To Fish or Not to Fish

As a preacher and pastor, I invested my life in getting people inside the church building on Sunday morning.  On more than one occasion I had folks tell me they did not need to be in the building on Sunday because they could worship God on the golf course, or while they drifted down the river in a fishing boat.  I never doubted that God could be worshiped in those settings, but I did wonder if getting the ball in the hole, or catching fish on the line might not have been a greater concern than the worship of God.   

One thing I have certainly learned from these years of living midst the creation of the farm is that God can be worshiped outside of the sanctuary.  It is something which can be done at any moment.  When I made the transition to the farm, I had no understanding that God would make Himself known in the creation and speak through it at any given moment.  What was important was not Him revealing Himself, but me learning to listen and see and pay attention.   A lesson learned after some time of being immersed in the creation was the fact that the church provided a worship space within four walls for worship while the creation provided a grand cathedral with no walls at all.    

Despite being able to worship God in what I have come to know as the cathedral of creation, I still need the worship that takes place inside the four walls of the place known as the church.  I need the Sacrament.  I need lifting my heart in praise with other believers.  I need to be in the place where the saints have trod and sat.  I need what happens inside those four walls.  My golfing and fishing members made it an "either-or" thing, but it is not.  It is a "both-and" thing.  God can be worshiped inside the four walls, or outside of them.  What is important is that we live doing it.