PREACHING TO THE CHOIR
I used to call it a “religious battle of the bands.”
It’s our town’s Community Thanksgiving Service. Choirs from most of the churches present a musical selection, interspersed with various pastors praying, reading Scripture, and or preaching. When I first got here the crowd was very large, usually over 500. Last night, you could say that the speaker literally “preached to the choir”. Remove the choirs and preachers and you may have had about 30 to 40 people.
Why keep it up? No one is coming anymore. A few years ago I would have said bury it. Very few people seem to be enjoying it.
But then, whom is this event designed to please? Doesn’t He deserve any and all gratitude that we can give, no matter how off-key or antiquated a few of those expression might be? It’s hard to keep from putting myself at the focal point of worship, as if God likes what I like?
There is also the issue of unity. No matter how feeble the attempts, I believe something powerful takes place in multiple dimensions when followers of Christ try to worship together. It’s sort of an “in-your-face” to the entities, both spiritual and political, who gain their power from the fragmentation of the body of Christ.
I like the way N. T. Wright puts it—“Then in chapter 3 [Ephesians] it emerges once again that the creation of this united worshiping community is a sign to the principalities and powers of the world that their time is up, that God is God and that they are not (3:10).” N. T. Wright, Freedom and Framework, Spirit and Truth: Recovering Biblical Worship, www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Biblical_Worship.htm
I used to call it a “religious battle of the bands.”
It’s our town’s Community Thanksgiving Service. Choirs from most of the churches present a musical selection, interspersed with various pastors praying, reading Scripture, and or preaching. When I first got here the crowd was very large, usually over 500. Last night, you could say that the speaker literally “preached to the choir”. Remove the choirs and preachers and you may have had about 30 to 40 people.
Why keep it up? No one is coming anymore. A few years ago I would have said bury it. Very few people seem to be enjoying it.
But then, whom is this event designed to please? Doesn’t He deserve any and all gratitude that we can give, no matter how off-key or antiquated a few of those expression might be? It’s hard to keep from putting myself at the focal point of worship, as if God likes what I like?
There is also the issue of unity. No matter how feeble the attempts, I believe something powerful takes place in multiple dimensions when followers of Christ try to worship together. It’s sort of an “in-your-face” to the entities, both spiritual and political, who gain their power from the fragmentation of the body of Christ.
I like the way N. T. Wright puts it—“Then in chapter 3 [Ephesians] it emerges once again that the creation of this united worshiping community is a sign to the principalities and powers of the world that their time is up, that God is God and that they are not (3:10).” N. T. Wright, Freedom and Framework, Spirit and Truth: Recovering Biblical Worship, www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Biblical_Worship.htm
posted by grateful talmid | 2:33 PM
1 Comments:
Some good did come out of those events....I think that was the first thing Robert invited me to play for probably back in 95 or 96. That was the first time I played music for a "church thing."
You're dead on with worship not being about what we like/want. I wish more people got that. When worship becomes what I want/need, or what I "get out of it" then it ceases to be worship. Worship is about God and His glory, not about us. At it's core it is: offering, sacrifice, surrender.
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