Reading Brett McCracken’s Hipster Christianity piqued my interest in how to refrain from making worship “cool.” It’s a temptation that we all fall into, as worship has suddenly become something that is commodified and has a market value. The fact that people may pay $30-40 to go worship with a cool worship band as opposed [...]
As an appendix to this week’s guest posts on creativity and worship, I thought that this prayer of St. Gregory of Nyssa: You truly, O Lord, are the pure and eternal fount of goodness; … who did curse, and did bless; you did banish us from Paradise, and did recall us; you did strip off [...]
I would like to invite you into a world of possibilities. Jeremy Begbie, a distinguished professor at both Duke Divinity School and Cambridge University, often says, “the arts are showing us over and over again the possibilities of transformation…they show us how things can be even in this world [and] even the worst can be [...]
Whenever I read the Psalms I’m impressed by the rich imagery, metaphors, and narratives that the poets use for their worship. The poets who wrote the Psalms wrote about enemy attacks, trees rooted along streams, and rocks holding firm amidst floods. These images communicated truths about God’s character and his dealings with his people. In [...]
When Chris and I joined our church, we attended a smaller service (at our larger church) with simple, acoustic music in tune with our everyday lives and with opportunities to use our creativity in the service—readings, films, and music. A couple of years later, our church canceled that service. Now we attend a larger service [...]
The season of Pentecost is the life of the church, marked first by the day of Pentecost, which comes 50 days after Christ rose from the dead. Pentecost is often remembered for the dramatic gift of tongues given to the apostles long ago. At this point the conversation usually descends into an argument concerning whether [...]
I had never contemplated the possibility of grape juice freezing during a worship gathering, but I must confess the thought half-heartedly crossed my mind this past Sunday. Schools don’t like to keep their heat on during winter break to save on environmental costs, and understandably so. But it was cold. I was shivering in church. [...]
Main Entry: caf·e·to·ri·um Pronunciation: -ˈtȯr-ē-əm Function: noun Etymology: blend of cafeteria and auditorium Date: 1952 “a large room (as in a school building) designed for use both as a cafeteria and an auditorium” -Merriam Webster’s dictionary Our church plant meets in a cafetorium. It’s a cafeteria housing food fights and pubescent gossip hour by day, an auditorium for middle [...]
A dubious publication called the Christian Courier published an article called The "Emerging Church"-The New Face of Heresy with this spectacular showing of poor journalism, scholarship, and lack of basic thought processes:
“Emerging” churches are restructuring the worship format. The Lord’s supper is being offered in conjunction with special events, e.g., weddings. The communion memorial is not restricted to the Lord’s day; instead groups step beyond the biblical pattern and provide it on weekdays, ignoring a New Testament that is [sic] undergirded with historical truth, namely the Lord’s resurrection on Sunday.
1) Jesus had the Last Supper on a Thursday…that’s historical truth for ya.
2) I didn’t want to waste a lot of time researching this, but I easily found evidence that in English language traditions the sacrament of communion was included in wedding liturgy since about 1078 under the Sarum Rite.
3) And some guy named Paul wrote that "whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes." Whenever is a whole lot different than "on Sunday."
