One of my favorite movies lines is in the movie about women’s baseball during World War II, called, A League of Their Own. The coach got on one of the players for a mistake she had made. The player started crying, which made the coach angrier and he declared, “Are you crying? There is no crying in baseball!”
When I was at another church, I had a friend who stopped going regularly to the worship service. I saw her one time in the community, greeted her warmly and during the course of the conversations I told her I hadn’t seen her lately at church. She told me she stopped going to our worship services. I immediately wondered if someone had offended her, or was she upset at one of the pastors (or me), or if she found another church she liked better. But none of those things were truth. She told me she stopped going to the worship services because every time she went, she would end up crying. So, her solution was not to go to worship anymore.
As we talked more, it was clear that she didn’t want to know what was going on in her soul that would make her cry when she slowed down enough and encountered God. She didn’t want to wade through the pain and hurt and disappointment in her life and bring that to God for healing and hope. She just wanted to stop crying in public.
The reason we believe participating in corporate worship is so crucial to our spiritual lives is it is one of the few places in our world where we slow down enough to focus on who God is. Where we can praise Him for His greatness and goodness to us. Where we can center on His holiness and His grace to us. Where we can do that with other believers who know us and love us.
As we worship corporately, we actually invite God into that interior space in our souls and He continues to root out what doesn’t belong there, healing what is painful and growing what is good. I am not exactly sure how it happens but as we come and connect with God and invite Him in, He comes in and changes us in those sacred moments. And sometimes that will involve crying. There may not be crying in baseball but there is crying in worship! When you are in town will you join us for worship this summer? We go to one service this Sunday at 9 am from June 30-July 28. See you at 9!
Comments