Christian worship Quote by James K.A. Smith

“So it is precisely our allergy to repetition in worship that has undercut the counterformative power of Christian worship—because all kinds of secular liturgies shamelessly affirm the good of repetition.” quote by James K.A. Smith — Download Open image

““So it is precisely our allergy to repetition in worship that has undercut the counterformative power of Christian worship—because all kinds of secular liturgies shamelessly affirm the good of repetition.””

James K.A. Smith

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Christian worship Prayer

More by James K.A. Smith

“Jesus is a teacher who doesn’t just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn’t content to simply deposit new ideas into…

James K.A. Smith

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“too often we look for the Spirit in the extraordinary when God has promised to be present in the ordinary.5”

James K.A. Smith

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“Formative Christian worship paints a picture of the beauty of the Lord--and a vision of the shalom he desires for creation--in a way that captures our imagination…The biblical vision of shalom --of a world where the Lamb is our light, where swords are beaten into ploughshares, where abundance is enjoyed by all, where people from every tribe and tongue and…

James K.A. Smith

“Too much of our cultural analysis is rooted in thinking-thingism: we scan culture, listening for “messages,” bent on rooting out “false” teachings. But if we are first and foremost lovers, and if our action is overwhelmingly governed by our unconscious habits, then intellectual threats might not be the most important. Indeed, we could be so fixated on intellectual temptations that…

James K.A. Smith

“We confess knowledge without certainty, truth without objectivity.”

James K.A. Smith

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“Worship, then, needs to be characterized by hospitality; it needs to be inviting. But at the same time, it should be inviting seekers into the church and its unique story and language. Worship should be an occasion of cross-cultural hospitality. Consider an analogy: when I travel to France, I hope to be made to feel welcome. However, I don't expect…

James K.A. Smith

“Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love.”

James K.A. Smith

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“Your deepest desire,” he observes, “is the one manifested by your daily life and habits.”6 This is because our action—our doing—bubbles up from our loves, which, as we’ve observed, are habits we’ve acquired through the practices we’re immersed in. That means the formation of my loves and desires can be happening “under the hood” of consciousness. I might be learning…

James K.A. Smith

“Foucault. The seemingly disturbing, even Nietzschean claim that “power is knowledge” should push us to realize what MTV learned long ago: (a) the cultural power of formation and discipline, and hence (b) the necessity of the church to enact counterformation by counterdisciplines. In other words, we need to think about discipline as a creational structure that needs proper direction. Foucault…

James K.A. Smith

“The doubter’s doubt is faith; his temptation is belief, and it is a temptation that has not been entirely quelled, even in a secular…

James K.A. Smith

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“Worship works from the top down, you might say. In worship we don’t just come to show God our devotion and give him our praise; we are called to worship because in this encounter God (re)makes and molds us top-down. Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn’t just…

James K.A. Smith

“While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory and the monastery, more specifically these disciplines and practices are aimed at very different ends. And here we must make an important distinction: we can distinguish good discipline from bad discipline by its telos, its goal or end.…

James K.A. Smith

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We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the…

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Awe combined with intimacy is the essence of Christian worship.

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“Formative Christian worship paints a picture of the beauty of the Lord--and a vision of the shalom he desires for creation--in a way that captures our imagination…The biblical vision of shalom --of a world where the Lamb is our light, where swords are beaten into ploughshares, where abundance is enjoyed by all, where people from every tribe and tongue and…

James K.A. Smith

“At the heart of early Christian worship was table fellowship. Throughout the first three centuries Christian communities gathered once a week for a meal. Across time these communities moved from an early model, which Tertullian called “our small feasts,” to a later model, which Origen called a “great feast.” 3 I call these models the “evening banquet” and the “morning…

Alan Kreider

“The Eucharist is usually not considered an essential aspect of Christian worship by those concerned with church growth.”

Paul W. Chilcote

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“According to Tertullian, impatient actions do not produce what they promise. Instead, impatient actions make things worse, bringing about massive misfortunes. “Now, nothing undertaken through impatience can be transacted without violence, and everything done with violence has either met with no success or has collapsed or has plunged to its own destruction.” 57 Patience, on the other hand, brings new…

Alan Kreider