Key Bible Passage(s):

Heb.2:11-12; 12:28-29; Ps.122

Tier 1:

In some ways, Christianity is a spirituality of self-distrust. We don’t even really know who we are, or what we are really capable of. We flatter ourselves too much to detect our own sin (Ps.32:6), and so we are constantly blind-sided by it. One of the consequences of this is that we are easily confused about worship, and our capacity to worship appropriately. Especially in a culture that encourages us to ‘be true to ourselves’ we can miss the point of worship, and end up misleading ourselves, and those around us about our spiritual expereince.

Tier 2:

Like any new skill, we are trained in authentic worship by doing the same thing again and again, disciplining our souls to habitual repetition, until it our praxis instinctive and reflexive.  Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day we gather in corporate worship to submit to the disciplines of learning things that don’t come naturally to us (in spite of our assumptions to the contrary), as we are re-formed into a different kind of human being. This repetition is not lifeless ritualism; but rather the discipline of making ourselves repeatedly vulnerable to the work of the Spirit.

Tier 3:

The liturgy of the Christian life isn’t just something that shapes our service, but can be something that gives structure to our year, key moments, and even the daily rhythms. In this session we introduce the idea of a ‘Rule of Life’. This is a proactive way of cultivating and following a vision of Christian living where we’re not living in reaction all the time, but rather out of a constant re-visiting of our purpose in life: the glory of God.

Many people, unwilling to let go of their own ideas, and being more willing to teach than to learn what they have not yet understood, have shipwrecked in their faith.

Leo the Great

Group Discussion

session 1:

Read Heb.12:28-29

What is ‘reverence and awe’?  Why is this necessary before worship is ‘acceptable’?

What - at [our Church] – do you think we do that cultivates this?  How could we do so more?

What do we do that undermines it?

session 2:

What has helped you or inspired you about what you’ve heard this evening?

Is there anything that you disagree with? …or think doesn’t fairly reflect the Bible’s teaching?

how would you respond to someone who said:

I find Liturgy boring

When we use liturgy, I can’t express myself the way I want to in worship

Liturgy is culturally irrelevant: we don’t use it anywhere else in life, we shouldn’t use it in Church

session 3:

would you want to develop a rule of life? 

what benefits would you perceive in it?

what steps would you need to take to be able to establish one?

we will come back to the ‘Rule of Life’ in Term 7

Homework:

Over this half-term we have been working to memorise Matthew 7:21-28. You will have to keep refreshing Matt.5:1-26, Matt.6:5-15 and Matt.7:7-12 whilst you do this.

(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the 3 years of DTP)

To Be A Christian: Q&A 252-255