“Since we have been doing this for
2,000 years, why can we not do it as well as a high school drama club cast can
do after six weeks of rehearsing a play?” This statement was at the beginning
of the book and I still continue to reflect upon it. Is the ‘dumbing down’ by
our society forcing the Church to get better at asking good questions?
Try this one for example, “Does our ministry’s effectiveness depend on the
character that is formed in us?” Could it be that all of the problems that come within the church begin within us as church leaders? Maybe we need more instruction and guidance on deepening our
character? Couldn't hurt.
“It
is urgent that Christians understand more clearly their position in this
present culture as a minority, an alternative society.” When I read, “an
alternative society” my eyes widened--That’s it! We are in
the world but not of the world—and in the world we are an alternative society,
because we live by an alternative reality, God’s revealed reality in Christ!
Worship is formative. All that we do on a Sunday morning, even before we get to church,
is formative. All the precursors to worship—our arrival to church, our
entrance and ho we ‘check-in’, with each song and Scripture reading, the
playing of instruments, the prayers, the message, what is asked for and our
responses—the intricacies of how
and not just what are formative. So when we spend time putting together a worship
service, are the questions we ask about people or about God?
The “purifying of
imagination by His beauty”--If I spend too much time with technological things a corruption comes over my heart. But when I engage in spiritual
disciplines such as prayer or singing or lifting up my heart to the Lord I can
feel the corruption upon my heart lift. I believe this is
what “purifying” my imagination is about. This purification that I find taking
place in myself individually also happens in worship with others. “Who you are as an individual believer depends
greatly upon the character of the community of believers in which you are
nurtured. How faithfully does that community incarnate God’s presence and pass
on the narratives that reveal God when they assemble together?” This is one way
the greatness of God is experienced. “…it is really the responsibility of the
entire community to hand on the faith to the next generation.”
I
had heard that God is the audience of our worship but after reading this book I
had to question that. God is not the audience of our worship, but if He is He
is also the Main Actor. An audience is something you perform before and then
leave. Now a community is something for which every action has an implication
and something we can never leave--a God-inhabited community is something we
would never want to. People were made for such community and the Church is to
be in this formation.