Worshipping in Creation

It seems easy to reflect on our connection to creation when you have the chance to visit a place like the Galilee Centre in Arnprior as I did last week. In fact, after visiting the site with other members of the planning team in July, my co-worship leader and I decided that we would do all the worship outside in different spots at the Centre.

Sunday evening we went down to the beach just before the sun set to arrange logs on the beach for people to sit on during worship. Even before sundown, the strong wind off the water lowered the temperature outside by about 5 degrees and so we set off to find another spot where we might have some luck lighting candles and playing instruments without losing fingers to frostbite. We found a sheltered clearing nearby around a fallen tree and built a small impromptu shelter where we could light the candles (an integral part of our opening worship). Even in this clearing though, it was cold. Around 7 degrees while the sun was still up and we were sheltered from the wind. Very different from the 30 degrees the week we had made our visit.

We decided to tough it out for our opening worship and so in the dark, windy cold, about 20 people gathered for worship lit only by candles and (rapidly dying) cellphones. We sang and heard scripture and prayed and we even managed to light some of the candles. I was convinced that this would be the coldest, it couldn't get any worse. Tomorrow morning our worship on the beach would at least be in the sun and the wind would have died down. 

Well at 7:30am, I checked the temperature outside on my phone and it read 5 degrees: feels like 1...I decided that I should go outside to check just in case the weather network wasn't 100% accurate. It turns out they were (or it was colder). At the last minute we moved worship inside for the day - both morning and evening we worshiped in the front living room with a view of the great outdoors.

We did eventually make it outside for both services the following day because we were using the outdoor labyrinth. The temperature was about 12 degrees and it was bright and sunny and I am certainly glad we did. That morning labyrinth walk was a spectacular experience of prayer set in creation.

Overall, the experience of planning and leading worship outdoors at Stronger Together was a reminder of both how inspiring and how unpredictable and beyond our control creation is. Our decisions, in this case around prayer and spirituality are directly linked to the life of creation. I am grateful for the opportunity to be reminded of this once again.