Praise the Lord that I was late!

Stanford in the Vale is a country village in West Oxfordshire. In common with many other parishes we have a mix of people in the Christian fellowship - some who like the older style liturgy, and some whose experience of what is familiar is found in worship songs and non-liturgical forms. Like most people we struggle to embrace the new or the different.

In the past, the Parish Communion service on Sunday mornings had included worship songs to guitar or piano accompaniment in the middle of the Common Worship liturgy, as well as more traditional hymns.

The result was a rather uncomfortable hybrid in which many people found that their worship, and their sense of the Lord's presence, was disjointed or even disrupted. On occasion, people stopped coming to church because their anticipation of discomfort overwhelmed their desire to worship.

So, at the parish church we have begun an experiment to try and accommodate these different needs and expectations.

At the beginning of May, the Revd, Michael Wenham, and the PCC, with the encouragement of other members of the congregation, changed the pattern of Sunday morning services. Now, for half an hour before the Parish Communion begins, we have a time which Michael has called 'Just Come' (Psalm 95: 'O Come, let us sing to the Lord…').

This has been led by a different person each week and, even in these very early stages, we have had worship songs, hymns, open prayer, prophecy, silence, singing in tongues, and a simply awesome sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

I was away for the first two or three of these earlier starts, and the first Sunday that I was able to go I did not get there at the beginning. I walked into the Church about 10 minutes late, when this half-hour of contemporary worship was already in full swing.

I was overwhelmed - I walked into something solid, weighty, numinous.

The sense of the Lord's presence was so strong that I felt that I stepped on holy ground.

And seconds after I found a place to sit I was caught up in the worship and was totally absorbed in what was happening.

I do praise God for the fact that I was late that day. The experience was so powerful. The following week I was there from the start and the worship in the 'Just Come' time was free and beautiful and again full of the presence of the Lord.

An interesting outcome is that this worship time is having an effect on all of us as we move into the Parish Communion, now a straightforward service of Common Worship with more traditional hymns, which is preferred by many here.

The sense of the presence of the Lord remains, and the people who come to church in time for the Parish Communion seem also to be absorbed by it, just as I was that time when I was late. We thank God and praise Him for the opportunity to give Him even more glory!

It is early days to say where this new pattern of worship will lead - but I sense that the Lord has more blessings in store in the days ahead.

Clemency Fox is a former journalist and is a member of the DOOR editorial group. This article first appeared in the ReSource Magazine