Theses on Worship--Part 6

We received a flyer on our door advertising a church in our part of the Denver area. It's a huge church, holding four services from Saturday evening through Sunday morning, and famous for attracting young people with its rock concert style of worship. In our search for a new church home, we never even considered this church. We don't wish to attend a church where coffee, bagels, and ear plugs are handed out as you enter. We don't care how "relevant" or "exciting" it claims to be.

Now that I've read this flyer, I'm more convinced it's not the place for us. The advertised four week sermon series (which had already concluded when we received the flyer) is titled "When You're in Deep--How to Get Out of 4 Feet of Monkey Poop." I have no desire to attend a church that mentions the name of Jesus as many times in an advertisement as the term "monkey poop" (twice for both)!

Continuing my review of Jim Jordan's book, I am sharing his next two theses on worship. Ironically, there's no mention of monkey do-do in this book. Hmm... Wonder if I should continue reading?? (Go here for my first post in this series.)

Thesis #8 Worship Must Be Saturated with the Word
Jordan says that when we worship we both glorify the Word and receive directions from the Word. He states, "The Word needs to be sung, read, preached, taught." He's very adament about singing (or chanting) the psalms. He writes, "How dare we sing man-composed hymns if we have not mastered all 150 of God's psalms, as well as the other divine hymns in the Bible?" For someone like me who loves good hymns, this is a tall order!

Thesis #9 Love Makes Things Beautiful
Jordan writes, "The three dimensions of the Church and of worship are Person, Word, and Sacrament. If we love these, we shall beautify them." Some of the outward manifestations of this are: dressing nicely for church since we are made in the image of God. (Unless, of course, you go to the Monkey Church, where, "You don't have to dress up--come as you are!") Look at the Bible you carry to church. Does it have gilt edges, leather bound, special paper? This helps to beautify the Word, but we also need to read and sing the Word. Beautifying the Sacraments seems to come more easily. Most churches use nice serving trays for communion, a cloth for the communion table, candles, and flowers.

I think I'll skip the zoo and keep reading Jordan's book.