Worship And Relevance

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.
The folks at North Point Media are really good sports to produce this video. What a hoot! In other ways, though, it is pretty disturbing.  The desire to be relevant actually results in being faddish and temporary. 

If one would consider the historical liturgy, it is incredibly scriptural, ties us in a real, concrete way to the ancient church and to the church catholic, and builds to the important act and gift of receiving Christ in the bread and the wine. There is real beauty and holiness in that. How much more relevant can one get?!   It also removes the need or desire to always come up with something new. The newness comes not in the liturgy, but how God works on us and forms us through the liturgy. In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, Lewis writes:

Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best – if you like, it “works” best – when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance…Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity.

Some more good helpful thoughts on the liturgy can be found at I Monk.

Hat tip to Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed for the video.