Gloria Patri – creeds in worship

One of the things that I didn’t include in my worship confessional this week is that we did something a little different on Sunday and used a creed as part of our worship service. We have used creeds in the past but this time it was a little unique.

I wanted to lead the congregation to take some time to spend some time praising God for who He is and for what He’s done – it fit with the theme of our morning of trusting God in the midst of our circumstances and also played off the uncertainty that people are feeling with the economic and (in Canada) political situations.

If you’re familiar with creeds (no, not Creed) then you will know the Gloria Patri - 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, 
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Beautiful. Great words. I took some time in our service to explain the significance of these words in light of the beginning of the gospel of John and then played an audio recording of Bach’s Gloria Patri from his Magnificat. We put the lyrics – both english and latin – up on the screen so people could follow along.

Before the song started I encouraged people to spend time in prayer when it was finished – giving God praise after hearing these words and being reminded that as God was in the beginning, He is now and ever shall be. When the song finished we gave some silent time for that to happen and then closed in prayer together. It was a good element of our worship service and the whole thing took maybe five minutes.

Something a little different for us but sometimes different is good. Here’s a video of the Gloria Patri if you aren’t familiar with it -