Worship Come to Its Senses: Part One

I'm reading a short book called "Worship Come to Its Senses" by Don Saliers and I'll be writing a five part journal over the next few days about it and posting it here. So I hope you enjoy...

Journal,
After reading the intro to Worship Come to its Senses, I am pretty excited about the book. It is apparent that Don Saliers and I share some of the same frustrations with modern American Christian Worship. And according to Saliers, its time to “Come to [our] senses about this.”

Saliers says that "this book is an invitation to think again about how and why we worship God, and to awaken our hearts and minds to a fresh perspective." This is what excites me. I am very passionate about worship and I feel like this is going to be the book that I shout "AMEN" at throughout the book.

He brings a good point in saying, "To see ourselves from another point of vies, and to discern what keeps us from flourishing, requires questions from the outside." So often we only ask people on the inside about why we can't reach the outside though our worship. Maybe we should ask the outside. I will be very interested to hear more about what he has to say on this subject.

Saliers also says, "After the past quarter-century's wide spread effort at liturgical reform there is a deeper hunger for a renewed connection between liturgy and life, between common prayer and ministry... many people today are yearning for a truly evangelical and sacramental liturgy." One of the main things I took from my Christian Worship class is how meaningful liturgy written specifically to your congregation can be powerfully life changing to the members of your Church.

I really like that he is going to talk about the senses in worship and how engaging in all of them can be powerful. He says, "Christian worship is physically, socially, and culturally embodied."

This should be an exciting journey to see how worship in the life of the Church can once again "Come to Its Senses."

Until then,
Jordan