PERFECT WORSHIP

Dear friends,

Yesterday in our Sunday worship service I got a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye, not because worship was that bad, but because it was that good! 

Since retiring five years ago, Carol and I have been members of Grace Lutheran Church, a small mission congregation in Parker, Colorado. Our son Brian is a member there also, so we enjoy our worship together Sundays when we're in Colorado. 

A hundred or more members and guests are present each Sunday in the Assembly Room of Parker Lutheran High School. Last Sunday we joyfully approved a plan to construct a small worship center of our own, hoping to break ground and finish our first building during 2013. 

Since it began ten years ago, Grace Church has brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Parker area in traditional Lutheran services and educational programs. Like all mission churches, it has struggled with member, economic and building issues. But its worship has always brought the hope of Jesus Christ and the joy of Christ's forgiveness to those who come.

Grace Church people sing from the hymnal accompanied by teenagers playing our new piano. Pastor Murphy chants the liturgy and preaches Christ-centered sermons as insightfully as I've ever heard. We are blessed by Holy Communion most Sundays, and it's a rare service without thirty or more children present. Sunday as we sang, "Children of the Heavenly Father," a few dozen little ones bounced up the aisle for Pastor's blessing. At service's end, there was much laughter as teenagers showed how they will raise funds to attend their 2013 Youth Conference. 

And that's when the lump and tear came. You see, I believe our moments of joy in earthly worship are but a glimpse of the sustained joy of perfect worship believers shall have in heaven, as the Psalmist says, "Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness." (Psalm 28:6)

With all the world and national problems so harshly and continually flung at us, there is always the peace and joy that comes with Christ-centered worship. Like all churches, Grace is filled with sinners. But those who leave its doors will have heard their need for Jesus, and the hope He brings us all.

And, like me, maybe others who leave will feel a lump and a tear of joy.