WEBBER: CH 20-21

Call me old fashioned, but I still moved when I am given the privilege to take part (especially within a community) in the Sacred Sacraments. For some reason (one that I've very glad about) keeping Biblical traditions and watching them be honored still within in today's church just devastates me. I the beauty that takes place when we honor the ancient tradition that our ancestors have done to all honor the same God in the same way is just a small reason why I am so taken with this particular tradition. I am bought to the foot of the cross each time I take communion. I am overtaken with the outstanding remembrance of such an overwhelming sacrifice. What a blessing my hear receives when I am able to honor and thank my creator for such a priceless gift by such a simple act that I, as a child, once just saw and a mid-service-snack! 

I take Communion and Baptism in particular, very seriously. I tend to get "judgey" when I see people just pop the bread and wine in their mouth and go straight back to the their seat without even a shred-of-a-millisecond of reminiscent stillness for what they are partaking in. I know I am just as guilty of doing this in my past on occasion, but I am SO THANKFUL God has even given me the passion to even care about tradition as much as I do. Otherwise those people wouldn't bug me and I wouldn't give a second thought to a half-inch piece of a day-old bread and some extra-tart warm grape juice. 

The challenge for me, is to take all the sacraments with just as much seriousness and reverence as I do for Communion and Baptism. Even though these are less-practced I think I should expand my appreciation, understanding and respect for them. 

NERF GUNS.

So, I was given a moment (actually more like 3 hours) of pure joy. God has an amazing way of reminding me to slow my brain down from stressing and thinking of all the million things on my plate. Today - he gave it to me through a Nerf gun war with my husband and our best friend. 
Our apartment was soon riddled with yellow and green foam bullets. For those three hours I had nothing on my mind other than the fear of getting pelted with Nerf bullets and making precision kills shots.
Its amazing how a childhood game comes back in the form and an adult stress revealer. God has an awesome sense of humor. I'm just so thankful to feel like HE sees ME and knows when I need to breathe and break from thinking. 

May I?

I'm sorry, but may I just go completely out of my comfort zone and COMPLAIN. I don't like being the "poor me" candidate, but my life is at a breaking point. I'm that bottle of Orange Soda that Miss Frizzle shook up until the camp exploded off.

I physically am at a constant point of holding back tears for no other reason than just pure overwhelming stress and busyness. When on EARTH am I suppose to breath? I feel like busy for some  people is "I'm awake, dressed and have to go somewhere today" because thats how "busy" used to be for me. but, WOW.  I was SO wrong.

God has NO set place in my life. which is kinda working out GREAT because that means that he has to be with me ALWAYS, CONSTANTLY. I don't have time to just sit down and listen to a devotion, i have to be IN devotion, and devoted to devotion, while i'm driving, eating, what-have-you. God and I are getting on much better terms lately as i'm realizing I don't have to fit him in like I do the rest of my life, I just have to keep it in MIND, HEART & SPIRIT. not in TIME.
 GUH. HELLO REALIZATION.

School --------- 12.5hrs
Homework ------- 12.5hrs
Admissions work -20 hrs
Working for Ken -.5 hrs
Working at Apple-20 hrs

FULL WEEKLY HOURS (7 days a week)
SPENT OUT OF THE HOUSE: 70.

Now do you get it? Thank God, he's God and I'm not.

HELP.

WEBBER: Ch. 9-11 [The Round-house Kick]

"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." - Colossians2:2-6


Iwas showed this passage this week and it did an astounding job at punching me in the face with a forceful, kung-fu round-house kick. 
I guess I either used to be really in touch with God through daily consistent prayer 4-5 years ago OR I never realized till reading this scripture how much my life has become crowded with so many new things that more consistently take up my mind, that something had to be pushed out... I guess my communication with God was the first thing to go... OOPS


[God's gonna get an ear-full tonight]

WEBBER: Ch. 3-5

I've been so out of touch. I don't feel motivated to dive into the word, to a book about the word or to even really form my mind around God-based theories. I guess I'm in a stage of being over, over-anilization. I used to love looking deeper into meanings, disputed ideas or any kind of controversial topic, but honestly, just give me Jesus. I'm done over-thinking, overanalyzing, overworking all these ideas.... at least for now. SO - because of this, my eyes glazed over, that is, until I turned to page 42 and the following.

It talks about Jesus being a rebel. How he wasn't afraid to rework the rules that had been put in place by the pharisees. How he took the rules and repurposed their true meaning, by giving a whole new explanation to their purposes.

For example: The Sabbath was seen as a day that men where ultimately created for, they were to respect IT as a higher entity. but Jesus, he re-envisioned the sabbath as a day that is made to observe the Father, that the Son of MAN still had control over, the event was not greater than God, GOD was greater than the event. Which I'm pretty sure blew a few pharisaical minds. But I bechta nothing makes God laugh more than watching haughty, conceited minds get blown out of the water by a
barefoot carpenter's son.

I kind of love it when I see Jesus being a rebel and kick'n some a....butt.
I hope those pharisees thought they were getting punked and Jesus was like "haha, nope. Sorry, not sorry".

 Righteous anger and truth teaching. FTW.

.peace brethren.

WEBBER: Ch. 1 + 2

Alrighty, well here I am, here we are, in worship lesson-class-sectional-thingy, together.
Please ignore my love and over-abundant use of commas, it is an unhealthy tick of mine to write how I speak; which is casually, often, and with little awareness of an end or period.
So, just as expected (and required): my thoughts on the first two chapters of the webber book entitled "Worship Old + New"

ch1.
The idea of combining worship from old and new sections and making it an entity on its own is a concept that I have thought of before but have never been able to eloquently put into words myself. I appreciate the way Webber describes the positive aspects of old and new worship is a refreshing way to explain theologically sound contemporaryism. Is that a word? Contempraryism? You let me know if you can come up with a better way of saying that one.
Moving on, my favorite part of Webber's explanation for old and new worship is the following quote:

" ...Worship old and new is a fully committed to contemporary relevance. because Worship is an act of communication between God and his people, worship must touch the lives of people, stimulate personal and spiritual formation, and bring healing to relationships." 

This four line statement made me do an inward "uh, yes lawd" and an outward grooving of my head like I was listing to Smooth Jazz 97.8.
Seriously people, why make worship more complicated then that? Thats the long and the short of what church, congregational, communal, CORPORATE worship should be like; despite the denomination, century or country.
God, people, lives-changed, hearts-healed. boom. done. g'night. Jesus can come now.   

I think it is so special to bring in tradition from the first churches up through today's traditions. I am one to always value tradition not only because it deserves respect but because it is such a beautiful testament to how hearts can be touched through the ages by the same acts of honoring our God. By committing to memory the four main parts of a traditional service:
        - Acts of entrance                          - The service of the Eucharist (communion)
             - The service of the word               - Dismissal

 It will allow us as constructors of the contemporary service to hold true to old truths while updating the presentations and explanations.

ch 2._______________________________________________
         
The Biblical Themes of Worship throughout the Testaments
The meeting between the 70 elders of Israel, the young men, Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu with God is a great picture of how God brings us together form different walks of life, different gift-sets and places to create a whole that has one purpose; to honor Him.

This is something I think a lot of church attendees forget, particularly when in search of home church. They look for a worship environment that is "comfortable" or that "fits" the best for them, when really, we as amazing creations by God are designed to have our own particular space within a diverse group.

God called his people together because they're different, because they worship differently for the same reason. This is just another reason why blended worship is such a beautiful picture of God's original intention for the church, to be eclectic for His name sake.



~ That's it for the Daily SmAcken - peace brethren.