8 Down, 2 to go…

I’m glad to report that the worship class is still having a profound impact on my life. I was convicted of my sin last night and after being reminded of God’s hatred of false worship and hypocritical service I knew I needed to spend some special time confessing my sin in order to prepare my heart for corporate worship. I am so thankful I did because I was immediately ushered into God’s glorious forgiveness (1 Jn. 1:9) and I was able to clear out the clutter in my life and focus on God and his word.

I’m also glad to report that I have finished 8 out of 10 lesson plans for the church-based curriculum on worship. I need to get all 10 done before Sunday so Lydia and I can enjoy next week at World Venture’s Renewal conference in Denver.

While compiling the curriculum I have come across several other intriguing questions that were raised during the worship class:

1) God desired his chosen people to live, work, eat, and dress in ways that were “counter-cultural.” He wanted his people to be distinct from the world and to reflect him more than themselves. My question is, “What do we reflect?” “What do people think of when your name comes to mind?” Do they immediately think of your favorite pro sports team? Or do they think about your character? Or do they think about the God you serve? This was an especially convicting question for me. It has made me want to rethink what I verbalize and emphasize in my life.

2) Dr. Block introduced me to the word, “pedicentric.” It means, “focused on youth and children.” The bible presents the ideal culture as being “patricentric” or “father focused.” Working with youth has made me quite amazed at how pedicentric our culture is. All forms of media seem to encourage youth to ridiculous extremes. Its a pedicentric epidemic.

3) I become especially concerned about our “youth culture” when I see it filtering into the church and culture. It makes me wonder “How do we make our families more patricentric?” “How do we make the church more like the biblical ideal of the family?”

4) It is interesting to note that Scripture does not emphasize “family devotions.” It expects families to be having devos 24/7. Dr. Block asked us, “If you are walking with God like Enoch do you need to have daily devotions?”

5) How can we encourage church families to foster life as worship instead of limiting their interaction with God and his word to a short devotional?

6) How does the way you refer to the church building effect formal worship? How does referring to it as the “house of God” affect worship?

7) How should our homes reflect God’s presence? Dr. Block argues that they should be marked by a love of beauty and not chaos.