Quote of the Week
-
Apr 15, 2019: Spiritual Journey of Holy Week
As I contemplated the spiritual journey of Holy Week . . . I knew this was not a week for shopping, vacation, parties, or hilarity. I sensed this was the week that above all weeks was to be set aside for the journey into death. I knew the worship of the church would take me by the hand and lead me step-by-step into the experience of death and rebirth, if I would allow it to do so. I resolved then and there to walk in the way of the cross. I purposed to make this the week God intended it to be for me, a week of intense spiritual struggle—and reward!.
-Robert Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 118-119. -
Apr 8, 2019: Order and Freedom in Worship
The biblical sequence of [Gathering], Word, Table, and [Sending] provides a structure in which the struggle between order and freedom can take place authentically. . . . Order without freedom may become mere unthinking ritual. On the other hand, freedom without order may become equally unthinking and even chaotic. But the order and style of worship . . . which I believe is biblical, is one that reenacts the Gospel story. The freedom I urge is that of a lively faith, an active and engaging commitment to what is being done, a freedom to be spontaneous within the context of order.
-Robert Webber, Worship Is a Verb: Celebrating God’s Mighty Deeds of Salvation, Second Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub., 1996), 135-136. -
Apr 1, 2019: Avoiding Audience Mentality
A remedy, I believe, for the performer/audience psychology that we have created in our services is the radical rediscovery of the principle of the priesthood of all believers—a principle that encourages everyone to become involved in a participating manner in offering the worship of praise and thanksgiving of the Father. . . . The audience mentality of many Protestant churches is the greatest barrier to the recovery of the involvement of God’s people in worship.
-Robert Webber, Worship Is a Verb: Celebrating God’s Mighty Deeds of Salvation, Second Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub., 1996), 133. -
Mar 25, 2019: Power of Story and Sequence
Worship that tells a story and carries us through a sequence not only inspires our response, but establishes a point of meeting between God and us so that we can experience God’s speaking and acting, as well as our responding and interacting with him. In this way, the order of worship serves our meeting with God.
-Robert Webber, Worship Is a Verb: Celebrating God’s Mighty Deeds of Salvation, Second Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub., 1996), 132-133. -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-