Will You Come with me?

O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name forever. (Psalm 34:3).

What am I looking forward to most this summer? The opportunity to worship in the chapel, where it will be air conditioned and cool - not like my first summer at St. Stephen’s where we baked in the sanctuary under the oppressive heat. And while, yes, I can be accused of having “first world problems” in my dislike for the oppressive humid heat of our home state, I also have another reason for looking forward to the chapel worship over summer. The space is smaller and we can on most Sundays, fill up all the seats!

There is something very exciting about seeing a filled room of people worshiping together, singing together, and just taking time out from their week to come and be refreshed by the word and meal provided to us by God. In the Psalm quote above, the psalmist invites the community, his/her friends into the experience of exalting God - together. As we study the Psalms on Wednesdays we hear a lot of Psalms that focus on the singular. “Save me,” “I bless,” “I walk,” etc…

However, there are psalms that speak to the community. It is a lot like churches and how they view themselves. Some churches are “I” focused. What can “I” get out of the church. Others focus outward, “how can we,” “what can we do,” “what is God inviting us into?” I think we are finding ourselves falling more and more into this communal focus, be it on Wilmington or greater New Castle County.

As we continue growing more and more into this community focused church, I wonder what it would look like if we also began (or tried again) to start inviting others to magnify the Lord with us? How could we, as individuals, begin to invite others into the church to join us in worship and mission?

Perhaps this summer we can all commit to bringing a friend to visit, be it on Sunday or to one of the many events we have planned over the summer and fall. While worship is one place we do magnify God, we also have opportunities such as Peace Week Delaware, Westside Farmers Market at Cool Spring Park, concerts, Art Loop, the Empty Bowl Dinner...the list goes on. While I love seeing filled seats on Sunday, we can also affect change and people’s lives in our various outreach ministries.

Do you think you can commit to bringing one person over the summer to one of the many church events? Imagine if fifty of us can bring one person to something over the summer months...that’s fifty people we have the ability to touch and share our vision for a better community. That is a rather significant amount of people that will be filled with the richness of God’s liberating and holy love. It just takes one question, “would you come with me?”

I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. (Psalm 34:1-3)