Monday, June 7
Ch.6 How Worship Nourishes Spirituality.
Thanks for the many responses. They will result in an interactive book. Part II of the book deals with nourishing Christian spirituality through the church (ch. 5), worship (ch. 6), the Word (ch. 7), Eucharist (ch. 8), prayer (ch. 9), and the disciplines (ch. 10). Each chapter deals with (1) the current crises. (2) The ancient understanding and practice. (3) Nourishing baptismal identity (union with Christ), and (4) Nourishing the baptismal pattern of spirituality (dying and rising). Don't try to comment on the whole chapter. Concentrate on one or two aspects of the chapter, especially where you have an observation or example. Thanks!
Ch. 6-How Worship Nourishes Spirituality Monday, June 7
A. The current crisis in worship. Worship has been trivialized by the wars over style. The crisis is much deeper than style. The real worship crisis is content and form. Generally, worship is not rooted in the story of God (it is more about me). Furthermore, there is little understanding of how worship orders a relationship with God (worship is often an entertaining program). Worship also suffers from a crisis of communication. It is stuck in rational language and needs to recover the performative power of symbol, ritual, and sacrament. B. What can we learn from the ancient church? Ancient worship was grounded in the story of God. It remembered and enacted God's story in daily prayer, weekly liturgy and the yearly practice of the Christian year. The fourfold pattern of gathering to hear God's Word, respond at the table, and go forth to love and serve God, ordered a relationship with God. The use of ritual, symbol and sacrament engaged the whole person in constant reminder of their spiritual identity and calling to live in the pattern of death and resurrection. This approach was summarized as lex orandi; lex credendi (the way we worship shapes the way we believe).
- Worship nourishes our spiritual identity because it is a continual rehearsal of the relationship God sustains with us. God's presence in creation, in history, in Christ, and in the gathered community is experienced through Word and sacrament.
- Worship is the context in which our relationship with God is continually reestablished, maintained, repaired, and transformed. Anamnesis (memory).
- Worship shapes our view of the world, our values, and our hope (prolepsis).
- Worship is rooted in the story of God, continually proclaiming and enacting the victory of Christ over the powers of evil through the word proclaimed and the sacraments enacted.
- Worship is the context in which rites of passage engage us in the renunciation of Satan and a transformation to walk in the Spirit.
- The rite of healing celebrated in worship heals the will and empowers right choices.
Bob Webber
Myers Professor of Ministry
Director of M.A. in Worship and Spirituality
Northern Seminary—www.seminary.edu
(See Northern's M.A. in Worship and Spirituality and D.Min. in Worship by clicking on the website.)
