Tag Archives: Worship

BasisBits – Paragraph 17: Law in the Church

 

BasisBits Logo - 2 WITHOUT S

The Uniting Church acknowledges that the demand of the Gospel, the response of the Church to the Gospel, and the discipline which it requires are partly expressed in the formulation by the Church of its law. The aim of such law is to confess God’s will for the life of the Church; but since law is received by human beings and framed by them, it is always subject to revision in order that it may better serve the Gospel. The Uniting Church will keep its law under constant review so that its life may increasingly be directed to the service of God and humanity, and its worship to a true and faithful setting forth of, and response to, the Gospel of Christ. The law of the Church will speak of the free obedience of the children of God, and will look to the final reconciliation of humanity under God’s sovereign grace.

From Paragraph 17 of the Basis of Union (1992)

 

Download a high-quality image of this BasisBit for insertion into your pew sheet

 

BasisBits are intended particularly for congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia but could be easily adapted for general use by congregations of other denominations. The suggested use of BasisBits is as items in the “news” section of your Sunday pew sheets or regular congregational publications; some would lend themselves to incorporation into your liturgy order itself.

BasisBits – Paragraph 9: Creeds

 

BasisBits Logo - 2 WITHOUT S

The Uniting Church enters into unity with the Church throughout the ages by its use of the confessions known as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. The Uniting Church receives these as authoritative statements of the Catholic Faith, framed in the language of their day and used by Christians in many days, to declare and to guard the right understanding of that faith. The Uniting Church commits its ministers and instructors to careful study of these creeds and to the discipline of interpreting their teaching in a later age. It commends to ministers and congregations their use for instruction in the faith, and their use in worship as acts of allegiance to the Holy Trinity.

From Paragraph 9 of the Basis of Union (1992)

 

Download a high-quality image of this BasisBit for insertion into your pew sheet

 

BasisBits are intended particularly for congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia but could be easily adapted for general use by congregations of other denominations. The suggested use of BasisBits is as items in the “news” section of your Sunday pew sheets or regular congregational publications; some would lend themselves to incorporation into your liturgy order itself.

BasisBits – Paragraph 5: The Biblical Witnesses

 

BasisBits Logo - 2 WITHOUT S

The Uniting Church acknowledges that the Church has received the books of the Old and New Testaments as unique prophetic and apostolic testimony, in which it hears the Word of God and by which its faith and obedience are nourished and regulated. When the Church preaches Jesus Christ, its message is controlled by the Biblical witnesses. The Word of God on whom salvation depends is to be heard and known from Scripture appropriated in the worshipping and witnessing life of the Church. The Uniting Church lays upon its members the serious duty of reading the Scriptures, commits its ministers to preach from these and to administer the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as effective signs of the Gospel set forth in the Scriptures.

From Paragraph 5 of the Basis of Union (1992)

 

Download a high-quality image of this BasisBit for insertion into your pew sheet

 

BasisBits are intended particularly for congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia but could be easily adapted for general use by congregations of other denominations. The suggested use of BasisBits is as items in the “news” section of your Sunday pew sheets or regular congregational publications; some would lend themselves to incorporation into your liturgy order itself.

LitBit Commentary – Worship (UIW2) 2

LitBits Logo - 2

LitBit: In worship, we speak to God in a direct way, in praise and adoration, intercession and thanksgiving, confession and lament. It is the primary speech of the community to God, rather than speech about God, the secondary speech of reflection and discussion. It is also God’s speech to us – for example, in the word of grace at the declaration of forgiveness, in the proclamation of the Scriptures, in the blessing that rings in our ears as we leave. …the speech of worship is nonverbal as well as verbal, including such things as gesture and movement, colour and sacrament, silence and music.               Uniting in Worship 2

 

How to use LitBit Features and Commentaries.

LitBit Commentary – Worship (UIW2) 1

LitBits Logo - 2

LitBit: When we cross the threshold into a service of worship, we bring with us the concerns and joys of our lives. In other words, we bring the concerns and joys of the mission field in which we live. The Sunday service does not provide ‘time out’ from our daily mission; liturgy and mission are integrally related. The word ‘liturgy’ (in Greek, leitourgia) literally means ‘the work of the people’; yet it is primarily the work of God, in which God graciously enables us to participate. It is our graced response to God’s gracious acts; through it we are brought into relationship with the triune God, and we offer worship as the body of Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

Uniting in Worship 2

 

How to use LitBit Features and Commentaries.

LitBit Commentary – The language of worship

LitBits Logo - 2

Perhaps the largest challenge for the language of worship is that one set of words…needs somehow to embrace, express, and elicit the worship of a whole group of people. From the perspective of a worshiper, public worship always involves using words that come from someone else. One skill for worshipers to hone is the skill of “learning to mean the words that someone else gives us,” whether those are the words of a songwriter or prayer leader. This skill requires a unique mix of humility (submitting ourselves to words given to us by the community of faith), grace (willingness to offer the benefit of the doubt when those words may not have been well chosen), and intention (actually to appropriate those words as our own).

The Worship Sourcebook (alt)

 

How to use LitBit Features and Commentaries.

LitBit Commentary – James Torrance on Worship 4

LitBits Logo - 2

“Under the pressures of our culture, and of theological controversy, are we not in danger of losing that living centre – of forgetting that the real agent in the life of the Church is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ?  Then our worship becomes in practice Unitarian and Pelagian, simply what we, religious people, do.”

James Torrance, Worship, Community and the triune God of Grace, p.107

 

How to use LitBit Features and Commentaries.

LitBit Commentary – James Torrance on Worship 3

LitBits Logo - 2

“As the head of all things, by whom and for whom all things were created, [Christ] makes his Body, and calls us to be a royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices.  He calls us that we might be identified with him by the Spirit, not only in his communion with the Father, but also in his great priestly work and ministry of intercession, that our prayers on earth might be the echo of his prayers in heaven.  Whatever else our worship is, it is our liturgical amen to the worship of Christ.”

James Torrance, Worship, Community and the triune God of Grace, p.2

 

How to use LitBit Features and Commentaries.

LitBit Commentary – Alexander Schmemann on Worship and the Church 1

LitBits Logo - 2

“We need to be thoroughly aware that we come to the temple not for individual prayer but to assemble together as the Church, and the visible temple itself signifies and is but an image of the temple not made by hands. Therefore, the ‘assembly of the Church’ is in reality the first liturgical act, the foundation of the entire liturgy; and unless one understands this, one cannot understand the rest of the celebration. When I say that I am going to church, it means I am going into the assembly of the faithful in order, together with them, to constitute the Church, in order to be what I became on the day of my baptism – a member, in the fullest, absolute meaning of the term, of the body of Christ.”

Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist, p.23

 

How to use LitBit Features and Commentaries.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »