The foundational premise
The all-encompassing activity of God creates a story that reaches from its beginning with God’s creation of all things to their future full re-creation through Jesus Christ. It is a coherent story because it has a unifying plot line of God’s faithfulness and mercy, especially as seen in Jesus Christ, that saves the cosmos despite human sin and weakness.
Theologian Robert Webber popularized this theology, summarizing it with a single line: “Worship does God’s story.” By using “does” rather than “tells,” Webber highlights that worship is more than spoken content. As he put it: “Worship proclaims, enacts, and sings God’s story.” There is a dynamic quality between our worship now and God’s work in the past and future. Worship “remembers God’s work in the past, anticipates God’s rule over all creation, and actualizes both past and future in the present to transform persons, communities, and the world.”
Probing questions for assessing worship
- Is it explicit or, at least, implicit that there is a narrative quality to God’s activity with humanity and with creation itself?
- What story is told — and not told — in the spoken content of a worship service?
- Is the story being told and done in worship sufficiently full and robust enough to match the breadth of the Bible’s witness to what God has done for the cosmos through Jesus Christ?
- Through what physical actions, symbols, and verbal acts do we participate in that cosmic story?