Greetings!

"Boy, that was deathly." Have you heard folks use words like that to describe something dull? "Lifeless." "Deader than a doornail." I'll bet you've even heard people describe worship that way, too. I have.  I wonder if our idea of dead worship is the same as God's idea of dead worship. Perhaps better put: I wonder if our idea of lively worship is the same as God's idea of lively worship.

A ministry friend once told me that his pastor would constantly badger him about not having any "dead" time in worship. That's really a modern idea, isn't it? "Dead time." After all, the modern age taught us that "Time is money," and that we mustn't waste our time, especially when we could be filling it with lots of other things. The choices are more numerous than ever-- and one of the things we spend a lot of time doing is finding ways to save time. Ironic. Life these days is a bit like that wonderful old episode of "I Love Lucy" where she and Ethel take a turn at the chocolate factory production line. Life keeps churning out all those chocolates until they end up consuming us.

The modern life is a fast-paced, zip-zap-zoop life where, if we're not careful, we even work at our play. The action-packed get always that some folks use for vacations make me tired just hearing about them. Why is it that the time you most need a vacation is when you return home from vacation? Have you noticed that even Christians, who ought to know better, seem to have decided that rest is sinful-- or at least a weakness-- when the Biblical model for rest is quite the opposite? My goodness, the calendar of stuff we ask Church folks to crowd into their Sundays doesn't leave much time for a day of rest.

And then there's worship. I just wonder how much of the fast-paced, zip-zap-zoop modern life has pushed into worship. A few years ago I had the privilege of hearing author Marva Dawn speak to this subject. "Maybe," she said, "it's time for us to start making our worship look like the opposite of what people have experienced the week before." She wasn't suggesting we shouldn't strive to make worship excellent, and she wasn't implying that worship shouldn't be colorful and vibrant. So much of our daily life is filled with such things. But our days are also filled with much noise and speed and perhaps too many choices: too many chocolates coming way too fast to be appreciated. Our daily lives are, at the least, lively. If that's the case, and if worship ought to provide a good dose of the opposite of what we've been living in the previous week, then should our worship be dead?

Thinking about dead worship,

Pastor Chris

 PS: Want to see a clip of that famous "I Love Lucy" episode with the chocolates? Just click right here.

In This eNewsletter Issue

Quick Web Links

 General Information Line:

(916) 572-9113

Epiclesis is a Constant Contact 2011 All Star Award Winner