As a young believer, I saw no sense in all of the time and effort Christians seemed to spend in praise, readings, communion/eucharist, etc.—in short, much of what tends to go on in the planning of Sunday morning gatherings across the world. I wanted an intellectually stimulating and coherent faith, and I loved it when good intellectually stimulating teaching was available. As a lover of the rock music of the 1960-70s, I was hardly impressed with church music. As one who had gone to a few Christian camps as a teenager, I didn’t trust emotional manipulation at all. So, I felt pretty good about being “above all of this.”
And, for a while, God was merciful, and I grew in my faith, in spite the fact that my attitude toward worship included no sense of honoring God in a manner that goes back 1000’s of years, and, that my approach was basically “all about me and my preferences.” I cared very little about what honors God or about what blesses God’s people.
Repentance came slowly, and God used the community of New Covenant to bring worship into my life. (more…)
