Calgary, Alberta
2020
To explore ways the worshiping community’s values can be embodied in communal worship practices that shape worshipers' engagement with God, one another, and God’s world.
Provide a brief summary of the purpose and goal of your grant.
The purpose of the worship grant project at TRC was to gather our worship leaders and interested congregants to talk about the deeper reasons for worship. We are a congregation made up of two long time church plants and the worship cultures were different We wanted to explore and learn in community and a shared table about worship and open ourselves to a new understandings. The goal was to be able to articulate a common, values based vision and practice of worship at TRC.
What are two questions that have generated reflection on worship and helped shape your project?
- What is the point of congregational worship?
- What are the habits that form us and in what ways?
What impact has your project had on the worship life and habits of the congregation?
Our project opened up possibilities and an openness to try things that would have been hard to implement from the top down. We moved from having the stage as the centre of our worship to The Table and communion as the centre of our gatherings. The grant combined with Covid realities have opened the congregation up to exploring and trying things they would not have easily done before.
What have been your greatest challenges (or challenging opportunities)?
The biggest challenge was covid restrictions and not being able to experiment and experience worship in physical proximity to each other. It was hard to only talk and think about congregational worship as opposed to fully diving in – however, the opportunities to not settle and to keep coming to God for engaging ways to do the work of the people together – even this year – may have shifted us more than anything else to a place of worship as our life as opposed to worship as a thing we do.
What would you like to share with other Project Directors?
Remember that engaging with worship practices connects to the deepest parts of us humans. It will bring up strong emotions and reactions in everyone. Be prepared to lead your group through the work of examining their own reactions with the Spirit.
