Worship - our core activity

 

I enjoy watching the Repair Shop on the telly.  There is something very ‘warming’ about the blending within the programme of fine craftsmanship alongside the restoration of items which inevitably tell a family story and are much valued by their owners because they were inherited from a much-loved person.  It is also the case that, as the stained box or rusty toy is stripped back, its true beauty shines again once more.   

It has struck me that since March, as so many of our church activities have ceased, we too have been ‘stripped back’.  So, the question is: what has remained?

I think the answer to that is WORSHIP. 

So many of you have said to me that it has been the provision of the worship services, audio, video or in person, that has, meant the most to you during 2020.  It is, I believe, our core activity.  As a church we can, reluctantly, suspend many of our social activities, yet from that very first Sunday of the March lockdown we were determined to join together (in an alternative way) for worship.  In that sense, the rhythm of worship at AFC, has not missed a heart-beat this year for every Sunday, without exception, it has brought us together under God.

As we leave this significant year I will take with me the thought that our worship of God is central to our life at AFC, and from that everything else, our social activities and our missional service, flows.

Here’s wishing you all a very Happy New Year, full of God’s blessing and hope.

Ian