Connecting God with Everyday Life

If you’ve been to 11:00 a.m. Sunday worship (in the sanctuary) of First Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville, TN, lately, you’ve probably noticed the rubric in the bulletin and observed one or the other of our pastors practice “Connecting God with Everyday Life.” There’s more to this than meets the eye. On the surface it may seem only like a replacement for what we used to call “Time with the Younger Church.”

In a somewhat joking manner, on the occasions of baptism and Communion, I have suggested, “”Don’t try this at home.” because these two (Sacraments) are communal events that are to be observed within the context of corporate worship. Beyond these two (baptism & Communion), I can think of no other worship practice that carries this warning. In fact, we are strongly encouraged to practice the rest of our worshipful ways throughout all of our lives.

The same goes for the practice of connecting God with everyday life—maybe even doubly so. Finding God and connections to the sacred in everyday life are much more than a game. They are important parts of what forms and transforms us as people of faith. If our faith thoughts and faith actions are limited to what we do on Sunday mornings and other special occasions, we miss the joyful opportunity to integrate our faith into the rest of our week and life. We miss the chance to revel in God’s ordinary gifts.

In Ordinarily Sacred, Lynda Sexson writes:
My son once found the hip-bone of a large cow. He wore it as a stately garment or as armor; he played the bone like a guitar or played himself in the bone like a dinosaur. He circulated his interest upon the bone back into his discovery of it in the woods, to the being who had walked it before abandoning it, to the shape and feel of it, to hanging it on the wall and looking at it and the shadows it cast. And the bone was transformed—quite beyond the original fragment of decay in the woods—into images of everything from death to art.

I have a drawer that is filled with things that I have collected over the years—simple and ordinary things that fascinate me. I would like to believe that these things offer me an opportunity to appreciate the glory and diversity of both God’s creation and human invention. The latter stems from the former.

What’s in your collection?

© 2010 Todd Jenkins