Dangerous Act of Worship

The second book that I've really enjoyed as I mentioned in the last post has been the "Dangerous Act of Worship". It's really challenged my idea of what worship should be. Perhaps the most challenging part has been in regards to expectations. The author Mark Labberton brings up the point that so often we are looking to see if Sunday morning church has met our personal expectations that we forget to ask if our personal worship that morning met God's expectations. Whew. That's a tough questions to ask and if I'm honest with myself, I would have to say that more often than not, my worship has not met God's expectations. Most of the time I never even take the time to ask if my worship on Sunday morning or during the week honors God and His expectations for worship. It's a dangerous question to ask...but a worthwhile one.

And the above is all from one small paragraph in the book! The whole book is just as challenging. If you're looking for a good book, check it out.

Book Plug

Over the past month I have read two books that I would recommend in a heart beat: "The Dangerous Act of Worship" by Mark Labberton and "The Living Church" by John Stott.

John Stott's book in particular has been very helpful to me in thinking about by own thoughts towards today's church. In many ways, I sometimes feel I could honestly walk away from the church as an institution (not God mind you) and join more of the underground church movement going on in America. But Stott's book brings me a lot of hope that the American church can change and provides a vision for what the church should be. But more importantly one of the articles in the appendix's clarified for me for the first time the dangers of both leaving the church or choosing to stay in the church. Paradoxical huh? You'll just have to read it to understand. It's made me realize that while staying may not be my favorite option, it may be the more worthwhile one as long as I can guard myself from mentally checking out.

Overall, "The Living Church" is a challenging word and much wisdom from a man who has survived his whole life serving the "church".

Cheese Cake adventures

There are some things that I am destined not to succeed at. Tonight I add with great fan fare cheesecake to that list.

I have been eying a recipe for a double layered chocolate mocha cheese cake for a while. I mean with a title like that, who wouldn't. Two hours later after burning out two mixers and blowing an electrical fuse twice, I decided cheesecake is just not my thing. It's in the oven baking right now but I'm fully expecting it to explode or have the oven fall though our floor into the basement below.

The only good thing coming out of this experience (besides an ugly looking, but hopefully good tasting cheesecake) is that Matt now has some great Valentines Day gift options.