TheOoze - Moving Beyond the Worship Service [Written by Justin Baeder]

For me, this is a difficult article to read. Not because it steps on my toes or convicts me on a personal level, but because... well...

Let me say up front that if you've never considered these thoughts, think about them now. How we put so much emphasis on the "worship service" in our church structures today, to the detriment of any other kinds of things the church might be about. And from the looks of things, this tendency to wrap everything around a solitary event hasn't helped much to make us more holy, more evangelistic, etc. If anything needs to change in our church lives it's the fixation on traditions for the sake of tradition - and Justin's right in that regard, that the "worship service" needs to be reprioritized, if not dismantled and re-constituted into something meaningful and effective.

But.... there's no real alternative given. Not that he needs one, but it would be helpful to make the article more of a "this is what I evision" than a "Let me rant about what I see that's wrong." The generalization isn't necessary - many of the people reading TheOoze articles are no longer a part of churches, or they're finding new ways to change their churches, or they're leaving old established/crotchety old churches of some of these same issues. He's "preaching to the choir" in many respects - and we don't need that any more, do we?

Check it out for yourself. My prayer is that it convicts the church to action, not to just sitting around and yapping more about the problem.
- posted by Rick @ 19:01