http://forums.shipoffools.com/index.php?p=/ Thu, 08 Oct 2026 16:12:58 +0000 en blessing — Ship of Fools http://forums.shipoffools.com/index.php?p=/discussion/5968/outward-looking-liturgy Sun, 29 Sep 2024 20:56:35 +0000 Ecclesiantics Dave Haseldine 5968@/index.php?p=/discussions
Traditional Blessing:

And the blessing of God Almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be upon you and remain with you for ever.
Amen.

It's a great to pray God's blessing on everyone in the congregation as each person there will be in need of God's blessing. But should that really be the final word in an act of worship? I remember reading David Watson quoting David Bosch who wrote the following reflecting on the state of Jesus' Church in Apartheid South Africa: "If evangelism doesn't begin with the individual it doesn't begin. But if it ends with the individual it ends." I think that is true not just for evangelism but for all aspects of discipleship/apprenticeship to Jesus.

So I have long been toying with how to mirror the "welcome and call to worship" start of worship services at the end, e.g. with a "blessing and call to discipleship". i.e. blessing "us" as individuals in need of God's grace, and then sending us out to "them" like lambs among wolves and to costly discipleship. My problem with ending worship with a traditional blessing like the one above is that it is unbelievably narrow. If the blessing of the Gospel ends with "us" individuals, it ends.

So here is the same blessing hopefully infected with some of the same disruptive grace that the Holy Spirit unleashed from the Upper Room in Acts:

And the blessing of God,
Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit,
be upon us, and remain with us;
And also fill us,
and forever overflow through us
to be upon, remain, fill,
and overflow to and through “them”,
all those “others” God sends us to.
Amen?]]>