Theory Meets Practice

I finished Brad Berglund’s book “Reinventing Worship” this afternoon. The book was helpful for the most part. In today’s reading, I covered everything form Baptisms through Benedictions. I found the material very accessible to folks from a variety of theological traditions and backgrounds. What really jumped out at me was Brad’s strong commitment to blending spiritual formation (formerly Christian Education) and worship. This was particularly true in his sections on the liturgical calendar and lectionary. As someone whose first career (and on-going passion) remains education, I must say I loved this approach. As someone who was raised in the mainline church, I just assumed all churches observed the liturgical calendar year and used some form of the lectionary. It wasn’t until my seminary parish experiences that I realized this wasn’t the case. While I have been able to do some work bringing spiritual formation and worship together in my first five years, books like Brad inspire me to do much more. Before I leave Berglund’s book and move into a new realm of exploration, I want to say that there were two things about Brad’s book that I especially appreciated. First, I greatly appreciated its user friendly approach. Each section began with a sort of broad theological framing of the issue at hand. Instead of leaving each topic at the theoretic level, however, Brad included a section marked “Suggestions for (fill in the chapter topic here)" that provided very practical, hands on suggestions for each area. Many of these were very helpful. Second, I appreciated Brad’s sensitivity dealing with issues that often aren’t discussed under the topic of worship (i.e. how to handle announcements). In these sensitive areas you can see evidences of Brad’s years of pastoral service in the local church. He understands how each and every thing that happens from the time an individual enters the sanctuary until the moment an individual departs from the sanctuary after receiving the benediction matters. He treats each of these elements as an attempt to connect with the Holy. I wish all pastors and worship committees/teams did this! Needless to say, I’m looking forward to worship with Brad’s “Threshold” community this Sunday evening. Til next time…