Mi hermano estudia en el Seminario Teológico Bautista de Nueva Orleans. Al haber leído mi post pasado "Una Experiencia denominacional" me objetó de tal manera que prefirió mandarme este paper exam (ensayo de examen) para que fuera haciéndome criterio.
Que conste que juego en su cancha, con sus reglas, en su clima y con su público. Es decir, en términos teológicos no tengo profundidad conceptual. No soy teólogo. He leído biblia desde niño y he leído teología desde hace tiempo pero sin la profundidad que puede acumular un estudiante de posgrado en teología o divinidades.
Les dejamos a su consideración este ensayo (perdón pero está en inglés)…
Comparto algo de su estructura y prometo traducirlo (en todo o en parte) en cuanto pueda. Si a alguien le urge, escríbanme o dejen comentario.
-¿Qué base bíblica fundamenta la idea de que Dios prefiere una relación personal con el creyente, a un ritual de adoración?
-¿Qué valores o expresiones considera usted que debe caracterizar a la adoración en 15 años? ¿Por qué? Sea específico.
- ¿Como influye su trinitarianismo en su teología y práctica de adoración? ¿Qué diferencia hace eso cuando se compara con otras tradiciones de adoración?
- Provea un ejemplo de orden de culto con cantos apropiados, estructura de elementos de culto y un texto y título de sermón que puedan ilustrar su respuesta.
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Por Rolando López García
What biblical bases support the idea that God desires relationship over ritual regarding worship? (Use textual examples from both Old and New Testaments.)
People say "takes two to tango". Relationships are stories of two and they can be withered by routines which can be expressions of dutiful worship, dead expressions of love, traditions and rituals. God desires a live relational worship, not a dead ritual one. Such relationship is supported by both, Old and New Testaments. Harold M Best states in his chapter on Traditional Hymn-Based worship that human beings were created "worshiping" not "to worship" and that after the fall men kept on worshiping and switched gods. Joe Horness a Contemporary-Music Worship advocate simply states that God longs for a relationship with the believers. Both ideas are foundational and can be seen through the Bible.
Worship begins in the heart of God that is why He created man Imago Dei (Genesis 1:27). Human beings were created in a relationship with God which was interrupted in the fall (Genesis 3:23). God since the beginning established a relationship through a Covenant conditioned to obedience. Obedience was a central part of the covenant. God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17), Abraham was ordered to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac (Genesis 22:2). God is the initiator of such covenantal relationship and even after the fall the covenant was renewed several times. God desires a covenant relationship with his people and he made a covenant with Israel (Lev 26:12). Clear is that God desires his people's worship (Ex 20:46) and that is why he wants his people to be a kingdom of priests (Ex 19:6). What makes a live relational worship is obedience if there is no obedience the relationship is dead (1 Sa 15:22). Rituals become a way to justify worship and God does not want that (Is 1:11), what He wants is obedience (Is 1:16-18). That's what happened in the beginning and through the stories of the Old Testament, God's people being disobedient to God's covenant.
The broken relationship with God was restored because of God's desire to do so (2 Cor 5:18-19). He has always desired a covenant relationship with His people so he made a new covenant with them through the blood of Jesus (Rom 10:9). In this new covenant his worshipers would do so in spirit and in truth because God seeks those people to worship him again to be worshiped is His desire (John 4:23-24). The resulting relationship of the new covenant was intimate and life-giving between Christ and the believer (John 15:7). This new covenant is also bound by obedience but the obedience is sourced in the new nature or new life of the believer (1 John 2: 3-6). Since the worshipers under this new covenant are spiritually alive because of the salvation due to Jesus, this relationship is a living one but the believer should be obedient, not because obedience will make the relationship alive but because the lack of it can tarnish such relationship that is why the believer is urged not to neglect his/her salvation (Heb 2:3) and in many ways to become ritualistic can neglect the believer's relationship with God (James 1:25-27)
God desires a relationship now and until the end of the world. Believers should understand the nature of relationship and ritual. That relationship is part of the nature of human beings and ritual is an external element to humanity. That Jesus re established the broken relationship by the first Adam. A good question to meditate on is, what about one's worship, is it driven by a relationship with Jesus or by a ritual of habit, cultural age, musical style…?
Question 3:
What values, expressions, etc. do you believe should characterize worship in 15 years? Why? Be specific.
The only sure thing about change is change. We live in a dynamic, fast spinning world. Values can change; they are temporal and can be devaluated. A very good example is the value of money. Today an individual might be able to get out his/her money's worth and tomorrow he/she might get less. Values and expressions can be like that. Is important to look into the future and try to foretell what values will be more important in 15 years in regarding to worship and why could that be so. It is important that every minister or pastor grapples these ideas now so that in the near future they can be prepared to be proactive in an ever changing world. Values and expressions would evolve in 15 years because of their dynamic and temporal nature.
Values are conveyed in expressions. What should really interest any minister are the future manifestations or expressions of values. Values among churched people (fold) are in a switching, process, an exchange from a passive worship experience to an active one. People now are moving to an engaging relationship with God when they come to worship. They are looking for authenticity when engaging God individually and corporately. This can be seen perhaps in the migration of evangelical churches form traditional hymn based services to contemporary and blended services. Like during the Reformation when the reformers gave worship back to the people, that is happening today and even more in the future. In the next 15 years worship would be characterized by a holistic and balanced activity highly experiential, interactive, and communal expression. These characteristics would probably be manifested in experiences which are not only about listening to a sermon but to experience God through the senses. A high holistic personal participation where any member of the church can take his/her laptop to the pew and make sermon notes or send the preacher an e mail making comments or questions about the message delivered. The worshiper would be highly visual and such means will enhance the sensory interaction of the worshiper during the service. Visual media would be used more efficiently in the future for example to do evaluative questions during the sermon, to support ideas, concepts; enhance feelings and attitudes in the worship process.
In regards to the outsiders or un-churched people (field) there is also a switch towards openness to them; being sensitive to the ones that are not part of the church. Here the congregations would move to be more hospitable. Hospitality would be expressed in terms of friendliness, generosity, providing and guiding the outsider through his/her experience while attending the service, making him/her feel as if they were special guests. Churches will be more attentive to their needs and doubts to provide for them and at least treat them in the best way that they would come back again.
All these switches that will be part of worship in 15 years from now are foreseeable because of the fact that our society now more than ever is being transformed by the context, technology, flow of information, instant knowledge, global dependency, we are not alone we are more accompanied than ever. Everybody has the power to know what happens in a little village in Africa or in any given Metropolis across the United Stated or Europe. Expressions of worship are not limited to our traditions practiced in our own little southern towns. Our new generations are emphasizing other things and also giving them more importance. Those are the means of expression that will be effected by values in the future. If somebody asks why values are changing or being replaced is because what we valued the most now lost value or lost its relative worth, now is not relevant, because that is the nature of values. Their only sure thing: change.
How does your trinitarianism influence your theology and practice of worship? What difference does it make when compared to other traditions of worship?
Good practices are determined by good theology. If beliefs are right then social living would be right. Worship is determined by theology it is theological by nature; its raison d'etre is God. Worship is a practice, a how to offer God one's love, gratitude and praise. Believers worship the God that is three persons in one because He has purposely revealed himself to save them. God's Trinity can never be abstracted from His redeeming work. The Trinity is an appropriate theological framework to interpret and practice worship and this approach makes a difference when compared to other traditions.
The Trinity must be ever present in the worship service in order to ensure worship in spirit and in truth. Salvation is a Trinitarian work: Christ died in the cross for our sins as the substitute for all our iniquities; the father's divine justice was satisfied and the sinner was declared just and free of charge; the Holy Spirit begot a new born creature therefore the believer is saved and his relationship with God is reestablished. This is what in essence makes worship happen. Since worship is a relationship between the believer and God therefore Trinitarian theology influences the way the relationship with God is acquired, how the believer approaches God and how he/she responds to Him. How we understand God determines how we approach Him. How we know God determines how we serve God because worship and service are sides of the same coin. If the believer has a correct view and understanding of the Trinity his/her attitude will be appropriate and healthy.
The worship service should be a celebration of Christ's nativity, death, resurrection and come back because of the salvation effected by the trinity in the believer. For one thing this work should make the believer individually to express his worship but also the theological knowledge of the believer should effect the attitude required to recognize God as God. Because he/she knows who God is the believer bows his/her will, mind and heart before God. Trinitarian knowledge of the believer can draw him/her near God with a sincere and grateful heart. The worship leader should be able to use the Trinitarian message through the service to prompt the believer to God and trigger the meaning of the Trinity in different expressions: hymns, songs, bible reading, prayer et al. That message will make the believer focus and remind the greatness and mercy of God through the given salvation.
Trinitarianism makes a difference when one compares an evangelical balanced Trinitarian worship service with other traditions. What makes the difference is actually the emphasis put in one of the persons of the trinity. This happens due to the fact that some churches, denominations and traditions emphasize the plural persons in the trinity which causes tri-theism. For example an overemphasis on the Father over the Son produces such tri-theism. One can see in a worship service an overemphasis in hymns and songs that only talk about the greatness of God and his works but not about the death and resurrection of Christ. This is clearly illustrated in Judaism where the emphasis is monotheistic. Others overemphasize the Holy Spirit and they even state that believers ought to pray to the Holy Spirit when the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit already intercedes for the believers (Rom 8:26). This can be seen in some Charismatic and Pentecostal denominations. There are other denominations that over emphasizes the humanity of Christ neglecting the other two persons of the trinity. This kind of overemphasis is present in the Catholic tradition.
B. Provide a sample order of worship with appropriate songs, flow of service elements, and sermon title and text that would illustrate your answer.
Worship Outline
Worship Service Design: Kinesthetic.
Theme: Lord's Supper, Proclaiming his Gospel until he comes.
Announcements
GATHERING
Come to worship
Come, Now is the Time to Worship
Shout joyfully to the Trinity
Holy, Holy, Holy
We will sing and chant the praise of your might, Oh Father
How Great is Our God
Bow down before the Son the LORD!
The Heart of Worship
My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust
This is Our God
HEARING THE MESSAGE OF GOD
Video Meditation on the Trinity
Sermon
Ephesians 4:4-6. One Spirit, one Lord, one God.
Invitation: Challenge, to be one with the Church.
Offertory: Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, That there may be food in my house, and try me in this, says the LORD of hosts…
…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us…(Final Song)
All of My Days
Entradas
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