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Worship Changes Us
Theologian and philosopher Dallas Willard suggests that worship is not only something we do, but also something that challenges us and changes us and renews us. WORSHIP CHANGES US In worship we are ascribing greatness, goodness, and glory to God. It is typical that we put every possible aspect of our being into it, all of our sensuous, conceptual, active, and creative capacities. We embellish, elaborate, and magnify. Poetry and song, color and texture, food and incense, dance and procession are all used to exalt God. And sometimes it is in the quiet absorption of thought, the electric passion of encounter, or total surrender of the will. In worship we strive for adequate expression of God's greatness. But only for a moment, if ever, do we achieve what seems like adequacy. We cannot do justice to God or his Son or his kingdom or his goodness to us. Worship nevertheless imprints on our whole being the reality that we study. The effect is a radical disruption of the powers of evil in us and around us. Often an enduring and substantial change is brought about. And the renewal of worship keeps the glow and power of our true homeland an active agent in all parts of our being. To "hear and do" in the atmosphere of worship is the clearest, most obvious and natural thing imaginable. - Dallas Willard, in THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY: REDISCOVERING OUR HIDDEN LIFE IN GOD, HarperSanFrancisco, 1998, Chapter 9, "A Curriculum for Christlikeness," p. 363. [Loving God, forgive us when we wander. Please give us today a glimpse of your greatness and goodness and glory, that we may be drawn even closer to our true homeland. Help us to "hear well" and to "do well" as we respond to you. Amen!] Have a great week, Chip Stam Pastor of Worship and Music Chapel Hill Bible Church Chapel Hill, North Carolina |