As we slowly come out of our shells, let us rejoice and be glad that the Lord has brought us through.  This will be our second Sunday back from the pandemic hiatus, and we’ll be finishing our 2 week series on worship and worshipping together.  Next week, we’ll be diving back into the Gospel of Mark.

Since we’ve been apart for so long, coming back is a momentous occasion.  The season of quarantine and distance is either at a close or soon to be at a close…hopefully.  And as we transition back into in-person worship, we have the opportunity to survey just what we’ve been missing and what we’ve lost as we have worshipped as a church distributed.  We want to be thoughtful about what we’re doing, to meditate on why we worship and why we gather to worship, so that we can give praise to God for those specific blessings that we’ll be enjoying either soon or right now.

Obviously, this will be a topical sermon, and so I encourage you to read through Hebrew 10:19-25, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, and Ephesians 2 and 4 in preparation for this Sunday.  We’ll hopefully be looking at each of those passages to address some of the trends within American Christianity as well as to build a vision of biblical corporate worship.  Whether I actually see you on Sunday or not (those of you that need/want to stay home, please do!), I look forward to thinking through how Christ brings us together to worship as one body.