Reading Reflection:

The Gospel-Driven Life, by Michael Horton (Baker Books, 2009)

Our fear of God must become greater than our fear of boredom.  Making disciples, like making crafts, great works of art, fine wine, a memorable dinner, and raising children, takes a long time.  It is like watching corn grow and that’s exactly what we are: a harvest whose firstfruits have already been raised and exalted. Precisely because the Good News has been taken for granted, many churches today do not seem to realize that they have the best drama going.  Demanding something extraordinary, novel, and exciting, we look away from what God is doing through ordinary preaching, water, wine, and bread and focus on what we are doing to capture the headlines.  Like a good parent, God knows that if we had all the cotton candy we wanted, we would not only be sick but would miss out on the dinner he has prepared. (232)

We are a culture that values the new and the entertaining.  Sometimes we feel the pressure to bring that into the church.  Our culture prefers image bites over the spoken or written word, fast food over waiting for preparation, going out rather than inviting over, interactive study over being preached to, and blanket equality over authority and submission.  How is the design of the Christian worship service to survive in our times?  For six days a week we imbibe all the new and the entertaining.  Isn’t it awesome to have a holy time and place, where all the smoke and mirrors are removed, and the truly life-changing drama is revealed?  God works through the ordinary means that he has ordained to minister to us and have us minister to others.  In this, we see that it is through Him, and not all our own shucking and jiving, that we are truly blessed.