rollercoaster.

As a semester of singing with hundreds of dear friends at Sanctuary closes, and I begin to realize just how much I love and miss those moments, I want to pause and reflect on the joy they bring and the reasons they are so meaningful. Because after all...

What are we singing for anyway?

Over time, I've become less and less comfortable with my phraseology when it comes to Sanctuary, and it's hard to avoid using phrases that somehow distinguish the worship we bring during that time from any other moment in our lives.

In other words, it has been a struggle to broaden the idea of worship beyond what is so often propagated as the extent of worship in many of our churches, because, as most of you already know, we are called to give far more than a song to the Gracious One. As the apostle Paul vowed, we too, should offer our bodies, or as Peterson paraphrases, 'our everyday, ordinary lives—our sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around lives' as living sacrifices as an act of worship to the One who has created us. (Rom. 12:1-2)

This is all to say that Sanctuary has been a beautiful expression of worship from the hundreds who join in one voice with one another each week, but certainly not the extent of these people's worship.

As we sing words like, "What was said to the rose to make it unfold was said to me here in my chest," "Fill our hearts with your compassion," "Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done," "Politics will not decide if we will rise and be your hands and feet," and "Your Kingdom come, your will be done, here on Earth as it is in heaven," we are proclaiming a much deeper call to worship; a call that demands our lives, 'our sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around lives.'

That is the beauty I am blessed to see each Thursday.

Nearly every week of the past two semesters I have had the honor of standing before an unbelievable amount of potential and looking out at hearts as they unfold and re-imagine a call to true, life-giving worship.

Perhaps its something like sitting at the crest of that first hill on a roller coaster... (if you're into that sort of thing, because I'm certainly not, and that's why I have to say "perhaps") the anticipation, the excitement, the uncertainty, and wonder of it all is breathtaking.

Maybe its even more like we've just lurched over the crest of the hill and we've begun to understand what it's like to race along the tracks and feel the sheer joy (terror) of the wind rushing through our hair, and we know... we know that this ride is going to be wild one, one that leaves us changed as we step off the platform only minutes later.

Because the ride isn't long, but it's exhilarating.

It seems more accurate to say that we've crested the hill, because I know most of the hands and feet in the room each Thursday night have already been offered for greater things time and time again. I have seen the fruits of lives of worship all around me, and I know that this ride is only going to get better.

As we increase in speed, my hands want to grip tighter on the safety bar, but I wonder how much more exciting it must be just to let go... how frightening... how thrilling... how free.

I cannot even truly begin explain how my seat on this roller coaster has blessed me over the past two semesters. And it is certainly not a roller coaster in my mind because of its ups and downs, but only because of the energy just poised and ready to be released. We've had a taste of it, but there is much more track to cover. And the discovery that lies ahead is everything.

We are living for a Kingdom.

We are not citizens, first-and-foremost, of the kingdoms of this world, but of the Kingdom of God. As we have sung, this Kingdom groans for a world, 'where the wars and violence cease,all creation lives in peace,' there's 'no weeping, no hurt, no pain, no suffering, no darkness, no sick, no lame, no more hiding,' and 'in this life we are standing through our joy and pain knowing there is a greater day coming.'

But our groaning does not come without great responsibility... Our singing does not come without a call to worship.

Jesus came to announce the coming Kingdom (Mk. 1:15, Lk. 4:43), but he never called us to simply stand outside the line for the ride and hold our friends' fanny-packs. He called us into action.

The Kingdom is dynamic and active, and Jesus showed us exactly that through his ministry. And he did so by giving his life, his everyday, ordinary life as a complete sacrifice to the service of God and a testament to the coming Kingdom. In doing so, he declared the trajectory that God so passionately desires for humanity.

David Crowder is someone I look up to in regards to worship through song, was asked why he is so passionate about singing praise with others, this was his response:

"[A friend an I] were outside of my barn, and we were just talking. And he made this statement, and I know this isn’t necessarily something that would stand up in any physics classroom, but he asked, “You ever notice the sky goes all the way to the ground? It’s just sky, sky, sky, and then ground.”

We’re somewhere in between, our feet are on the ground, but we’re walking around in the sky. That’s our reality, that’s where we’re stuck as Christians. Redemption’s found us, we’ve been rescued, but we’re still in a desperate spot.

I think there are moments that happen in life that transcend our everyday experience. I think a lot of times, corporate worship is that. It seems like your feet leave the ground for a second or two, and you get this picture of what eternity might be, but then you’re right back into the grind, Monday comes and your feet are back on the ground but here we are again trying to figure out what it means to be alive and rescued at the same time."

The roller coaster lurches over the edge... we begin to pick up speed... the wind pulls tighter at our faces, our hair, we're turning, looping, dropping, rising, circling... we're flying.

When we join the action, when we step off the platform, into the car, up the hill, and down the first drop... we can just begin to feel it. We can just begin to taste it.

This is our life as sacrifice. This is our life for the Kingdom. This is our life of worship.

In bringing the Kingdom to earth, we are impossibly tied to the possibility of encountering the very Kingdom we are yearning for, when all-the-while, our feet are still tied to the ground.

In serving one another, in feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, befriending the lonely... in singing together as if surrounding one other as a cloud of witnesses or a chorus of angels...

in love and praise

in worship

we are destined to encounter glimpses of the Kingdom.

This is why I love my seat on the roller coaster. This is why I love Sanctuary.

The anticipation is building, and the excitement for what's to come is palpable in those anointed moments.

We can feel the Kingdom coming, just over the hill, just down the track, and we are chasing it with all we have... Throwing ourselves to the mercy of the ride, knowing that being a part of its movement allows us brief glimpses of what's to come.

The love we share, the praise we proclaim, and the worship we live all point to something greater.

And it keeps us living for more.

Father,

May we seek your Kingdom. May we hope for, long for, and yearn for your Kingdom to come, both through our worship, and in full when your time comes. Help us Lord to appreciate this ride that we are on, because as so many of us sit at its beginning we can see the great potential of it, but we fear that we may not cherish it and respect it to the extent it warrants. Father let us cherish the moments where we do feel close, where our feet leave the ground, and we understand just a little better what your Kingdom looks like, and what your desire is for your beloved. Lead us into your service so that our songs are not empty, but only proclamations of the body of worship we have already offered you and continue to offer to you each day.

Please Lord, take this life, and make it yours.

Amen