The Story of Worship Essay

It is very easy for people to read a book, even the Bible, and decide that they need to make changes in their life. Quite frankly, the concept of Great Commission worship really ties some loose ends together for me. The authors did an exceptional job of presenting the material as well as showing how the linear approach to worship “… does not create biblical worshippers with a desire to make disciples.”3

When thinking about the gift offering in the biblical story of Cain and Abel and its impact, one can see many similarities in East of Eden. Cain brought to God “the fruit of the ground” and Abel offered God “the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof” (Gen 4 KJV). God preferred the gift of Abel to the gift of Cain.

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a religious uprising in York, England which started in late 1536 and finished in early 1537, where people lead by Yorkshire lawyer Robert Aske staged protests and demonstrations in opposition to King Henry VIII’s dissolution of monasteries and break from the Catholic Church. This rebellion was mostly aimed at Thomas Cromwell, who was Henry’s High Chancellor; and many of these marchers influenced Cromwell’s policies. The participants of the Pilgrimage of Grace had a goal to reinstate the Catholic Church, and a concern of the economic impacts caused by losing monasteries; those who opposed the movement had a goal to punish leaders and anyone associated with the movement and a political concern of losing power for

• Writes about James, brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ. Stoned to death in A.D. 62. Pg.78

A.) The mission chapel is beautiful. The beauty of this chapel can compare to the Santa Barbara one. They both are bright in color. When in the chapels I get a warm feeling. Old artwork. Kind of built like an ancient style building. Candles light up the room.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.” Prior to taking my Exploring Religion class at Nazareth College, I will admit that I was pretty religiously ignorant, even in the religion that I identify with! It was not that I did not want to learn about religions, I just was never very motivated to do my own research, and because these topics are so touchy in schools, we never went in depth, in high school. I am beyond thankful that a religious studies class is a requirement at Nazareth because after taking it, I feel that it is very important to be educated on religion as it is so controversial in our society, today.

The Sermon on the Mount is a sermon given by Jesus Christ found in the book of Matthew in the Holy Bible. The beginning of this sermon includes a list of blessings called the Beatitudes. Jesus uses these to explain God’s favor towards those who are striving for righteousness. For those who had come to believe and follow Jesus as the son of God, every word that he spoke in the Sermon on the Mount was intended as words of encouragement for Jesus’s disciples and were taken as such. For those who were skeptical, the crowd, that Jesus was truly the son of God, Jesus’s words took on a totally different meaning. The Beatitudes, simple words that promote the humility of man, were explicit words of encouragement for Jesus’s disciples. Yet at the same time, to the crowd listening, the Beatitudes were an implicit invitation to become men of God by believing that this man is God in the flesh, God in spirit, God almighty, God omniscient, God omnipresent, and God omnipotent.

Christians have been celebrating the Lord’s Supper for almost two thousand years. In this paper I will refer to the Lord’s Supper as an ordinance of the church. “An ordinance is an outward rite prescribed by Christ to be performed by His Church.” There are quite a few varying interpretations among the different churches on how the Lord’s Supper is to be practiced. I Corinthians 11:23-34 provides Christians with the scriptural meaning and reasons for observing the Lord’s Supper, also known as communion. Many consider the Lord’s Supper of little or no value and some consider the ordinance as more of a ritual. In some modern churches, preaching the Word is emphasized the most and communion is only observed once a month or

Over the past years of my life I have seen many changes, some for the good and others not as good. Change can be demanding and also crucial. The early believers would encounter this. One can see that significant change happened, when reading through the gospels and the book of acts it is obvious to the reader that the believers who followed Jesus would never be the same again.

The sermon at the mount is a collection of teachings and sayings that Jesus preaches to people at Galilee. It takes place after Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist. This is the longest teaching by Jesus in a single preaching. It is found in the New Testament in the book of Matthew. It transverses chapter five to seven of the Gospel of Matthew. The main theme of sermon of the mountain is how people should relate with other people and God. The sermon is preached at a mountain when Jesus saw the crowd and his disciples’ were following him, he sat at a level ground on the mountain and started to preach. The Preaching’s can be divided it four major parts; The Beatitudes, Lord’s Prayer and parables.

The Chinese Christian church in the United States often has ethnic characteristics, but different Chinese churches often have special concentration in the composition of the congregation, which reflects the tide of Chinese immigrants in different stages. For example, descendants of early immigrants from southern China usually have their fixed church. International students from the mainland of China have the church which they set up together. And other "informal immigrants" also formed Christian organizations. According to Aihui Lee, she divides American Chinese Christianity into four categories.

When this word “myth” is used, the term is usually related to a fable, invention or a fiction story. Over the years, many scholars started approaching the study of myth differently. These scholars have approach myths in a way their meaning was traditionally regarded. In many traditions these myth are true stories and never refer to as false stories. ( http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/a/whatismyth.htm )

I entered into the worship service, unaware of what to expect. I was not familiar with this church, it was a non-denominational church, but the pastor had his roots in the A.M.E. Zion Church and branched out to establish his own church. I walked into the sanctuary prepared to participate in the Sunday School. I found a seat and readied myself to engage in some meaningful discussion. After sitting for several minutes, I asked one of the gentlemen who was standing at the front of the church if they had already started and where was the lesson coming from. He looked at his watch and indicated that he didn’t know if we had time for Sunday School. A puzzled look came over my face and I couldn’t help but express my confusion as I looked at

Through out history, as man progressed from a primitive animal to a "human being" capable of thought and reason, mankind has had to throw questions about the meaning of our own existence to ourselves. Out of those trail of thoughts appeared religion, art, and philosophy, the fundamental process of questioning about existence. Who we are, how we came to be, where we are going, what the most ideal state is....... All these questions had to be asked and if not given a definite answer, then at least given some idea as to how to begin to search for, as humans probed deeper and deeper into the riddle that we were all born into.

Reflecting upon the readings of Torrance’s Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace and White’s Introduction to Christian Worship will deeply shape how I look at worship in the churches I now order worship for the congregations. I used one of the churches in which I serve to do the Order of Worship assignment. It is a blue collar, small membership church located in a rural, retirement/ vacation area of North Carolina, Lake Gaston. It is also predominately Caucasian. Torrance’s focus is on trinitarian worship, participating in Christ’s communion with God, the Father and Christ’s life, death, and resurrection through the power of the Holy Spirit. And White’s focus is to look at how the forms used in worship give worship its meaning. These forms include but are not exclusive of, time, space, music and art. There are implications for both focuses in the order of worship for the congregation used for my order of worship.