What's New, August 2026
Summer Blessings Worship Leaders,
These past few years, I seem to have fallen out of sync with the pace of the Holy in worship. When in worship, I am still gathering myself, when I am to be listening to the word. When I am finally ready to listen, I am being sent out. One week, my family arrived to church (I was not presiding) as the music minister was leaving. Another young family stumbled in a minute behind us, and I knew that I was not alone in this feeling of being chronically behind and rarely fully present. Even though our will and effort are strong, it can be hard to keep up with the fast pace of life and ministry. Chasing anything can become exhausting and I certainly do not want to be exhausted by the life-giving and transformational practice of worship and worship leadership.
When I was learning orchestra excerpts, I would often subconsciously practise with my most favourite recording of the piece playing in my head (usually from the Looney Tunes or Smurfs soundtrack). I would get so frustrated when I fumbled. “I can’t keep up,” I would complain to my music teacher. My teacher would simply take a metronome and slow it down (or sometimes speed it up) until I wasn’t reaching for the beat trying to keep up. They would find a beat that I could “sit in” until I fell “in the groove.”
What would that look like for me as a worship leader, to let go of the tempos as I know them for the tempos that work in this moment?
Truthfully, I am not sure yet. In these last weeks of summer, I am asking the Spirit to help adjust my internal metronome as a worship leader to find a tempo that we can groove with together. I will let you know how it goes!
To hopefully grant you a little more time this August, Susan has prepared a wonderful list of resources and links for you below that we hope will be helpful to you in your worship planning and pre-planning.
Many blessings and thank you for leading us in worship!
Alydia
A few more summer prayers and resources:
Welcome to This Service in the Midst of Summer
This Beautiful Summer Sunday Is Shrouded with Mystery and Awe
The Richness of Summer Surrounds Us Prayer
Take a Breath Full of Freshness, Restoration, and Relaxation
Catch Hold of the Life Ring That Is the Love of God
Leisure without Purpose: A Sermon Idea
Sadly, summers in Canada have also become seasons of wildfires and floods, extreme heat and drought.
Take a look at the Being Prepared in Case of Emergencies and Disasters | A Handbook for Community of Faith Emergency Preparedness to support your congregation in planning for both minor and major emergencies, and to help you know how best to support other congregations facing major emergences such as wildfires or flooding.
We offer some prayers of support:
Come in from a Week of Blazing Summer Heat
Loving God, You Have Brought Us Through the Summer’s Heat
We Live in a Dangerous World, Holy God
A Prayer for Communities Devastated by Wildfire
Ready to do some worship planning over the summer? Here are some Gathering resources to help you get started:
Exploring Worship Teams and Committees will help your worship team focus on the best ways to plan for worship through every season of the church year.
Getting ready for the fall season of worship?
As requested by our subscribers, we provide these two documents for easy access until the end of the Pentecost 2 season:
Complete Weekly Services for Pentecost 2, 2026
Complete Prayers for Worship for Pentecost 2, 2026
All of the prayers and services for this season are also added individually into GatheringWorship.ca and available for future reference. Be sure to tag as Favourites the ones you like the most and will want to use in the future.
We appreciate that you do not share these files with other churches or colleagues who do not subscribe to Gathering. Please explain to them why you use Gathering and invite them to subscribe.
Mark your calendars now for our Gathering webinar. On Wednesday, October 28, 11:00 a.m. EDT, join us to explore all the features on GatheringWorship.ca, learn about navigating the site, and ask your questions, which will help us improve the site. (A recording will be made available after the webinar.) Watch for the webinar link in the September 1 and Otober 1 Gathering emails.
Please take a moment and send along your original worship ideas, prayers and services to Gathering. Just send them as is, and we will do the editing! Gathering works best when we share our resources and inspiration!
Your contributions make Gathering the rich resource it is supporting worship leaders across Canada!
Many blessings for the rest of this summer season!
Susan
