Be In and Of the Body

Yesterday morning, both my wife and I were a bit under the weather. In an act of self-mercy (as well as being merciful to others) we stayed home and watched our church services via webcast at the 121 Community Church webcast.

It was good to be able to participate in the worship service, to be able to hear the weekly sermon, especially since the whole church the study Experiencing God over a nine week period. Basically, you do the daily devotionals, come to church on study and listen to a message grounded in what was covered that past week, and then over the upcoming week discuss both the personal and corporate reflections in a small group setting. And we are doing it 1st graders and up. A pretty cool thing to do. (By the way, we have some good sessions on evangelism coming next weekend.)

But while my wife and I got to participate via a webcast, it drove home one point with crystal clarity: for us, there is no substitute for worshiping in person in the body as the family of Christ. It was good to be part of a service yesterday, but it was not what we would have chosen to do otherwise. Although it opens an avenue to worship when events require other than traditional, in person attendance, there is nothing like the genuine article. To open our church to others who may not experience our worship services is a great thing, but I pray it brings people in to worship with us in person when circumstances allow, I pray it drives a hunger to do so whenever possible.

There is nothing that strengthens a personal walk with God like spending some time walking it with others:

"and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near."
Hebrews 10:24-25 (NASB)

It was a good reminder in this age of burgeoning social media, where we can stay "connected" to others as never before, how alone we can truly become if we do not exercise that part of us that requires us to be social beings, in concert and connection with others on an intensely personal level. Do not be lulloed into thinking thatany connection is as good as being with people; being with people in heart, in spirit and in body.

Be in the body as well as being of the body; especially as you try to be be in the world but not of it.

Following Jesus-Part III

This is the third day of my posting about the session at Dallas Theological Seminary hosted by the Center for Christian Leadership entitled Following Jesus In a World Like Ours.

We have covered Assessing Ourselves in Our Cultural Climate and Engaging One Another in Community. Now, Barry Jones will take us through Engaging God in Worship. Dr. Jones began with a very basic premise: we worship God because He deserves it. Our worship has that one purpose but many consequences as you candle God's faithfulness against the faithlessness of people. Jones noted that as a culture we deal less with theological concepts of spirituality and more with psychic well being. We are interested as a culture with feeling good more than we are with feeling God.

Jones covered four acts in the drama of worship:

• Gathering: the coming together in worship and attending to God. We need to pay attention to God. We need to pay attention to what is said about God. The concept of lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi (The law of prayer is the law of belief is the law of life; or as the church prays and worships, so she beleives, so she lives life). We need to pay attention to the Christian past. Do not just ask is it relevant, ask if it is ancient, has it passed the test of time.

• Word: we need to recover a robust theology of preaching, to focus on the importance of the sermon. We need to make the Gospel the center of the sermon. We need to preach by naming the idols we follow after in life. Bold, robust preaching.

• Table: we need to reconsider the weight of history, to note the spiritual nourishment in partaking in the Lord's Supper, to counter the logic of consumerism, of giving to get. Our spirituality has to be holistic, embracing our minds and bodies.

• Sending: worship has to be at the heart of our missionary zeal. Worship that doesn't result in mission is abortive, it does not give life from the sending out of the church.

Jones concluded by noting that worship should lead to living transformed lives serving others in mission. Tomorrow I will wrap up with Engaging our World in Missions.

A Year With the Institutes - 1.3.1-3

At the gentle prompting of David at Boomer in the Pew, I am trying to utilize a reading plan of reading John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" in 2009. I own a copy of the book, but it has been sitting unread on my bookshelf. This on-line reading plan will give me daily readings so I do not have to pace myself. And since I do not always do well absorbing on line reading of this sort, I have the hard copy as back up and for further reflection. I have gotten off to a slow start on this but I am trying to stay on track. This excerpt from today will help quite a bit:

Indeed, even idolatry is ample proof of this conception. We know how man does not willingly humble himself so as to place other creatures over himself. Since, then, he prefers to worship wood and stone rather than to be thought of as having no God, clearly this is a most vivid impression of a divine being. So impossible is it to blot this from man's mind that natural disposition would be more easily altered, as altered indeed it is when man voluntarily sinks from his natural haughtiness to the very depths in order to honor God! "

Institutes-Book First, Chapter 3, Paragraph 1

What a thought. Even the idolatrous acknowledge the one true God through their idolatry. They probably would not recognize that fact. We cannot, even in our most base form of pseudo-worship, ignore the fact of God's existence. We, no matter how proud, will acknowledge something that we need to worship. And these thoughts must come from the existence of the one true God or we would not feel driven to idolatry in the absence of acknowledging God.


This is one to chew on and over for the rest of the day.