For the Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephens University.Essentials Red Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

What is it that makes a person a Christian? Merriam-Webster defines it as:  1 a: one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ b (1): disciple 2 (2): a member of one of the Churches of Christ separating from the Disciples of Christ in 1906 (3): a member of the Christian denomination having part in the union of the United Church of Christ concluded in 1961  2: the hero in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress

Although I do love Pilgrims Progress, I want to focus on the first definition of the word, one who professes belief in the teaching of Jesus Christ.  The teaching of Jesus are found in the New Testament, and has roots and is based on the Old Testament.  Everything we know about Jesus we know from the Bible.  There are very few references to Jesus outside of scripture historically, enough to know he existed, but not enough to build a theology.

In other words without scripture we wouldn’t know what it was to be a Christian.  Our faith would probably look a lot like the other great religions of the world, and we wouldn’t have the diverse unity that we have today.  Without the Bible everything would be different.

I don’t want to say that the teaching of the word is the most important thing in our faith.  There are many equally important things that need to be stressed as well at theology, such as worship, prayer, Eucharist.  The teaching and the ensuing theology are very vital and everything else hinges on that.  Without theology we wouldn’t have worship, prayer, or Eucharist.

I know there are myriad ways of teaching the word.  One way is to preach through the entire Bible in a three year span.  Another more ancient way called the Christian Year, focuses on the life and ministry of Jesus, and incorporates much of scripture and covers the “bigger story”, the grand narrative, of the Bible.

One of my favorite preachers, Mark Driscoll, spends months and months going through the Bible book by book.  He did a sermon series on Genesis that took 9 months to complete.  All in all, he says it’ll take him around 33 years to go through the entire Bible.

As a kid, I grew up in an Assemblies of God Church.  It really was a great Church and the people loved God and loved people.  It was a little less restrictive in the preaching and teaching.  A lot of times there were no series, the pastor would pray each week and God would lay a certain subject or scripture passage on his heart.  The result a sense that God still speaks to each of us today, and that God can and does use anyone.  He can give you a message as well.

I’m sure there are many more ways to preach and teach God’s word.  Each has strengths and weaknesses, but ideally there should be a place to take the best of ideas and incorporate them into something new and fresh.
Growing up in a more of a charismatic or evangelical church atmosphere, I’m more inclined to learn more about the past, to take a road I’ve never been down.  In my past church traditions it seems that we broke from the past in regard to tradition and liturgy.  And as I learn more about the past, the more I’m intrigued and attracted to the ancient roots.  But not to go back, to be propelled into the future.
Robert Webber writes in his book Ancient-Future Time:  “the road to the future runs through the past.”  We are not “enslaved to history”, as Ben Weasel mistakenly puts it in his song The Science of Myth (although I can see how it might seem that way).  But the idea is to examine where we’ve been, and take a look at culture today, and with the Holy Spirits leading, and use what ever we need to in order to move forward with the Gospel and the Kingdom of God.
Personally I like the idea of the Christian Year.  Since I’m not a pastor, but a worship leader, and I do have a home group, so I think we’re going to look into that and see how it goes.  I look forward to it.