Overview
Worship is central to the Christian life. It is where we gather to celebrate our faith, express joy, renew hope, rekindle vision, and prepare for the tasks ahead.
Our services reflect time-honored and traditional rituals: a rich convergence of art, music, scripture, and the spoken word.
C.S. Lewis wrote the following about worship:
“Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best. It works best when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice…The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.
But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshiping.”
The stability of our worship and tradition provide the stones and beams and foundations upon which and within which we can find a sense of place and purpose that stand the test of time and withstand the changes and chances of life. As the world seems ever more unstable, that stability becomes evermore precious. There is pressure from the world to change to match its pace but that very pace is, I think, driving us all a bit mad.
With little connection to place and even less connection to our past we seem to be losing all that grounds us for a sustainable, stable future.
Saint Philip’s offers a tradition that has both the stability of long practice but also the flexibility to respond to a changing world without being defined by its changeability. It provides a sense of place while not pretending that places never change and a sense of home while always recognizing that home is made for the people in them—even as it shapes them.