Archive for the ‘Worship’ Category
Let the record show that I’m a Reformed Protestant and believe deeply in the Biblical truths recaptured during the Reformation. Those truths have been summed up in the Latin phrases of “Sola Scriptura” or Scripture alone, “Sola Fide” or Faith alone, “Sola Gratia” or Grace alone, and “Sola Deo Gloria” or For the Glory of God Alone. That being said, when I walked out of St. Stephansdom I was profoundly impacted with the reality that architecture communicates. In this case, this massive facility that took hundreds of years to complete spoke volumes about God’s transcendence. (HT: Between Two Worlds) Can you name the movie from which the quote above came? This is why you’ll never see dancing during worship at HLPC: Found HERE. (HT: James Grant) Ours is a narcissistic culture. That’s a fancy way of saying we are lovers of self and our own pleasures. The sad reality is that we are all products of our culture to some degree- our blind spots keep us from seeing just how self-centered we really are. Francis Schaeffer was right when he wrote over 20 years ago that the two priorities for Americans are personal peace (leave me alone and don’t bother me with anything) and affluence (I want it all and I want it now!). What’s the cure for self-absorption, aka narcissism? Marriage and parenting sure help as they surface new levels of self centeredness. But even then we can retain our consumer driven mentality that it’s “all about the customer- me!” The best cure for naricissism is worship. Corporate worship becomes the time when it becomes all about God. We need God-centered worship. We need a focus outside of ourselves and onto Him who created all things and redeemed us in Christ. |
I’ve only been to one Gothic cathedral in my life and it was this one- St. Stephansdom in Vienna, Austria. I was able to visit it on two separate occasions during overnight layovers on the way home from missions trips to Odessa, Ukraine in 1998 and 2001.