celebration.

Christians are people who are called to live in community, and we are a community of learners. We need to realize how impossible it is to be a Christian on our own, not to mention half the fun.

As Redeemer Church comes together, we’ll have three approaches to worship, in order:

Personal:  We encourage you to engage in prayer, particularly on Fridays.  We also hope you’ll have personal moments of worship to thank God for what happens in your life day to day.

Small Groups: As you share our challenges with friends, we hope your Friday prayers will no longer be something quiet and personal but something you share with the team.  Share the moments when God was at work in your life, and pray about them!

Celebration Events: Up to now, our celebration events have been just about fun, but in a few months we’ll start to host events with worship component.  We want to hear from you what will help you worship God as part of a larger community.

Challenge:  Complete our online survey about worship here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TS7K93

Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - November 18, 2013

Monday - A New Idea - Grace - in Lifestyle

Becoming Like Family

We are a few weeks into a new series on “Becoming Like Family”. This is important as members of our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together as one church community. We won’t be bound together by a building, or institution, but rather by five commitments. We’ve talked about commitment to common learning goals, connectedness as a community of small and large groups, connectedness to God in worship, and now this week, we come to grace in lifestyle. Those who’ve decided to follow Jesus, and walk in his path, are going to have to choose this over other paths. These choices impact many areas of life. That should be no surprise, but sometimes it’s hard to swallow. We can recoil from rules, or worry about restricted freedom. We’ll explore that this week, but it starts with understanding why we are asked to live by, and with, grace. But what does grace mean? There is a classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine is in a job interview, and the interviewer shares her admiration of Jackie O, who had “grace”. Elaine tries to say, “I think I have a little grace” but the interviewer snaps back, “You can’t have a little grace, you either have it or you don’t.” Elaine backpendals, “Alright, I have no grace. I don’t have grace, I don’t want grace. Hey, I don’t even say grace.” You can see the confusion here – what does grace even mean? Is it poise and kindness? Is it a lovely name for an old lady that is finally making a comeback? Is it a prayer before a meal? Question: What do you think of when you hear the word grace? What does it mean? Reminder: Last week we talked about worship, and asked you to complete our online survey about worship here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TS7K93 Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.

From Series: "Becoming Like Family"

This series looks at becoming “like family” with others learning to follow Jesus. We're exploring how the church is not a building, institution or event, but a community of people. It's important that explore what church means as we prepare to launch a new church in Ajax in 2014.

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