I've been thinking about prayer and scripture...

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen's University, Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt.

Memo to the Disorganized

If my private world is in order,

it will be because I have courageously confronted

the messiness of my ways of living and

chosen to bring them under rigorous discipline.

- Gordon MacDonald,Ordering Your Private World (1)

I'm sure you've already made note of this, but I'm going to point it out anyway: our culture is obsessed with individuality. The last time I checked, I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit said that we weren't to conform to the patterns of this world.(2) So why on earth has the Church decided to become so individualistic in their worship? Like now it's all about how you feel, what you get out of it, if the music suits your needs, ie. wants. (I could just as easily be saying "I" or "my" in those sentences.)

I'm really getting quite concerned with the similarities between the Church and the World these days. Some days I feel as though we're regressing. I know that there are always ups and downs, but it feels like we've been going downhill for quite some time.

I really don't mean to sound so hopeless. Truly. What confounds me, though, is that the communities that do choose to engage in corporate prayer and scripture reading regularly don't seem to value it, and those communities that choose not to don't seem to realize what they're missing. Either way, present or not, the significance of public prayer and scripture reading seems to have been lost.

So the question, then, is not "are we integrating prayer and scripture reading into our worship", but "is our prayer and scripture reading truly worshipful"?

(1) MacDonald, Gordon. Ordering Your Private World. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2003) 26.

(2) Romans 12:2.