Sorry for the butcher job. I usually do a better job than that, I don’t know why all those extra “c’s” were in there. It’s fixed now. I agree with what you said as well.

” 23″Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. 24Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others…. 31So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.”

Rich, I get what you are saying. I’ve already considered how I will apply it to my next worship service planning. Commenters, I would put emphasis on this verse “whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.” I think that this is the point Rich was trying to make.

Ya’ll all had some valid points, I would just venture to say that Rich is moreso challenging us to let the walls of routine and limits fall so that we may express to God how thankful we are and how great we know He is.

This could be expressed from a simple, unformatted and tone deaf hymn singing to a lights and fog moment of perfectly timed climax to one person standing up to share testimony b/c she chooses not to be silenced about how God saved her.

The kingdom of the OT was an earthly kingdom. The kingdom of the NT is a heavenly kingdom. There are distinct differences and we should acknowledge them.

The problem with the kind of extravagance you’re advocating is that it does not even imply or reveal true devotion to Christ. For 98% of churches in North America, it doesn’t really matter whether or not Christ is present during the worship service. Pretty much the same thing will happen, regardless. Further, it is easy enough for anyone who is not devoted to Christ to do pretty much the same things with similar results.

In comparison, NT gatherings of the ecclesia looked towards Christ as the head and the author of the gathering, and proceeded as guided by the Holy Spirit. It required the people to be fully devoted to Christ in order to work. The extravagance should come from the mysteries revealed, the miracles performed, the love and unity between brethren, and the revelation of Christ through His body. We do not have that in our churches today. So we’ve made up for it with a level of outward extravagance that has no NT basis.

Overall, I’d be fine with the production churches held if they were secondary, if they simply supported organic gatherings where all of the gifts of the church could be expressed, and if the church put significantly more effort into obedience to Christ’s explicit commands (love one another, care for those with needs, etc) as opposed to trying to justify our entertainment value through theological leaps and bounds, or by diminishing the new covenant by bringing in justifications from the old covenant and trying to take on values and norms from the world.

My opinion is that it is good to borrow elements from other cultures, but these elements should be profitable. If we started a church in China I’d be much more open to borrowing Chinese elements. I would borrow true Chinese cultural elements rather than elements from a $300-million public relations event sponsored by one of the worst human-rights violators in existence on this earth today. The irony here is that despite the oppression to Christ of the Chinese government the Christian church in China is growing at a much faster rate than the Christian church in America. You want bold worship? How about the boldness to continue the worshship service if soldiers crashed into our church building on Sunday morning and threatened to shoot anyone who didn’t stop singing?

I walked in on an awesome worship service in the acute-care facility in which my dad is a patient. The leader was one man on an amplified acousitic guitar who when he didn’t know the next chord, he simply stayed with the chord he happened to be playing. A tambourine player incessantly slammed out the one and the three. There was all manner of intonation problems in these 80-plus-years-old voices. The music standing alone by itself would hurt the listener’s ears. On the other hand, the heartfelt expression and energy was intoxicating. You could hear them two halls away from their community room. The per-capita vocal output of the eight people attending was greater than twenty typical church-attenders. It was so captivating that I went down to check it out and was ready to ask if I could join them but there was no piano in the community room. The point is: it wasn’t the facility or the quality that was driving their worship. This was example of bold, heartfelt, giving-it-all-they-had, two-mites-into-the-treasury worship from people who aren’t very sure they’ll be alive tomorrow.

Extravagant worship expression is not mutually exclusive to all the things your are talking about. See a reality where the “both and” exists and you can accept both as true together.

Extravagance WITHOUT the devotion is empty, for sure. But, that logically does not make extravagance with devotion a problem.

(I appreciate your zealousness, but really you need your own blog on this brother. )

Just because Egypt built the pyramids and Israel built the temple doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to do the same types of things. The kingdom we’re in is totally different, and extravagance is measured in a different way. It is our love for one another, and our love for and obedience to Christ, that is supposed to be extravagant. I’ve never once read an issue about “quality” in the New Testament writings, but I see a heck of a lot about righteousness, holiness, and love for each other.

I can’t think of one passage of scripture where God got angry because people were too extravagant in their worship.

Actually, lack of extravagance (ie bringing a blemished sheep in Malachi 1:8) seemed to indicate a lack in heart condition. Heart condition is what God is really after.

Why would worship of God not be a “sound and profitable” idea on its own? It is our eternal purpose as individuals and as the Church.

Judas and legalism IS THE POINT! Legalists will always seethe in anger against passionate extravagant expression to God. Think of David’s wife Michal. She had the same attitude upon seeing his outburst of worship at the very parade he orchestrated. The hard heart of the legalist will use any excuse–feeding the poor, being dignified, keeping the sabbath.

The idea is that is not too create a huge event or show but to ask our hearts if we are willing to accept the worship of the Chinese state in such a fashion, why are we so loathe to accept the worship of God being even half as extravagant? If that is globally a culturally indigenous way to express worship, why not be as bold for our worship of God?