Site seen: “Full-Bodied, Red-Wine Christian Orthodoxy”
The tagline across the top of the website of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Missouri (which meets at the University of Missouri
reads, “Full-Bodied, Red-Wine Christian Orthodoxy.”
The site quotes G.K. Chesterton’s term “the romance of orthodoxy,” and explains: “By “orthodoxy” he meant historic Christianity, “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” By “romance” he meant, well . . . romance—something both strange and familiar, something full of wonder and surprise. Something that storms the mind and captures the heart.”
It then quotes Chesterton as saying, “This is the thrilling romance of orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.”
The site features various writings of Pastor Travis Tamerius, including an overview of worship at Christ Our King:
When we come together each week to worship God, we are not escaping from the real world. We are entering the real world. In worship we are “doing the world as it was meant to be done.” We are becoming truly human in the way that God intended us to be. Central to becoming truly human is recognizing our dependence upon God. Our most basic posture before God is one of need. We need forgiveness, we need direction, we need beauty, we need food and we need strength to carry on. Even more, we need him. The good news we hear each week is that God is wildly extravagant about giving to us. He loves to provide us with gifts—assurances of his grace, words of instruction, the food and drink of heaven, his blessing upon our work. More importantly, he loves to give us himself. In the weekly rhythm of worship, we are renewing our relationship with God. He gives of his love to us; we return our love to him.
This vision of worship shapes our priorities in worship. In the Lord’s Day Service we seek to be God-centered, biblically faithful, thoughtfully catholic, congregationally involved and counter-cultural. continued...
Also from COK:
Worship as Holy War: Dethroning false gods
Weblog: Tasting Life Twice
Project Zimbabwe
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