the list
It's Sunday morning...let's say 11 a.m.
The preacher steps to the pulpit and begins to pray. In congregations all over Anerica and beyond, we wrap up the list. Our critique is being completed. Like Siskel & Ebert or the snobbiest restaurant critic, we are systematically going through our archive of likes and dislikes and rating everything....the worship leader...the musical choices and style...the attire of the band and singers...the volume. If you happen to be visiting the congregation, this becomes a chief assessment tool for whether or not you'll be returning.
The sad fact is that all too often when we have a great opportunity to move into community with other believers and more importantly worship the living God, we instead choose to become critics and lose our way on packaging instead of being the worshipers God desires. Too many times we lose the thread and forget that the beneficiary of our worship moments, whether they are individual or corporate, is always to be God.
As with so many things in the American church, we continue to adopt a consumer mentality when it comes to those times of corporate worship. Like Kevin Costner's character at the end of "Field of Dreams", we are too quick to ask "what's in it for me?" We don't step into those corporate moments with open hands and open hearts, wanting God to receive our sacrifice of praise.
So when Sunday rolls around, let's enter to lift up the living God, not to see if we can be a better critic than Simon. Let's enter as a participant, not a member of the studio audience. And let's go for the show---not the man-made one, the God-inspired one.