Worship?

We in the emerging church don't talk enough about worship. There are other things we don't talk nearly enough about, but nothing quite so important...

And until we become a people who worship God first and foremost, with our lives, our actions, our words, we'll never be doing anything more than just playing at church.

Here's a bit of what I preached on Sunday:

“Give thanks”- literally “confess, acknowledge” and so calls us to thoughtful, engaged, grateful worship…

Many of us are the people who left the traditional, institutional, do it by the book without feeling church behind. Right? My biggest complaint was that the worship in my church growing up was dead- noses in hymn books, singing words we could have meant, but never made the emotional investment to mean.

So should we go hard the opposite way? No…
Many of us are also the people who left the emotion-over-thought, manipulative, everybody put your hands together happy clappy worship behind.

We have always, from day one at evergreen said- adopt whatever posture in worship you need to adopt. But what we have never said, at least for those who have moved beyond exploring and have decided to become a follower of Jesus, is that worship is optional.

So what’s left? Exactly what this psalm calls us to- thoughtful, engaged, whole mind, whole body, whole spirit worship of the God who is. The God who made us. The God from whom all good things come. The God whose faithful love for us endures forever.

More on this in a bit... And here's B.Mac with a good word-