1970 AACS Niagara Conference
Worship
Perspective Report
Ontario conference holds moving worship service and celebration of unity in spirit
On Sunday, August 3, the 571 persons attending the Niagara Bible College AACS Study Conference spent 6 hours in worship and celebration of unity in the Spirit of Christ. The morning worship service followed John Calvin’s Strasbourg liturgy of 1540, making extensive use of Genevan psalms. Rev. Morris Greidanus, Campus Minister of the Christian Reformed Church for Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario, preached from Ephesians 4 on the topic: Unity in the Spirit.
Sunday afternoon the conferees spent an hour in small groups discussing how the conference theme of unity in the Spirit was expressed in the book of Philippians and how this might be worked out in the concrete problems with division and lack of unity experienced in the fragmented contemporary church. After this all the groups gathered for a spontaneous communal celebration of the Lord’s Day, and for a series of reports about the discussions held. Dr. James Olthuis led in song, testimony, public individual confession of the Spirit’s presence, and for one sentence prayers by several worshipers. Children’s singing and an affirmation of an early church creed highlighted the 3 1/2 hour gathering.