Living Out Our Worship

What do Christians do?

What do Christians do?

What do Christians do?

What do Christians do?

What do Christians do? What is the relationship between mission and worship?

What do Christians do? What is the relationship between mission and worship? Luke 10:38–42, Mary and Martha, worship and service

What do Christians do? What is the relationship between mission and worship? Luke 10:38–42, Mary and Martha, worship and service Delight, Encourage, Serve. Are these things related?

Class Overview I. Foundations II. Practices Worship means Ascribing Worth Worship involves Bodily Presence Worship involves the Symbolic Worship shapes how People live II. Practices Gathering Singing Communion Prayer Confession Scripture Reading

Class Overview Please note what we will not be talking about in this class: How we should or should not change what we do in our worship.

Class Overview Please note what we will not be talking about in this class: How we should or should not change what we do in our worship. This is a class about how we should practice Christ- centered living in our daily lives in light of what we do here on Sundays.

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” David Foster Wallace

Worship Involves Our Bodies Worship is not only about the inner disposition of our hearts. It involves our bodies.

Worship Involves Our Bodies There is a tendency to consider Christianity to be concerned with what we think, believe, and feel.

Worship Involves Our Bodies There is a tendency to consider Christianity to be concerned with what we think, believe, and feel. The Christian faith isn’t simply a set of propositions that we agree with. And it’s not simply an emotional experience that we try to express. It also involves our bodies and what we do with them.

Worship Involves our Bodies One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray “with moving lips and bended knees” but merely “composed his spirit to love” and indulged “a sense of supplication”. That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practised by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy's service, clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time. At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

How God Made Humans Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:3–4)

How God Made Humans Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:3–4) Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt- offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.  As long as the earth endures,    seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,    shall not cease.’ (Genesis 8:20–22)

How God Made Humans The Origins of the Synagogue

How God Made Humans The Origins of the Synagogue The Life and Ministry of Jesus

How God Made Humans We are made to express worship with the physical actions of our bodies, not just with our hearts and minds.

What God Desires From Us God’s commands for how to worship in both the Old Testament and the New Testament are full bodily actions. The Festivals of the Israelites (Passover, Pentecost, etc.) The Sabbath Laws

What God Desires From Us All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2)

What God Desires From Us All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2)

What God Desires From Us And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another— and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24–25)

Pliny the Younger writing to the Emperor Trajan (AD 111–113) “They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food.”  Pliny the Younger writing to the Emperor Trajan (AD 111–113)

“Christianity is an affair of things, of bread and wine, of water, and of oil, and its beliefs are anchored in things and the actions that accompany their use.” (Robert Wilken)

“Christianity is an affair of things, of bread and wine, of water, and of oil, and its beliefs are anchored in things and the actions that accompany their use.” (Robert Wilken) What would we lose if we neglected to worship with our bodies (for example, an Internet worship service)?