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Who is the Jesus we Portray in Worship?

October 13, 2009 By Jen Reiff 7 Comments

I’ve participated in some incredibly passionate worship services over the years, but I’ve also felt captive in the pew during many passionless services. Sadly, those passionless services seem to be the normal in many Presbyterian churches today. Hear me clearly. As a young adult, I do not need flashy graphics, a loud worship band, projected images on a screen, or a cool, hip, and stylish pastor to evoke passion in worship. Passion isn’t synonymous with loud, big, and flashy.

Who is this Jesus we are worshiping? When I sit through a passionless worship service, I truly begin to wonder. I want to worship a Creator who formed the universe with a word and molded my very being from the fibers of the earth. I long to sing praises to a God, who shouts with excitement through the joys of life and holds me tightly, with mutual tears, in the pits. I want to surrender all I am to the workings of a Holy Spirit who guides my movement in ways I never dreamed possible for myself. I want to humbly bow to the most humble of babies who changed the course of history for eternity. I want to lay offerings before a God who offered His own Son to wipe away the distance I continually place between Him and I. I want to meet this Jesus over and over again, so maybe someday I will begin to understand the magnitude of a Love so grand, so extreme, and so passionate at this.

It can come in all sizes, shapes, and volumes. I don’t care. What you do doesn’t much matter to me. But how you portray my Savior, who has molded and changed my life forever, means everything to me.

Filed Under: Presbymergent Tagged With: jesus, Passion, Worship

Evangelism is NOT a dirty word!

August 12, 2009 By Jen Reiff 3 Comments

Evangelism has become such a dirty word in the mainline protestant world. Our church even changed a committee name a few years back to remove the word so people “didn’t get the wrong idea.” Unfortunately, there is nothing wrong with evangelism – the Church should be rock solid evangelists… but maybe not the ones of our recent past.

Evangelism in America has coincided with proselytizing and typically with some ulterior self-motive, whether it is filling our own pews or filling our own egos. I know evangelism at my own church was about going around the neighborhood and inviting neighbors to join us on Sunday mornings so we could feel good about our full pews and overflowing offering plates. But, I believe evangelism of today is going to be more about the community and less about our churches.

To reach the young adults and youth of today, we are going to have to get off our cushioned pews and get out into the world. Evangelism isn’t slick advertising or a fancy website drawing people in. We must be Christ in the suffering world for the Kingdom’s sake and not for our own. Today, evangelism can’t be about sharing the Word of God so we can increase our membership, but instead sharing the Word of God because people need to know the Hope of the world is here and now. We need to be in our community centers, our schools, our coffee shops, our gyms, and our bars being Christ incarnate for the Church’s sake – not for our churches’ sake.

Filed Under: Presbymergent Tagged With: Evangelism