This morning in worship we will sing the familiar hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. This hymn was written by the father of English hymnody, Isaac Watts, and is considered by many to be his crowning achievement. While originally intended as a communion hymn, it...
Today we begin the season of Advent. One of my favorite worship elements during this season is the children processing down the aisle at the beginning of each service with the various pieces to build our nativity scene. Each week a new element is added and gradually,...
Preparing for Worship - Darren Dement, associate pastor. Our opening congregational hymn this morning, Brethren, We Have Met to Worship, has a bit of a murky history. The text has been variously attributed to either George Askins or George Atkins, both known to be...
Preparing for Worship - Darren DeMent, associate pastor. Our worship service this morning opens with a grand hymn of praise to God. Based on 1 Timothy 1:17, the hymn writer, Walter C. Smith, pens a strong text of praise by highlighting images of God’s glory and...
Preparing for Worship - Darren Dement, associate pastor. Have you ever wondered what makes a hymn a hymn? I poked around a bit on the internet this week to see if I could get a nice, concise answer, and, not surprisingly, I couldn’t. As you might imagine, there...
Preparing for Worship - Darren DeMent, associate pastor. Have you ever had the opportunity to observe the night sky in a dark sky preserve or registered dark sky park? I’ve been fortunate enough to have that experience a few times in my life, and it is truly...
Preparing for Worship - Darren DeMent, associate pastor. While we at Wilshire proudly promote that we have a traditional worship style, that doesn’t mean that we are rigidly locked into any one type of music. One of the things I appreciate about Wilshire’s approach...
New Zoom Class Launches July 4 - Love Your Neighbor. Love Your Neighbor is the name of a new Zoom-based Sunday School class launching July 4. The class is aimed primarily at long-distance Wilshire members, most of whom connected to the church during the pandemic. The...
Preparing for Worship - Darren DeMent, associate pastor. This Sunday in worship, we will hear a choral arrangement of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. This well-known prayer begins with the line: “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.” The prayer then goes on...
Preparing for Worship - Darren DeMent, associate pastor. I have a lot of songs in my iTunes library. So many, in fact, that I often forget what songs are even in there. So, occasionally I just set the player to shuffle and enjoy the surprise that comes when some...