Pentecost Sunday ends the extraordinary season that began on the first Sunday of Advent. In approximately six months the church has been carried through all the saving events of God—his incarnation, manifestation to the world, life, death, resurrection, and ascension as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit. All these crucial events form faith...Read More
Worship should do God’s narrative and point to the future when creation, delivered from sin, will be restored to God’s original design. In this world there is always a witness to the restoration of the world, and you should be able to find it in the worship of the church. -Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship:...Read More
Biblical remembering makes the power and the saving effect of the event present to the worshiping community. . . . God loves our worship when we remember his saving deeds in Jesus Christ. Our worship tells that old, old, story. That’s the story God gave the world, and that story is the content of worship....Read More
Here is what biblical worship does: It remembers God’s work in the past, anticipates God’s rule over all creation, and actualizes both past and future in the present to transform persons, communities, and the world. -Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 43.Read More
When worship fails to proclaim, sing, and enact at the Table the Good News that God not only saves sinners but also narrates the whole world, it is not only worship that becomes corrupted by culture, it is also the gospel. Not only has worship lost its way, but the fullness of the gospel, the...Read More
What does it mean to say, “Worship does God’s story?” It is this: Worship proclaims, enacts, and sings God’s story. Worship is not a program. Nor is worship about me. Worship is a narrative—God’s narrative of the world from its beginning to its end. How will the world know its own story unless we do...Read More
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...Read More
In the incarnation, God unites with our humanity in Jesus Christ. . . . Reflection on the incarnation and its connection to every aspect of God’s story is the missing link in today’s theological reflection and worship. The link is found in these words: God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. ....Read More
I am concerned over how worship has become a program, a show, and entertainment. Once again the problem is a self-centered and presentational approach to worship. . . . Presentational worship turns true worship on its head. If worship is truly doing God’s story and calling people to find their life and story by entering...Read More
In worship we remember God’s story in the past and anticipate God’s story in the future. -Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 23.Read More
A dominant error of some Christians is to say, “I must bring God into my story.” The ancient understanding is that God joins the story of humanity to take us unto his story. There is a world of difference. One is narcissistic; the other is God-oriented. It will change your entire spiritual life when you...Read More
There is no story but God’s; no God but the Father, Son and Spirit; and no life but the baptized life. -Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 243.Read More
Because God is the subject who acts upon me in worship, my participation is not reduced to verbal response or to singing. Rather, my participation is living in the pattern of the one who is revealed in worship. -Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006),...Read More
