This is the final post in this series looking back at the worship songs that have been particularly important to me during 2020.
Spirit and Truth
Worship has obviously been very different in the last year. We’ve not been in a Church building since March. The summer festivals I’ve been going to every year since a teenager didn’t happen in the usual way. We haven’t been able to join together in worship with others (apart from family) in the same place. We’ve adapted to worshipping at home. Sometimes on our own, sometimes joining in with a live stream or pre-recorded time of worship. It has been strange. Uncomfortable at times.
Does Jesus’ promise that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20) only apply if people are in the same physical space? What does it mean to gather together in worship when we cannot be in the same building?
But yet we’ve been singing “We’re gathered here, the time has come to praise the Father, Spirit, Son”. We sung that song with our Church on one of the first Sundays of online worship during the 1st Lockdown. And it felt strange, yet somehow reassuring, to be proclaiming that “we are gathered here” when we were all in our own homes.
The Dutch community ‘De Spil‘ say that “We pray together even if it isn’t in one chapel”. Wherever we gather, I am sure that God meets us. Whether we are physically present with others, joined with people through the wonders of modern technology or simply united by the power of the Holy Spirit we can sing with confidence and assurance that “we’re gathered here the time has come to praise the Father, Spirit, Son”.
