I had the pleasure of leading worship at St. Mary Magdalene in Gillingham this morning.

The service was more structured and more liturgical than what I am used to, but the structure seemed to allow God to work in a way that I was not expecting. It was a refreshing experience.

It’s always quite nerve wracking leading worship in a new place. Today this was made more nervy as this service required me to borrow some robes (thanks Ernie!) and for the first time I led a service ‘robed’. This felt like quite an odd experience, although not as odd or as uncomfortable as I had thought it would be.

For the last few years while training, robing has been a bit of an issue for me. As I have been ministering for quite a while I feel quite strongly about identifying with those that I am working with, rather than giving myself a title and dressing differently to imply some form of superiority. There is, however, something about hiding ourselves to allow people to worship.

A while ago in discussion with Suzanne, the priest of St Mary’s, she spoke of symbolically ‘putting on God’ as she robed. I held this in my mind as I robed up this morning. As I was praying about putting on the armour of God and preparing myself for worship while placing the robes on it proved to be quite a powerful experience.

It was an interesting experience which has left me with yet more things to mull over.

For now, however, its great to be able to tick off a SEITE task …. only another 14 assignments to go!