In our contemporary situation, when many professing Christians make their tenuous or downright nonexistent church affiliation a point of pride because their “spirituality” is personal, private, and “between me and God,” we need a robust liturgical theology to stop the bleeding. We need a worship reformation. You cannot serve Jesus faithfully while continually forsaking his church. True liturgical worship is evidence of this. Called out of the highways and byways, we gather. We listen to the Word proclaimed in the community, we hear the communal invitation to Table and together we are fed.
And then we’re sent out, the body of Christ like a burning coal on our lips and in our stomachs, and we begin to see things just a little bit differently. Like the body and blood of our Savior, we are fractured and poured out for the world around us.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is why liturgical worship is not a matter of conscience. It’s not a matter of preference or comfort. Liturgy is the life and breath of the church. It is where we are made ready for our mission as Christ’s hands and feet.
The ancient standard holds true: Lex orandi, lex credendi. As we worship, so we believe. The church’s mission is at stake here. That’s why I write, and why I keep on writing about this. It’s why I won’t simply stay quiet.
The church’s worship is my business, and it is yours, too.
Amen.
Read the whole article by Jonathan Aigner here.