I am many things to many people, but foremost, I am a worshipper of God.  For countless years, I've been honored to lead people in worship on Sunday mornings and beyond:  Youth groups, home groups, homeless shelters, conferences, and retreats.  

I have also had the privilege to lead or teach worship in the remote, rural reaches of Rwanda, Uganda, and India. One of the most sacred times of worship I remember was in a cramped hotel room in Angeles City, Philippines, when the world shut down in 2020. 

While all these memories are precious to me, the primary place I am called to worship is in my prayer closet, and my most cherished place to lead worship is in the prayer room. The midweek prayer meeting is where I find freedom, power, passion, and spontaneity in the Holy Spirit, and the prayer closet is where it all begins. 

For far too many of us, the prayer closet and the prayer meeting are infrequently visited places.  

So, before we start our voyage, let me briefly tell you who I am, what shapes me, and why I believe this journey into worship can bring us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with God.

You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back, kindle and seize us, be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love, let us run to You.

~ St. Augustine (354–430 AD)

Pronounced June - ta

My name is Keith Guinta. It is an Italian name, but when my ancestors came to Elis Island, someone put the dot in the wrong spot, leaving us with an unpronounceable name. To further confuse my heritage, both of my Italian grandparents were deaf-mute, so I never learned a lick of the language, except for a few of the unsavory Italian sign language gestures.

I was raised in a Catholic home, and I am very grateful for the consistent presence of the church in our family. And as the final flames of the glorious Jesus Movement consumed the waning acres of souls in 1978, Jesus revealed Himself to me at age 15. (I'll give you time to do the math to determine that I'm now 61.)

During those first few years of deepened faith, my older cousin Scott invited me to tag along to watch how the Jesus Freaks lived.  Even as I type this, I am refreshed with gratefulness because it was my life's most exciting, miraculous, and life-shaping season.

There was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a small Episcopal church here in CT called St. Paul's, Darien. The miraculous nature of this time was so memorable and magnificent that a book was written about it, Miracle in Darien.

We enjoyed a rare mixture of intellectually robust Bible teaching married with the power and freedom of the Holy Spirit. The worship in that church, though legendary in many ways, was actually quite simple.  This was ages before the era of arena-style worship with Hillsong, Bethel, Maverick City, and Elevation.  We had remarkably skilled musicians, but the offering was simple. It was the presence of God among the people that marked me forever.

I have pursued and accomplished so many all-consuming, audacious goals in my adult life that I tease my wife that she's been married to eight different men. When I married my high school sweetheart in 1993, I had already been a youth group leader, young adult leader, and stand-up comic for seven years. 

As I wound down that season of life, I began to focus on high-altitude mountaineering.  Completing two training climbs on Mt. Rainier and countless winter backpacking trips across the high peaks of New England, I summited Denali in 1996.  As challenging as that was, I wasn't quite satisfied I had suffered enough.

Soon after, we went to dinner with a friend who mentioned he was racing triathlons.  Bewildered, I said, "Is that when you ride a horse, cross-country ski, and shoot a gun?"  When I heard it was a swim, bike, and run event, I immediately started training for my first triathlon. 

After wringing all I could out of seven years of competitive triathlon, including five Ironman races and two finishes at the Hawaii World Championships, I thought, why not focus on something easier, like bike racing and marathons?

With multiple sub-three-hour finishes in Boston and New York, I next became a coach. I genuinely enjoyed sharing my treasure trove of experience, successes, and failures with other aspiring athletes.

During that season of life, with a toddler and baby in tow, Jill and I decided to become church planters. It's true what they say; church planting will demand all of you and more. It would have been much easier to ride a horse while shooting at skiers.

With three other founding families, we enjoyed church here in our home every week for about two years.  When we grew out of our home, we moved to a bigger home, and then a bigger home, until we rented a school auditorium and launched a Sunday morning service.

One year later, I left my work as an Information Technology consultant and became a full-time pastor at our church. Jill was the Director of the children's ministry, and I managed the office, folded bulletins, occasionally preached, and led worship every week. Those early years in our home were inestimable, and those first years of offering a public service were deeply rewarding as we watched more and more people touched by God. And it was unimaginably demanding.

To speed up this brief introduction, after six years, I returned to the business world and remained the worship pastor at our church.  This was the season I founded my own technology business and enjoyed an entirely new challenge: that of an entrepreneur. As wonderful as those years of owning my business were, my favorite part was creating our own culture with my team, insulated from the bureaucracy and politics of the corporate world.

For those who have followed my writing at The Wine Patch, I began writing publicly in January 2021, the same month I lost my business. 

This unexpected and extended trial of losing my career, combined with my new-found passion for writing and communicating, birthed this exploration into worship and the interior life. I could have written a course on worship years ago, but not this one.

Teresa of Avila says it best:

The Lord sends long trials to those He loves most, for only through them does the soul shed its vanities. In this painful pruning, the interior castle grows radiant, fit to receive His majesty.

~ Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582)

In this journey, you will learn that true worship is formed in your majestic interior castle—your Christ-shaped citadel that enjoys grace and pageantry as well as trials and assaults. It is the Lord's good pleasure to fill His castle, but it is our duty and discipline to care for its rooms and tend to its gardens.

One final thought: I love to write. Writing is my vehicle to let you hear what I think, so I write slowly. This material is intended to be read slowly, too.  I pray this is not a skim, scroll, and close engagement for you.  Rather, may we all hear Our Father's invitation to find new expressions of profound joy and intimacy in worship.

Ok, enough about me, let's start this journey together!