Inspiring Worship: July 2025 Communiqué

I was only a few months into my ministry at All Souls when our youth fellowship (which we call TYPOS: Training Youth to Pursue Our Savior) music leader stepped down from his role. We didn’t know what the Lord was going to do, but we were confident that the Lord would provide. Still, the uncertainty was unsettling, especially while I was so new in my role. I am not a worship leader or even a worship musician. What would we do to fill this gap?

You and I both know that worship is more than music. It's a way in which we draw near to God, giving voice to our praise, thanksgiving, and even lament. It is not something we merely consume; it’s something we offer. Worship shapes our hearts and binds us together in the presence of God—it’s one of the most important ways we are formed as a community. So, losing this key part of our youth worship life wasn’t just a logistical concern! I knew deep down that worship was essential to our life as a student ministry, and that the students should be led primarily by those from within the community.

Here's the wonderful thing about prayer: God answers!

We plant churches to create communities that are both missional and worshipful. The Church exists to gather believers around Christ and to extend a welcoming invitation to those who do not yet know Him. At the heart of this mission is our desire to cultivate worship environments that inspire both the faithful and the spiritually curious.

But this balancing act can create tension. Some churches lean toward being “seeker-friendly,” shaping Sunday worship primarily around those exploring faith.

By Chad Watson. It was around 3 a.m. on June 13th, following our fourth evening in Israel. The first four days had been packed with meaning. From the ancient port of Jaffa to the ruins of Caesarea Maritima to the sacred spaces of Magdala and Capernaum, my heart and mind felt full—saturated with history, teaching, and awe. But that night, while staying at a hotel right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, we heard the first siren. We soon learned that, as part of its Operation Rising Lion campaign, Israel had bombed Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, missile factories, and military command centers.

By Mark. K. Williams, Hymnal Editor. Good news! At the June 2025 College of Bishop’s meeting, the College consented to recommending Sing Unto the Lord, a new Anglican liturgical hymnal, for the use of the Province. This superb hymnal is birthed from within the ACNA as a grassroots project of two sister churches, Christ Church Anglican (1733), Savannah, and St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral, Tallahassee, who knew that many of the finest resources of our Province have come out of local projects like this one. When we began this enormous undertaking, some three years ago, we had grown tired having older Episcopal hymnals in our pews sitting next to the new ACNA Prayer Book. We desired a quality option that reflected our distinct Anglican tradition, so we created one.

By the Rev. Shelly Sorem, Assistant Director, New Wineskins Missions Network.

Each time believers from around the world gather at the New Wineskins Global Missions Conference, something deeply spiritual takes place, something far greater than a conference schedule or a series of talks. Our worship together as a global body becomes a living embodiment of Revelation 7:9, where the Apostle John describes “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” In these sacred moments of united worship, the global Church experiences both unity and divine commissioning, as the Spirit leads us from the throne room of God into the mission fields of the world.

Revelation 7:9 is not merely a prophetic vision of a distant future; it is also a blueprint for what the Church is meant to be here and now.

By the Rev. Dolly McLemore. Jesus quoted from Isaiah 61 to describe his ministry: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,  and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. Later in Matthew 25, Jesus said, “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’”

The poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the bound are later described by Jesus in John 4:35, as the “fields, white for harvest.” I used to work in a secular alcohol and drug treatment center, which was a spiritual field “white for harvest.” C. S. Lewis, a master of Christian apologetics, spoke truth when he said that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”1 One tends to hear the megaphone when one is sitting in a residential treatment setting or experiencing pain and suffering. Pain and suffering can often be instruments of wisdom to tell us something is wrong. At Celebrate Recovery we give space for people to share their hurts, hang-ups, and habits.