Unified worship

These past three weeks at Summitview, I notice that I start thinking about the other congregations I've been in and pray for them and just let myself be in unity with them esepcially if their services fall at around the same time as the one I'm in at the time.

Today I thought about three churches: Summitview, an E-Free church in Littleton, the chapel service at the hospital in Denver, and this small community church near my house. I attended the community church for three months, the E-Free church for the other 9 months that I was home, and the hospital chapel service on the Sundays when I had to work. The image was the same: the congregation singing a song sometimes with a band accompanying them. In the E-Free and the community church, the hymns were on power-point slides. The congregations varied in each location: The E-Free church was as crowded as Summitview and many people were white upper/middle class. The community church was a bit more diverse, and in the hospital chapel, most of the congregation wore scrubs and spanned the rainbow of skin-tones. Sometimes patients came to the service, so someone would come in by wheelchair or with a bandage or crutches.

In each service, several people stood with their hands raised during song or peayer, they were solemn when they got communion, and their faces lit up when they recognized each other Sunday after Sunday. In each service, several people were moved to tears during song.
At the hospital chapel, there was only one instance where we sang during the service. The Chaplain was going to read Abraham or Moses' parting blessing and one of the congregates remembered that it was turned into a hymn. When the chaplain couldn't find the reference, this congregate started singing the hymn. This particular person was at the chapel because his fiance was in the ICU on life-support due to an alcohol overdose. One of my co-workers was already emotionally wired because she didn't know whether a chronic condition that she had previously had resurfaces, and another co-worker had lost her aunt. I was a bit sad because one of my friends had recently been diagnosed with a mild form of a genetic disorder. As this congrete's voice rang out, as he was singing through his tears, everyone joined in. My two co-workers started crying as did I. Several other hospital staff congregates including the chaplain had tears in their eyes. We were singing to God in spite of everything, in spite of the pain and suffereing we saw throughout the hospital and in our own lives and families. We were singing because God was good through it all.

As I sang at Summitview, all those images flashed through my head from the churches in Denver. As we sang the song "Taste and See", I realized that I've fellowshiped with people in all these congregations as we sang cried and prayed to God. And every Sunday, though we are all separated distance wise, we still glorify His name together.