How specific is our worship?
August 22, 2008
Good thoughts from Jared over at The Gospel-Driven Church blog.
We trust not because "a God" exists, but because this God exists.-- C.S. Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief”
Yes!
As the segment of ostensibly evangelical worship directed somewhere roundabouts "a God" who cares about our feelings and who wants us to tap into the "divine potential" in all of us grows and grows, more and more determined evangelical worship redirects to "the God" who has a name, who rules and loves and saves in history, who can be accessed and enjoyed through the divine Person of Jesus.
I've sat through some Christian worship services that could've been directed toward Allah for all we knew. We have shaved off the specificity (to better comfort) and slouched away from intentionality (to better entertain) and consequently we have ceased, in N.T. Wright's words, "rehearsing the mighty acts of God" in our corporate worship.
"Telling the story, rehearsing the mighty acts of God: this is near the heart of Christian worship, a point not always fully appreciated in the enthusiastic, free-flowing worship common in many circles today. We know God through what he has done in creation, in Israel, and supremely in Jesus, and what he has done in his people and in the world through the Holy Spirit. Christian worship is praise of this God, the one who has done these things."
-- N.T. Wright, Simply Christian
We trust not because "a God" exists, but because this God exists.-- C.S. Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief”
Yes!
As the segment of ostensibly evangelical worship directed somewhere roundabouts "a God" who cares about our feelings and who wants us to tap into the "divine potential" in all of us grows and grows, more and more determined evangelical worship redirects to "the God" who has a name, who rules and loves and saves in history, who can be accessed and enjoyed through the divine Person of Jesus.
I've sat through some Christian worship services that could've been directed toward Allah for all we knew. We have shaved off the specificity (to better comfort) and slouched away from intentionality (to better entertain) and consequently we have ceased, in N.T. Wright's words, "rehearsing the mighty acts of God" in our corporate worship.
"Telling the story, rehearsing the mighty acts of God: this is near the heart of Christian worship, a point not always fully appreciated in the enthusiastic, free-flowing worship common in many circles today. We know God through what he has done in creation, in Israel, and supremely in Jesus, and what he has done in his people and in the world through the Holy Spirit. Christian worship is praise of this God, the one who has done these things."
-- N.T. Wright, Simply Christian
