Bifrost Arts Conference: Liturgy, Music, & Space – Greg Thompson on Why Liturgy is Important

Zac HicksWorship Theology & Thought5 Comments

As I can, I’ll post my notes from the Liturgy, Music, & Space conference in St. Louis, MO.  Cardiphonia and I are in an arms race to see who can post first about it all.  Hopefully I’ll win! 🙂

INFO

Plenary Session: “The Order of Worship and the Order of Love”

Greg Thompson is the Senior Pastor for Worship at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesviille, Virginia. Prior to this, he served as Reformed University Fellowship campus minister at the University of Virginia from 2000-2005. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and Covenant theological Seminary adn is pursuing a Ph.D. in Theology at the University of Virginia. Recently, he was the editor of the book Hearing the Call: Liturgy, Justice, Church, and World (Eerdmans, 2011).

SYNOPSIS

Liturgy actually shapes us in the “order of God’s love,” and our worship should reflect the twin reality of “participation” and “protest.”  Because liturgy is habit-forming, liturgy done rightly trains us to simultaneously participate in God’s love and plan and protest the ways our culture’s idols fight against our participation in the life of God.  Common liturgical elements (e.g. call to worship, confession, benediction) are not only important, but essential, to walking this road of participation and protest in worship.

OUTLINE

Here’s a PDF of my notes, which I think are fairly thorough, organized, and easy-to-follow.  My understanding is that the recordings of the sessions will be available, too, somewhere, somehow.

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