I can’t remember who I heard it from last week at Annual Conference, Will Willimon in his presentation to the body, or JD Walt during a visit about worship stuff.
Either way, what I heard was a story about visiting a church and asking about a children’s ministry that happened after a certain part of the service (toward the middle, before the sermon) in which the kids left the sanctuary to go to learn about worship. In fact, that was roughly how one of the kids explained it: “We go there to learn about worship.”
The point made was that we never outgrow the need to learn about worship. We’re call to be perpetual worship learners. This applies doubly so to those of us who would offer leadership in worship–clergy and lay, staff and congregant. I will begin offering some thoughts on worship throughout the summer as I’m leading our church’s project of launching a new contemprorary worship service, which has me thinking about worship more. That’s a good thing. Some of our best theological reflection comes to us as a by-product of wrestling with what worship is.
Guy M Williams 