Backlog continued

I'm not doing too good a job of cleaning up the backlog, am I? Let's see if I can improve on it this week. One of the advantages of letting things sit in the draft folder is that items will form a theme, even though posted several months apart. Here's a few posts that I think form a common theme:

If worship is truly a gift, we ought to relax somewhat and allow space for the Holy Spirit to show up and do the unexpected and we should strictly avoid saying or doing anything that would put the spotlight of attention and applause on a human being (other than Jesus, of course). If worship is truly our task as well, we ought prayerfully to plan the worship service and see that everything is done decently and in order and avoid chaos and distractions.—from Roger Olson

Be sure to read the whole thing; you're sure to be challenged by it.

And, from Alan Knox:

I wonder what would happen if Christians stopped seeing a certain time at a certain place as “worship” and understood that every step they took (in their “walk”) is or is not worship. It can be worship… it may not be worship.

I wonder what would happen if Christians began to realize that God is probably more concerned with how they live at other times than what they do when they enter a “church building” (or a home church, for that matter).

It’s about our walk… not about a special time of “worship.”

And, to get the mind thinking a bit, there's this piece from Out of Ur:

Through the influence of our consumer culture we’ve come to believe that transformation is attained through external experiences. We’ve come to regard our church buildings, with their multimedia theatrical equipment, as mountaintops where God’s glory may be encountered. Many of us ascend this mountain every Sunday morning wanting to have an experience with God, and many of us leave with a degree of genuine transformation. We feel “pumped up,” “fed,” or “on fire for the Lord.”

The problem with these mountaintop experiences, whether legitimate (like Moses’) or fabricated, is that the transformation does not last. In a few days time, or maybe as early as lunchtime, the glory begins to fade. The mountaintop experience with God, the event we were certain would change our lives forever, turns out to be another fleeting spiritual high. And to hide the lack of genuine transformation, we mask the inglorious truth of our lives behind a veil, a façade of Christian merchandise or busyness, until we can ascend the mountain again and be recharged.

Why then are we so tempted to abandon the new covenant, inside-out model of transformation for the inferior old covenant, outside-in strategy? The reason is simple--an internal communion with God through the Spirit cannot be packaged, commoditized, and marketed to religious consumers. It is far easier for us to create mountains than shepherd people toward the inner life of divine communion.

Can you say, "Ouch!"? All three posts can be summed up in that last statement: "an internal communion with God through the Spirit cannot be packaged, commoditized, and marketed to religious consumers. It is far easier for us to create mountains than shepherd people toward the inner life of divine communion."