As we gather for worship each Sunday, we bring a myriad of needs. Some of us have had a wonderful week and come to praise God for all God's blessings; others of us bring the weight of the world on our shoulders and look for relief. We also bring varying expectations – we want to sing praise songs, we want quiet hymns, we look for certain things to happen. All of that comes together as we join for this hour or so together each week. Most importantly we come together to find God, and to be reminded that it is God that we worship. In the midst of all the needs and expectations that we bring to this time and place, we need to remember it is not about us, but about being open to God's leading us in this time and place. Perhaps an appropriate centering prayer for the beginning of worship time is: "God forgive us for gathering together and expecting nothing new to touch us in our time of worship." It is a prayer that asks us to be open to possibilities that might happen in a worship service … to find new insight in the midst of the familiar, but also to find inspiration in the unfamiliar.

This morning as we explore the second mark of discipleship it occurs to me the place to start is to look at our pattern of worship. The church gathers … to hear the word … to respond in faith … and scatters to be in the world. Just about every Sunday we gather here for worship, our worship revolves around that sentence. It is structured around the basic pattern of worship found in our hymnal on page two. The pattern is a reminder that worship is not something static … something that is done to us and for us; but rather that worship is participatory. We gather together from the various places where our lives have brought us since the last Sunday. We open with greetings and sometimes praise … we often "clear the air," through confession. Our gathering is a time to prepare ourselves and be open. After a week of work and play and school we need time to settle and center ourselves. Hearing the word is just that … we listen to the scriptures, we sing them, our children are taught, and the word is expanded. We are then reminded that what we gather for is not passive – we are called to respond. Sometimes that is in the celebration of communion, as is the case this morning; always with our prayers and our giving. And finally, we are sent into the world to be a sign of God's presence as we put our beliefs into practice.

While it is a bit like preaching to the choir to say this, because you all are here this morning, I'll say it anyway. Worship is essential to our discipleship. There is no such thing as Christianity in isolation from other Christians. We have to gather together regularly to praise God, to listen to God and respond to God's leading. God's people got that very early on. If nothing else, gathering regularly to worship God reminds us that it is God we worship – it is far too easy to begin worshiping other things when we aren't being regularly reminded of that. Once we fall out of gathering with others to worship God it is far too easy to begin filling our spiritual hunger with things that ultimately will not satisfy. In Power Surge, Michael Foss says about worship: "Worship is both the culmination of discipleship and the matrix from which discipleship is formed. Disciples worship not out of obligation, but out of eagerness … to absent oneself from worship is akin to a hungry person turning away from a free meal." (Power Surge page 95)

Based on all this it seems to me that we have two responsibilities. One is personal, the other corporate. At the personal level it is about examining our attitude, or perhaps our worship-tude. It is to ask: what do I arrive at worship to find? I admit to having some issues in this respect. We all have our favorite hymns, we all have favorite readings and so on … and we'd like to have them happen more often that not. We have expectations about what a proper worship service is supposed to be like. And if it doesn't happen in the way in which we expect, then we have a feeling that worship doesn't happen. Over the years, I've built up certain expectations about Annual Conference worship. We sing certain hymns – "And Are We Yet Alive," at the opening of the clergy session; "For All the Saints," during the tribute service; and "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name," as the processional hymn for ordination. To not hear those hymns is for me the same as not having "Silent Night" sung as part of the candle lighting ritual of Christmas Eve. Yet, I have to stop and ask myself – if we don't sing those hymns and have the certain words that I expect; does that mean God isn't present and calling us to worship God? As if! The worship-tude we gather with is one of openness. Sometimes we will find comfort in the familiar, sometimes we will find challenge in the unfamiliar … but, always God is present, always God is ready to be heard, always we gather to praise God for all that God has done for us.

The corporate responsibility is to others. As we gather to find God, to be shaped by God's word and then sent out – we are sent to others. There is a time and place for confidentiality. You want your therapist to be discreet, we want our staff-parish relations committee to be able to deal with sensitive matters and not share them with the church as appropriate. Ad copywriter Jeff Candido has been given much credit for revitalizing the image of Las Vegas with his advertising slogan: "what happens here, stays here." But it isn't so with what we do here on Sunday morning. And yet, far too often we act as if worship is something confidential – that what we do here together, stays here. It can not be! Our responsibility to others is to share how God touches and shapes us. We are the living signs of God's presence in the world. Given the shape of the world, we had better take our responsibility seriously! If nothing else this morning take the gift of invitation seriously as you deepen your discipleship. Lenten invitation is historically the time when those excommunicated from the faith were called back. As with most practices that tend to degenerate over time, excommunication had good intentions. The church instituted the practice as a wake-up call for persons to take their lapses seriously enough to do something about them and to seek repentance and restoration. While we can immediately poke holes in that notion and dismiss the practice of excommunication, we can nonetheless, take seriously the call to invitation. And so as we say, we are scattered to be in the world. As disciples of Jesus Christ we have to take that responsibility seriously. It is easy to dismiss the task as being too big – we are sent to the whole world after all. Indeed we are, but the world is the individuals whose lives intersect with ours. To be evangelical, in the best sense of the word, is our responsibility. If worship is the central expression of our faith; and the place where we find God … how can we not then, invite others to participate with us. Someone is out there, feeling left out and shut off from God … waiting for your invitation.

Here we gather to find God, to be strengthened by the presence of each other … here God comforts us, heals us, challenges us and discomforts us. Here we give life and expression to God's love and are invited to love others as God loves us.

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