Tom Takes a Breather (2)

Long-time readers will probably remember that we did this in June last year, and it was so much fun (for me at least) that this year we’re doing it again. You’re currently reading our 921st consecutive daily blog post since December 2013. (To be fair, a little over 6% of those posts were recycled, but if you don’t tell, I won’t.)

I’m going to take this coming week to recharge my batteries and work on a few pieces without an immediate deadline looming, but really that’s just a convenient excuse to do this:

I’ve been itching to revive some of these less-read posts since the middle of May, when it dawned on me that far too many Christians really don’t understand worship. That’s not to be insulting to those who don’t: it is to the shame of far too many of our churches that we have come to neglect the most important thing we are here to do instead of getting in our practice for eternity as we ought to be doing.

I mean, how are people supposed to know how to worship if: (i) churches don’t make regular time for it; (ii) young people don’t see older believers doing it; (iii) the Worship as a Lifestyle gang have utterly conflated corporate and individual worship; and (iv) our evangelical media regularly use the word to mean anything and everything even superficially spiritual without regard to the way scripture uses the word?

I say this, I trust, without making a claim to expertise. It’s possible to read, analyze and write about everything the Bible says about worship and still fail horribly to measure up in practice.

Disagree with our take? That’s fine with us. But do me a favor: give the next seven posts a read at your leisure, click on the links to the many scriptures quoted, and see if there isn’t maybe a little adjustment to be made to your thoughts about biblical worship. Most of these posts are more than a few months old so there are almost surely one or two you haven’t read.

Many thanks to IC and Bernie for their fine work and delightful fellowship in the past year. There are few people more fun to bat around ideas with.

I make no apologies for repeating my sign-off from last year’s post: Thanks most of all to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not only utterly inexhaustible but the only subject in this universe genuinely worth writing about every single day of my life.

He is the Object of our worship, the Reason for our worship and the Motive Power for our worship. Can I get an amen?

See you in a week, Lord willing.