Worship is the expression of the Christian believer’s relationship with God. However that relationship is very complex, since God is at one and the same time our Creator, Redeemer (through Jesus Christ), Sustainer, Indweller (by the Holy Spirit), Friend and Judge. I...
God’s Spirit is poured out upon a community of believers. The Holy Spirit is not a “personal” gift from God that each believer privatizes—”you can have your Spirit if I can have mine.” This same Spirit of one God “appeared among them—on each of them” as the...
Believers throughout the centuries have tried to describe God, but very few have been satisfied with their descriptions. Their words turn out to be too frail to do the job. …The best any of us has ever been able to do is to describe what the experience of God is...
Paul actually expects Christ to be encountered as his people share with one another a whole range of verbal ministries in the congregational. For example, as they “sing psalms, hymns and spiritual song,” with gratitude in their hearts to God, they will fulfill the...
Some communities are defined by proximity, structured of wood or stone or brick and bound by lines on a map. But the community of believers is made of holy, living stones cemented with the mortar of Christ’s love, crossing all lines, and having no permanent address.
If the people are not themselves seeking to determine the Word of God in the tangle of their individual and shared lives, how can they discern the accuracy and adequacy of the theologian’s interpretation of that Word for the group? The church as a group, as a...