Worship

I am reading a book written by N.T. Wright entitled For all God's Worth: The True Calling of the Church. It is a masterpiece. Another homerun by Tom Wright. I would recommend this book to anyone - especially if you've been in the faith for a while. It is a breath of fresh air for me. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few quotes from his book just to give you a teaser. If you've got an extra $10 click on this link and pick up a copy.

"Worship is nothing more nor less than love on its knees before the beloved."

"Worship is humble and glad; worship forgets itself in remembering God; worship celebrates the truth as God's truth, not its own. True worship doesn't put on a show or make a fuss; true worship isn't forced, isn't half-hearted, doesn't keep looking at its watch, doesn't worry what the person in the next pew may be doing. True worship is open to God, adoring God, waiting for God, trusting God even in the dark."


"Where is it written in scripture that we can expect the church to be free from financial problems, from doctrinal controversy, from difficulties about leadership, from deep personal and corporate anxieties? Where is it written in history that there ever was such a church? Where is it written in theology that God demands such perfection? Go back to Paul's second letter to Corinth and you will find that it concerns exactly these issues. And Paul addresses his readers in Corinth, not with carping criticism, but with the power of love; not with sneering put-downs about what a shabby lot they were in Corinth, but with the gospel of Jesus; not with cynicism, but with the cross."


"the cross speaks of the God who didn't send someone else to do the dirty work but came and did it himself; of the God who lived in our midst and died our death; of the God who now entrusts us with that same vocation. Because of the cross, being a Christian, or being a church, does not mean claiming that we've got it all together. It means claiming that God's got it all together; and that we are merely, as Paul says, those who are overwhelmed by his love."


"People have learned elsewhere today to expect rudeness and even violence as the norm. They are thirsty for gentleness, for kindness, for the sense that they matter. They need to be shown that there is a different way of being human, that the true God embraces them, as they are, with the healing power of the cross and the life-giving breath of the Spirit."


"The God I Want? Left to myself, the god I want is a god who will give me what I want. He - or more likely it - will be a projection of my desires."


"At the more sophisticated level, the god I want will be a god who lives up to my intellectual expectations: a god of whom I can approve rationally, judiciously, after due consideration and weighing up of theological probabilities. I want this god because he, or it, will underwrite my intellectual arrogance. He will boost my sense of being a refined modern thinker. The net result is that I become god; and this god I've made becomes my puppet."


I hope this was enough to get you to buy the book. If you do, it will probably become one of your favorites as it has become one of mine.