Sing the song “Happy Birthday” and almost everyone can join in. Fireworks on the Fourth of July, turkey on Thanksgiving, and a tree at Christmas are other customs familiar to us. Our lives are marked by a variety of rituals and traditions that connect us to the past or common ways of celebrating civic, familial, or religious holidays.
Likewise, when we gather for Sunday worship, we become connected to Christians around the world. If we define tradition as something of worth from the past given to us as a gift for our present lives, then our worship is deeply rooted in tradition.
1. What are your favorite liturgical traditions?
2. Do you think about being connected to Christians of ages past, to sisters and brothers in Christ around the world?
3. What might inspire you to make the great final connection as we are sent into the world to bear witness to all we have seen and heard?
This message was adapted from “Liturgy: A Gift of Connections” by Craig M. Mueller that appeared in the October 2001 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.