“But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32)

Give me the latitude to take this scripture a little out of context … it was spoken by Jesus to indicate “the kind of death he was going to die”, and so might be seen to underpin a message of atonement.

But in common usage, many evangelicals use this to refer to worship, saying that it God is truly worshipped in our communities, people will be drawn to us.

Regardless of how good or bad my hermeneutics are in this case, and following on from yesterdays question “Is evangelicalism inherently dualistic?” I want to ask why the Lausanne agenda hardly feature s the issue of worship.

Is it because we view the process as convincing people to join the church, and then once secured, introducing the notion of worship, which is an activity that would be performed for all eternity.

I have problems with this approach. Firstly, it creates a dualism between in and out. And secondly, worship as practiced in churches by and large is boring and uncreative, in my opinion. I’m glad for those who have a different experience, but I just need to be honest because it’s an issue that is dear to me.

Perhaps one of the reasons why evangelical methods are losing their power and appeal is because we are not tending to the question of what a worthy worship might be, and the degree to which it has the power to transform us.

If you want to read more have a look at my series of posts entitled “A worthy worship” in 8 parts, starting here http://soundandsilence.wordpress.com/2006/11/16/a-worthy-worship-1-eternity/