The Sacrament of New Year

How has 2010 been for you so far? Do you already feel like you're falling behind or are you on track, and ready to go into the rest of the year with confidence and faith?

There's always so much hype around a New Year that it can be tempting to just ignore the whole thing. After all it's just a few numbers on a calendar, isn't it? Well, I want to suggest that there's another way to look at New Year. I believe that it can be an incredible opportunity, or even better - a sacrament. The sacraments are ordinary things that are part of our everyday lives – bread, wine, water – that God fills with God's presence and purpose in order to touch us and transform us. One of the reasons for the sacraments is to teach us to view all things – every situation, every person, every moment – as a potential sacrament.

So, what is the “sacrament” of New Year? I believe it is a time when we are called to remember one of the most liberating truths of the Gospel – that God is a God of new beginnings. Right from the first, whenever someone failed, or got lost, or was hurt in some way, God was there offering a new start. Abram, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, the prophets all experienced new beginnings and were able to touch others with God's grace because of it. Through Christ, many broken and desperate people were given new lives, new hope and new connection with God. God is the God of new beginnings, and New Year offers us the invitation to experience this again for ourselves.

For most people 2009 was a tough year. But, now we're at the start of a New Year. Yes, it's just numbers on a calendar, but it creates a space for us to pause, reflect, take stock and reset our life's direction. It creates a way for us to lay aside what has passed and start again.

2010 may already have started badly for you. Well, it's still not too late to begin again. Each month offers another new beginning. Each week, each day is a blessed gift from the God of second chances. How would it be if you embraced this sacrament this year? Imagine taking each new day, each new week, each new month, each new season, as a new beginning and opening yourself to the hope and possibility that God offers. This one thought, lived and applied, really can change your entire 2010!

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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

What Difference Does Worship Make?

Soon after encountering Christ as a teenager, I began telling everyone about my new faith. Once, as I tried to convince a friend that Jesus would make a huge positive difference in his life, he expressed doubts - he felt that Jesus made no difference at all.
“I used to wait outside a church every Sunday morning,” he said, “asking for a lift to work. My family needed the money and I couldn’t afford the bus. But, every week I walked because the people just drove by. I can’t see any difference that Jesus made to them.”
Over the years I have thought back on his words many times. Now, as a minister and worship leader, I find myself wrestling with this question – what difference does worship make?
Each week churches around the world are filled with worshippers. But, in spite of this, violence between people of faith remains a reality and the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen even in countries that claim the name of Christ. I find this deeply disturbing.
But, as Amos 5:23 & 24 indicates, God’s desire is that our worship should lead us to make a difference in the world:
Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. (Amos 5:23,24 NLT)
Worship, then, is the fuel that inspires and drives God’s people to engage with the problems of the world.
Jesus' challenge is to live our worship in every every moment. Rather than just a weekly “fix” of joy, the worship service offers us God’s perspective on the world, and guides us to live from this vision.
This means that worship leaders need to move beyond a focus only on what God has done for us and include what God has called us to do. It means that preachers must wrestle with the tough teachings of the Scriptures, and offer a new vision of what the world can be. It means that worshippers must shift from being ‘consumers’, to being collaborators in God’s mission for healing our world.
When lives are changed by worship and the world is changed by worshippers, there is no question – worship really does make all the difference.
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John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology from UNISA, and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.
Visit www.sacredise.com for more articles by John, as well as resources for personal and public worship – music, prayers, liturgies, images and drama scripts.

Why Worship Matters!

This will be another regular feature of CruxMobi where John van de Laar will write articles to encourage, inspire and teach us concerning the vital importance of worshipping God, and how that worship should always be connected to real life issues and concerns.