Alternative Worship Experience Turns 5!

 

"What Is an Alternative Worship Experience ?" you might well be asking.

 

The short answer is that an "alternative worship experience", which was purposefully titled thus so that we could create the acronym AWE, is our effort at Nelson United to provide an alternative worship opportunity for folk. The "alternative" means worship in a circle, worship that is interactive and participatory, worship that uses guitar and contemporary songs, worship that employs contemporary readings and sacred readings from other faith traditions, and worship that is informal. (This is not to suggest that we don't practice some of these things Sunday morning, also.)

The idea of using the acronym AWE was a means to suggest that we need to cultivate a sense of awe in our daily living and that we need to provide different ways to achieve this. Combined with the worship opportunity Sunday mornings, the Taizé services (on the 1^st Sunday of the month), the contemplative prayer opportunities, the prayer circle, the study groups, and the many other means to deepen our faith, AWE was created to help offer a worship alternative to people as another way of deepening our faith.

Our first Alternative Worship Experience of 2010 will be held on January 27^th at 7 p.m. in the Church Hall. We will have a shorter worship than usual in order to give us an opportunity to talk about the future of AWE. The planning team wants to hear from those who participate in AWE about how (and whether) we can sustain the worship experiences, what needs it is meeting, and who might become involved on the planning team. If you have participated in AWE, please join us for this important gathering to discuss the future of these alternative worships.