All tagged worship
What we worship begins to transform us. When we seek approval, honesty becomes harder. When we build our lives around possessions, we may begin measuring people by what they own. When comfort controls us, another person’s needs can feel like an interruption or distraction.
Worship centers on God—God’s character as the source of all mercy and love and justice, God’s infinity, God’s majesty and mystery. In contemplating God, we see our own sin, our need for redemption and protection, as well as the possibilities of profound spiritual growth.
When I imagine heaven, I don’t think about riches or a lack of struggle. I really only imagine two things: God and people being present. Beyond that, I don’t really care what else is there. Gold being there would be great, but I’ll take dirt just as well.
Two young students spent the semester reading and doing ethnographic research on the topics of worship and burnout in churches. Here’s a taste of their findings.
What is the problem with the wicked? Well, they have no fear of God! The lack of fear for God is reflected in a concomitant lack of restraint. Fear, at its best, can teach us how to control ourselves.
While this is only a short list of ideas, my hope is that these suggestions offer a point of reference for what intentional intergenerationality could look like in your church as you think through your own context. Regardless of how your church seeks to include children more intentionally within its worship practices, the most important point is to start somewhere so that you can embody being a church where all God’s people gather.
If you want to get serious about studying Scripture, you have to become serious about poetry. God chose to allow his interactions with humanity to be written in both prose and poetry. There are both histories and hymns, statements and also songs.
The missional call is not doing what you already do at a better or more creative level. It’s joining people where they are, bringing the love of Jesus with you, and allowing the Spirit of God to form Christian community.
ACU is in its 116th year of Summit, and this spring’s edition focuses on the living word of God and the impact it has on our churches, our ministries, and our lives.
Spiritually, revival is not something one can do. I can restore a house, rebuild a car, or renew an old orchard. However, when it comes to congregational life, revival is God’s work alone.
This week I saw a sheep with an adopted master, following close because it knew familiarity and care. It had everything it needed and responded simply in acceptance.
In stillness and silence, the gut string chord of striving relaxes to the ringing philharmonic of divine sufficiency; it is enough.
Squaring off against the darkness, acknowledging its created separateness from the light that is God in the lives of people, is our posture for this season.
I often hear discussions about raising hands to the Lord, most often in the context of worship. Some are enthusiastic hand raisers; others are not.
Music, poetry, the vulnerable submission of our blind spots to the examination of trusted others, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to breathe it all in. These are my prayers as we camp in new perspectives and different rhythms for a bit.
If we acknowledge the physical and/or emotional constraints that limit our capacity, then we also become intentional about focusing our ministry around these essentials and doing so in whatever format works.
This conviction – that God is already in our homes, our Zoom calls, our neighborhoods and parks – offers us a vibrant and hopeful invitation.
The mission of God is not something we have to do; we receive it. We share it and spread it around like maple butter on Holy Saturday French toast, savoring the Savior.
As the created world hosts humanity, we have much to learn from the soil, from the seeds. Stretching toward the light, cultivated hearts propagate God’s mission.
But are pomegranates and icons really on par with one another? After all, it is not like pomegranates were put in the temple to represent the image of God like Rublev’s icon of the hospitality of Abraham depicts the Trinity.
