Our First Corporate Worship

When the founding couples (or Tricord, as they were subsequently called) entrusted to the three coordinators the responsibility of bringing our ME1 classmates to our initial class reunions and worship, we had wondered why they thought this was feasible. We did not know any of our classmates prior to the ME weekend. I (Richard) hardly spoke with them during the weekend. I could not even associate names with faces. In fact, some of them avoided speaking to us or returning our phone calls.

But come they did. Why?

There was a time we associated BLD’s success to its leaders and its system. At that point, we had not yet encountered God’s word in 1 Cor 3:7, “Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who causes the growth.” In the light of this Scripture verse, we began to see that it was God and not man who built and grew the community from the very outset.

One of the first teachings the coordinators received was to pray for our individual classmates during our weekly meetings and in our personal prayers. We lifted their names, their persons to God- an acknowledgment that unless the Lord built the house, we labor in vain who build (Ps 127:1). It was the Lord who drew our classmates to our reunions. In our class reunions, we recalled our individual and shared experiences of God during the ME weekend. It was their experience with God, having tasted that the Lord is good, that brought them to our worship. In the community’s worship, they received grace upon abundant grace from the Father who delighted that His children lovingly yearned for Him. It was God who joined them to this community.

As we look back to our past 15 years of life in this community, it seems to us that the two movements of community- to communion and to mission – begin and end with worship. Worship binds us together as one people with God; we are in communion with each other because of our worship. Worship is also the place of our empowerment: it prepares and sustains us to pursue and fulfill our community mission. As a worshiping community, the foundation of our communion and mission is the Lord Jesus Himself.

We vividly recall our very first corporate worship at the St. Therese school library in Kenilworth. We felt an indescribable excitement as we gathered together for worship. Like the Friday nights after the ME, we looked forward to our appointment with God, our time to be united to Him and refreshed by Him in worship. Unlike the other Friday nights, we expected the rest of our ME1 classmates to join us for the first time. As some of them began coming in, our excitement was replaced by joyful thanksgiving. While not all came, we knew that it is only a matter of time before the others did. We exuberantly greeted and embraced our brethren. We felt a kinship of hearts as we began to worship our Father. It was sheer grace that in that little library, God whom the whole universe could not contain became present to us individually and collectively. In that little room, we became a family- God's family, God's community.

For 15 years, our community has faithfully worshiped God on Friday nights, save for Good Fridays, Christmas and New Year's days that fall on or next to Friday, and in rare cases when severe weather makes driving to our worship venue dangerous for our members. We can be sure that through these years , the Lord kept the appointment as well. We know this to be true, for two reasons. First, the Lord has made our Friday worship a helpful servant to the Sunday Eucharist. The Sacrament has become alive to us whose hearts were tilled by the Word of God during our corporate worship. Second, the Lord has made the community fruitful in many ways, despite its imperfections.

A month ago, one of the new members of the community asked us how our community grew from the original three founding couples to its current several hundred families, not counting the near dozen communities it spawned on both coasts of this continent. Having been eyewitnesses to His works of wonder, how can we not know the answer? We simply replied: GOD!