It is interesting that the Psalmist thinks about community and justice in the context of worship. We think of worship as something we render to God but the Psalmist considers it also a desire or prayer that the congregation is blessed with the goodness of God—in this case, fellowship and justice—as they enter into his Presence. Do you think such notions can enhance and enrich your experience of worship?
Certainly. Worship service in brethren churches rarely go into such directions. By leaving the congregation to shape the content of worship it is difficult to raise and enrich it. The older brethren churches could because of the quality of leadership; these days the thoughts shared are mostly personal and therefore “surface”.
Worship in more structured congregations like the Methodists have fixed formats, fixed liturgy and even fixed seasons as they often follow the Christian calendar. Contentwise it is richer but unchanging.
Much of worship these days is dominated by songs and the modern songs that are being used are like fast foods—quick to capture you emotionally but leaving you empty because it is mostly froth and little substance.
We really need a lot more thought into the content of our worship.
I’m a lot more interacting with the life around me these days and while that is enriching I miss the older days when I’m interacting with ideas, ideology, and ideals. I think the fact that I was not preaching for so many years also contributed to this poverty in me. Interacting with the youth was good but it did limit the scope of things I was able to explore. The discipline of writing the TAWG devotional guides have helped and actually using these guides for myself have also helped. Maybe I should start reading again. The problem is that I don’t like to just accumulate thoughts; they need to be expressed, challenged and polished.