Chewin’ On Worship-Flavored Jerkey
Have we as a culture been mis-educated on what worship is? Have we as a church thought enough about the relationship between worship and contemporary society and how we are keeping the Church from “dumbing down” our outreach to our current culture? After reading Marva Dawn’s Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down (yes I do recommend it!), these questions have been bouncing around in my head like a game of Pong.
I think how our society has watered down its people and education has greatly affected how we practice worship and behave as a “Great Commission” Church. In her book, Dawn quotes another text about how we have made so many things in our culture easier, specifically education. When comparing an average test from the 1960s with an AP test from the 1980s, the advanced test was surprisingly easier than the average test from 20 years earlier. Why is this? Maybe it’s media overload throughout the years. Maybe it’s society’s lack of caring or losing focus on the fundamentals. Moreover, how does this affect the Church and risk us “dumbing down” our faith? What are we doing to counter this?
General education found in the schools is not the only element potentially watering down our worship. I think we lack not the ability but mindset “to ask critical questions about [the Church’s] life and worship, its ministries to people in such a world, is ability to survive in post-Christian times”. We need to get back to understanding our own character better. We should depend more on scripture (our two greatest commandments). Maybe the main goal of the Church should be, through discipling, to praise God and nurture character in order for its community to reach other communities.
I’ll leave you with this, after all of this rambling (like I said Pong!): what does worship mean to you? Whom or what do you worship? Have we reached the point of unapologetic worship in our churches? And a question from Marva: “how has faith formation been disrupted by instant sensory gratification?” (her question sounds smarter than mine, I know)
OK you should really just go get the book!
wow. ray, good stuff here. how has our faith formation been interrupted by instant sensory gratification? hmmm. does an emotional high from good music on a Sunday morning replace our growth efforts throughout the week? i love our gatherings and our worship, but it seems like our corporate times should be the icing rather than the cake. let’s keep pushing… and challenging.
thanks!
blessings,
alan
Ray, very good and thought provoking. Thinking about the test you talk about and how it has become eaiser over the years, makes me wonder what else we as a nation have changed in order to make it eaiser for us to get what we want.
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