On Sunday morning, Mark Robinson
showed “Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer to make two points:
- Every church has a liturgy, even “contemporary” ones like Wildwood
- Liturgy is not the same as worship
I love this video! It shows that the liturgy we practice (traditional or contemporary) is not the point. Rather, real worship is about God and not about us.
Our worship manifests the grace of God who has lifted up all humanity in the resurrection of Christ. By lifting him up in worship, we are healed as his Spirit comes among us and as his Spirit joins us together in Christ. Worship is thus his act, in which we participate. As Alan Torrance says, “Worship is the gift of participating in the incarnate Son’s eternal communion with the Father.”
What’s amazing is that God desires us to join in his communion:
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”” (John 4:23–24)
I’m enjoying your blog, reading through from the top at the moment. (I’m nearly done for now, as I have a few bits of writing of my own to do, but I’ll be back.) So, first of all, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I enjoy them.
Second, this post grabbed my attention to be the one to comment on, because (a few months before that video went viral), I wrote a piece hammering away at this exact point in detail. It’s also a topic Greg and I have talked about a few times while doing prep work for a Sunday worship set. We definitely do have a liturgy. It’s not a bad one (though if I had my druthers we might do a few things differently). Unfortunately, most people—at Wildwood, and in evangelical churches across the country—don’t realize that, much less realize that it’s not a bad thing!
Anyhow, I’m looking forward to interacting with your posts more in the future. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for reading, Chris. I’ve enjoyed browsing your blogs, by the way. And a few weeks ago I sat behind you and Jaimie in Family Fellowship – I think that’s the first time we were introduced.