Memo to Myself and Others in Worship, part 2 of 2.

All Truth Is God’s Truth, as several have taught me along the way.

Music and film and so much more all have a place in the Christian practice of worship.

However….picking up where we stopped in yesterday’s ArtNews observation:

Writing about current “blockbuster gallery spectacles,” Eleanor Heartney says this “kind of multimedia extravaganza is becoming ever more commonplace in an art world where distinctions between entertainment, popular culture, performance art, and theater are becoming harder and harder to parse.”

Lot packed in her sentence.  I had to read it a couple of times.  Maybe you did, too.

Now let’s look over here at our churches.

May we admit that what we United Methodists once called Service of Divine Worship have too often slipped into “blockbuster (church) spectacles.”

Let’s worship God.

May we admit that our preferred “kind of multimedia extravaganza is becoming ever more commonplace in (churches) where distinctions between entertainment, popular culture, performance art, and theater are becoming harder and harder to parse.”

Let’s worship God.

Like a song that Ann, the Director of Music Ministries at our church, turned me onto says,

“I’m coming back to the heart of worship
and it’s all about You, it’s all about You, Jesus.
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
when it’s all about You, it’s all about You, Jesus.”

Let’s have church.

Let’s have the church be the church God’s calling us to be, forever and right now.

There’s a balance.