Celtic WorshipCelticCross_LizHeller2

As a congregation in the heart of the city we seek a space not of withdrawal, but of perspective amid the vitality and clamor. The dual Celtic practices of stillness and spirited action put God back at the center of our lives.

Celtic Worship takes place on the second Thursday of the month at 7:00pm
in the Westminster Chapel during the program year.

The next Celtic Worship will be on October 10, 2013.
 

What This Type of Worship Means and Why it Matters
Why Celtic? Our Reformed Presbyterian tradition emerges from Scottish roots, and so we honor that culture's rich native heritage by reclaiming threads of what was repressed or lost in time. For centuries the Celtic Christian culture was marginalized and hereticized by competing Christian traditions and political forces. Acknowledging this complicated history, we don't seek to recreate or appropriate a culture so far removed from our current context. Rather, we humbly wish to learn from the remnants of voices and practices which are the ancient roots of some of our own. We worship in the Celtic tradition, understanding the filter of our modern context and the web of history, yet still seek the profound blessing this dynamic tradition offers.

J. Philip Newell, former warden of Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland, gifts us with this prayer from his book Celtic Benediction:

In the busyness of this day
grant me a stillness of seeing, O God.
In the conflicting voices of my heart
grant me a calmness of hearing.
Let my seeing and hearing
my words and my actions
be rooted in a silent certainty of your presence.
Let my passions for life
and the longings for justice that stir within me
be grounded in the experience of your stillness.
Let my life be rooted in the ground of your peace, O God,
let me be rooted in the depths of your peace.

Celtic Worship is Trinitarian and un-self-conscious. It is a tradition steeped in scripture, yet deeply rooted in the everyday with expressions of God, Christ and Spirit intricately woven into the fibers of our being.

In the spirit of Christ's hospitality you will be welcome, be welcome indeed.