Reflections By Rev. Dan Bogre

Greeting Friends and Family of RRUMC,

In Luke 4, the devil tries to get Jesus to worship him in exchange for giving him all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus says in response to the devil’s tempting, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

Jesus calls us to worship God and God alone. In this text, he doesn’t say how or what is exactly the “right” way to worship. Jesus just tells us to worship God. There is nothing more we can do to show God how much we love Him than to worship Him.

That is why we have four different worship services each weekend. We have our Saturday morning worship service at Story Church, our Cleveland campus. We also have our three morning services on Sunday at our Rocky River campus. Each one of them has their own style, personality, and fingerprint. As we continue to work to improve, upgrade, and enhance each of those four services, we see new and exciting ways the Holy Spirit is moving. Recently, we added state of the art lights to the Harbor Service with what is called a hazer. The hazer is basically a fog machine. It sends out a beautiful thin layer of fog in Beacon Hall while we worship. NO,THE CHURCH IS NOT ON FIRE. The first week we used the hazer people thought the lower level of the church was on fire.

Why a hazer? When we have all of those state of the art lights doing their thing, dancing light across the stage and across Beacon Hall, the fog then becomes the canvas on which the beautiful lights paint their masterpiece. We see different images, colors, streams of light, and directions of light capturing our senses. All of those things work together to center our hearts for worship and draw us into God’s presence as we worship Him.

Now, I know that is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is for many. Here is how I explain why we have four different worship services. Have you been in a Target or Wal-Mart recently? I invite you to walk down their toothbrush aisle. If we need that many different styles, varieties, and types of toothbrushes, even though we all have the same teeth, RRUMC is called to have at least four different styles of worship.

May you find your way to one of those four worship services each and every weekend. And may you worship God and God alone.

Peace and Blessings,
Rev. Dan