banana bread

Today was a busy day. I haven't had a day where I had to move from activity to activity to activity for quite a while. I don't mind having one every now and then. In college that was the normal pace of life; now it's something I only encounter sporadically. I think I'm pretty fortunate that way. There is nothing wrong with resting, not to mention that I think we tend to run our lives at much too frantic of a pace anyway. Good ol' America.

Tonight I had a meeting at work for which we didn't really have an agenda. We hung out and talked, shared some highlights from this past season (since September) and read a large portion of a chapter from Marva Dawn's A Royal 'Waste' of Time. The chapter I chose was about how evangelism and worship are two different things. Dawn sets out to define both worship and evangelism and the purpose of each. Then she shows how when we make a worship service into an evangelistic event we do so to the detriment of all parties involved - God is not worshipped as He deserves, worshippers are not taught and transformed (which would enable us to be better at "being church" - our primary witness), and unbelievers are not shown the depths of the faith. Basically, worship as evangelism undercuts both worship and evangelism...the very opposite of what many churches are attempting by combining the two.

It is subjects like these that I am passionate about. It's all about analyzing, philosophizing, making sure we are staying consistent with our values. I want to do things well. Everything we do in worship has implications. Neil Postman says, "The medium is the message." That is just the tip of the iceberg. How can we be faithful in worship? I will spend my whole life trying to figure that out.

It is so easy for me to talk about God, to talk theology and Scripture, but right now it is so hard for me to talk to Him. The past couple days I've been throwing up a number of one sentence prayers. That's better than my general trend of late...and by that I mean the past 9 months or so. All my life I have faced this struggle of knowing about vs. knowing. How can I worship a God I don't know? How can I continue to lead people in worship when I'm not sure if I'm even capable of worshipping? I have experienced God's grace a number of times (an infinite number of times) as He has used me even as I've been unprepared and unworthy. I guess I'm always unworthy, except by Christ. But still, how long will this go on? Something must change, but it cannot be me 'sucking it up.' It never lasts. I feel there is something fundamental I'm yet to grasp. I think it all has to do with grace and my sinfulness. I don't think I really get my need.

Would you rather be valued or loved? I'm still thinking about that. If I want to be valued, I want to be counted worthy - it's about what I do. I cannot come to God because of what I have done. I know that. I don't think I live that.