http://afcmin.org/ateam/788/christianitys-central-theme Helping plans come together, one post at a time Sun, 03 May 2015 14:00:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.9 http://afcmin.org/ateam/788/christianitys-central-theme/comment-page-1#comment-3285 Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:05:35 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=788#comment-3285 Two thoughts, not necessarily in contradiction to what is being said, just thoughts.
First on this: “Once again, worship is a means to an end, and that end is to glorify God.”
In practice, what would be the difference between “bringing glory to God” and “worship”. If worship is much much more than singing songs, than it seems like these ideas would be synonymous.
And then, just as food for thought, those of us in the “missional” community, (missional being different than missions, more holistic theoretically) find the theological impetus for this in our understanding of our Trinitarian God. An understanding neatly summed up in a phrase like: “As the Father sent the Son, and together they sent the Spirit, so our God sends his church into the world.” (if a bit simplistic)
(check out wikipedia's Missio Dei entry)
I think I would be more comfortable describing the purpose of the church as “missions” (or a missional life style), rather than that being the “central theme” of Christianity. I say this because in some sense the church is temporary, when viewed in light of eternity.
I would tend to agree with piper when he points out that the absence of worship drives us. The father heart of God, a god who leaves the 99 for the one, the nature of our God as a sending God, this drives the church to place the missio dei as primary, and yes, because our God is a jealous God, one who desires an intimate relationship with his bride, the church.

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