Experiences of Church and Worship

I keep updating this - so its worth a look at the latest entries at the bottom ...

Every Friday the community play a game. I send out a Friday Question on the email - which is sometimes silly, sometimes political, sometimes spiritual. Our friends and families play along too.
Today's question was:

What is the most profound experience of "church" (Whatever that means these days...) that you have ever had?

These were some of the responses:

It would have to be the first time I went to the Easter service in New Norcia. That was a great experience! Even the drive to Seabird and the Lectio on the beach in the sand dunes...also the walks through the scrub with Dom John and the boys.
- Jason

One of the fondest is the our homegroup doing a bible study one night in 30+ degree heat, with out legs dangling in the pool. And about a year later two of the group being baptised there.
- Phil

Probably Easter, Good Friday. Very goosebumpy. Sometimes during a song at church I'll get the same feeling. Sometimes during the prayers too.
-Coralie

Same as Jason for me - especially when I was confirmed and received into the Roman Church. If I had to pick another, there were some moments when we did the early Dom John retreats in his little prayer room that were spine tingling - the Lectio, the Taize, the silence, the candles, the wooden cross onthe floor, the falling apart room...
- Chris

"Life in the Spirit" Seminars held at St. George's Reservoir many many years ago, but I'll never forget the experience, nor the lessons of God's great gift and love for us, learned at that time. My first experience of a New Norcia Easter comes close, too.
- Hilary

For some reason I think of an easter communion time west of Bourke in NSW around a big gidgee wood bonfire on a red dirt plane. Cold as.... clear early morning sky and as the Sun rose the full moon set ... 70% of God's communication, like ours, is non verbal.
- Mal

One of my most profound experiences came totally by surprise. I was running late to pop in on a workmate's wedding at the St Hilda's chapel. Very posh and I really popped in out of a feeling of duty to be honest. As I sat down right at the back someone got up to read 1 Cor 13 (the love passage) and I thought "oh this AGAIN" - you know, because you hear it so often at weddings. Anyway somehow I either REALLY listening or God REALLY turned up the volume because I heard it properly for the first time, and well, it is so utterly magnificent and I just wept. And really really felt my unlovingness but was so thrilled by God's amazing love for us. As if that wasn't emotional enough the reading was followed by a superb boy soprano, one of the teacher's (she was getting married) students. So more Kleenex. Sigh.
- Sally