Liturgy in the Local Community: The Centrality of the Word

I am always on the lookout for church planting articles and
essays and stumbled upon Alan Hirsch’s questioning of the term church planting,
and whether it would be better to do "gospel planting."  The quote he finishes with has some tribal
and nationalistic overtones I am not very fond of, but the basic gist of what
Hirsch is saying is how I wanted to wrap up my discussion of liturgy in the
local community:

The centrality of the Word is paramount.

The local community can only be truly renewed and disciples
be truly made when the Word is at the center of the local community as the
collective of churches in the locality as well as the secular members of the
community.  The Word must be planted in
the center of a local community.

This is only accomplished through the paradox of Christ and
the work of the Trinity within this paradox. 
The centrality of the Word is the paradox of Christ, that he is present
in both Word and Sacrament, and both of these, according to Lathrop, make up
liturgy at its most elemental level.  The
Lord’s Supper reminds us and enables us to enter into the mystery of the
ever-present Christ in a powerful way, empowered by the Spirit to in turn be
Christ to others.  The ever-presence of
Christ in the Sacrament reminds us of how he is present everyday in his Spirit,
and that we do the work of the Father, found in his Word and the community (and
tradition), living continually the prophetic message of Christ’s kingdom.  The Word is God, and thus God, through Christ
and the Spirit, as the Trinity, are present together wherever liturgy is done,
where Word, Water, and Bread unite in worship and celebration and push the local
church out of its doors and into the local community.  Weekly worship of the local churches is thus
the first and last day, the first and the eighth day, when Christ is both
renewing his presence and completing his presence with us.  We live out the already/not yet of Christ,
present to us in Word, Sacrament, and his Spirit, yet still not yet come into
his Kingdom, because we must be Christ’s presence in the world until he does on
earth what he has done in the heavenlies.

The centrality of the Word is then the already/not yet we
share with others as we find Christ’s full presence in the Scriptures, the
sacraments, his Church, the local church, our own church, each other, and our
families.  Christ is Lord of all, and he
stands in the center of all as the Word of God enfleshed as Jesus of Nazareth
and ever-present before us through his Spirit.

Please read the four previous posts in this series:

Part 1 — Liturgy In the Local Community

Part 2 — Liturgy In the Local Community: The Recovery of Historical Theology

Part 3 — Liturgy In the Local Community:  The Foundation of Your Tradition

Part 4 — Liturgy In the Local Community: An Ecumenically Local Worldview