Today's words come once more from Marva Dawn's great book that deals with the "worship wars" in our churches. Like so many of us, she observes that the church in America has too often chosen to be "of" the world and not "in" the world—the opposite of what Jesus said we should be. And this shows in our worship, our music, and our sermons.
"How will we teach Christianity's specialness if the music in our worship services imitates the superficiality and meaninglessness of the general world and our sermons talk about subjects that those in the pew can learn from psychologists, sociologists, and the local television station? I am very interested in using modern music, as future chapters will demonstrate, but our music must contain the substance of the faith, the heritage of the Church's uniqueness, the character-forming truths of Christianity. Similarly, our sermons must be focused on the Word of God, which is the "special" domain of Christianity."Marva Dawn
Reaching Out without Dumbing Down
2 comments:
I'm looking for Bible studies by Ms. Dawn and stopped by your blog. Thank you for quoting her. She is 'reason in the midst of insanity' that is often the evangelical church. Indeed, churches have succumbed to marketing instead of evangelism, entertainment instead of true worship, and so on. If people will listen, Marva speaks a great deal of truth.
Guy
You have got to see this. Obama playing on XBox. Funniest video ever. http://bit.ly/bllhx1
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