When I came to Asbury, I had two questions that I wrestled with fairly often. What is holiness? santification?
Now, I have another: What is "good" worship?
The latter question has been a great topic to explore while I've been on WDT.
What are your big questions for this year? What would you like to learn during your internship?
5 comments:
[you ask]
"What is Holiness?"
[response]
Wow…now that is a loaded question :-)
I actually posted some thoughts on the issue of Social Holiness (you can read the post and comments on my blog—March 2006 issue)…below is an excerpt from that post:
“…Holiness should not only bring about personal piety, but also cause the body to counter social injustices, influence political powers to effect change, conserve the resources of God’s creation, and so forth.
Therefore, true Holiness is conjunctive, for it is both ‘Personal’ and ‘Social’!"
“…what commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “the foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is One Lord; And you shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
-J-
one of my big questions for this year--- can we develop a consistent order of worship that makes room for innovation while retaining stability and yet remain vitally alive in the Spirit? i so often see error on both sides of this fence-- on the one hand there is over-innovation and a reaching for novel forms to express worship. on the other i see fixed, static, click down the bulletin orders of worship that are liturgically correct but practically dead.
the order of worship is a kind of covenant in and of itself that both leaders and participants must hold to. there must be both predictability and within that predictability ever-present-room-for-surprise. i'll make a post that makes the point later bc/ people hate to read long comments. ;-)
Another question I have: would everyone love liturgy if they gave it a try? What is liturgy, really?
How do holiness and worship relate?
One of my big questions for the year has come from the Neuwen (I'm sure that's spelled wrong) article that is in the reader. It went something like this: "How can I surrender more to God and be more fruitful?" This has helped me replace questions like "How can I do more?"
Holiness?
I think I will take the Coppedge answer on this one, and say holiness is a part of our original design as humans. We are allowed by God to share in this attribute with him. But holiness is also the thing that sets us apart, just as the Israelites were commanded to set themselves apart. When the church loses it's need to be indentified with being holy, it is actuallly losing one of the definitive parts of it's being.
Good Worship?
I have been reading to much Robert Webber lately and I will go with this quote.
"Worship is a rehersal of who God is and what He has done, and gives expression to the relationship which exists between God and His people"
What is the difference between individuals worshipping together in the same room and corporate worship. I guess that is what has been running through my head in the last week.
Liturgy?
Do I really need to answer this.....?
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