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Worship Through the Ages
What is constant and what is appropriately changeable? Today's WORSHIP QUOTE is from a new book that talks about authentic diversity in the quest for biblical standards of worship. WORSHIP THROUGH THE AGES Christians, for the most part, take the Bible and historic liturgical tradition as the grounding for their liturgical practices. In debates over worship we hear not only a call for a return to the biblical way of worship but a insistence that worship forms developed in earlier centuries of Christendom are as valid today as they were then. What this argument fails to take into account . . . is that neither Scripture nor the subsequent history of Christendom offers us one monolithic form and language of worship. Human beings have always worshiped God in their cultural milieu, and God has incarnated himself and revealed himself to worshipers in settings that are culturally familiar. . . . As the church, both Protestant and Catholic, embarks upon the twenty-first century, it is faced with the same dilemma and opportunity that has faced God's people throughout the ages (from the Hebrews, the Jewish and Greco-Roman Christians, and the Europeans to a culturally diverse worldwide church): how to make worship culturally relevant yet utterly God- and Christ-centered. It is a challenge to which we must respond both corporately and individually. - Pedrito U. Maynard-Reid in DIVERSE WORSHIP: AFRICAN-AMERICAN, CARRIBBEAN & HISPANIC PERSPECTIVES, Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000, pages 29 & 40. [It seems quite obvious that our worship experiences together include an interesting mix of content (universal truths about God), structure (the way this time is organized so that we can best hear from and respond to God), and style (the cultural language we use to speak to and about God). Some of our problems and challenges seem to come when we forget which is which. Yes?] Have a great week, Chip Stam Director, Institute for Christian Worship School of Church Music and Worship Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky www.carlstam.org www.sbts.edu |