A Bit of Rambling

I've been doing a lot of reading today. Mainly, the reading has centered around two things...worship and faith.

As I've been reading about worship, I've really been struggling with the way we use the term. In many Christian circles worship has become what we do on Sunday mornings (or Saturday or Wednesday or whatever day of the week your church gathers). And, in all actuality, many Christian circles have reduced worship to that portion of the service where we sing songs together (this is especially true in churches that have contemporary worship services). This whole idea just bothers me. Worship is supposed to be a way of life. Worship is supposed to be an every minute of every day thing. Worship is something we do with every breath. Well, I shouldn't get started on church terminology...I could go on for hours about words like "church, worship, lost, saved, salvation" and the like. I'll just wrap up my comments on worship with this...maybe we should stop calling our Sunday gatherings as worship services. Maybe we should refer to these as gatherings of the Body. The way we talk about what we do in our church services has largely communicated the idea that worship is something we go to and not something that we are.

Then there's faith. Throughout my readings, I've wrestled with the concepts of faith that we seem to have. I wrote about this a while back when I ranted on about the prosperity gospel. Many are reducing our faith to a results-based concept. If we have faith we will get ______ (fill in the blank). If we have faith we will prosper, we will be successful, we will get what we want out of life. Hmm...Now, it is true that faith is a means to an end. If we have faith, if we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and we repent, we will be with Him in heaven. But, faith does not necessarily mean our lives will produce the kind of fruit that many television preachers are telling us it should (financial success, morally sound children, etc). So, what about all the people in the Bible who had great faith and ended up dying for their faith. Today, I read about John the Baptist. He believed Jesus was the One. He had faith that Jesus was the Messiah. Though he questioned if Jesus was the One while he was in prison, we know more of his great faith than of his moment of doubt. So, Jesus basically said, "John, you already know that I'm the One...You knew that in your mother's womb." And, John's faith was confirmed. Yet, he wasn't rescued from prison. He wasn't rescued from having his head chopped off. So, his faith led to death! But, we don't talk about that much. We in the church like to focus more on the positive side of faith. We like to focus on the aspect that if we have faith and choose to follow Christ, good things will happen. While this might be true, it is also true that our faith may lead to our death. Our faith may lead to adversity. Our faith may lead to us leaving the desires of this world and choosing a simpler way of life. But, if we have faith, but we don't "prosper" in the way modern Christian culture defines the concept, does that mean that we really don't have faith? I don't think so.

Well, that's enough for today. Okay, one last thing. I think it's interesting how today's readings led me from worship to faith. Worship is a direct result of our faith. The two tie in together very well. Okay...that's it.