{"id":37,"date":"2025-03-01T04:56:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T04:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cssigniter.com\/demos\/eclecticon\/?p=37"},"modified":"2025-04-24T21:31:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:31:58","slug":"liturgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/liturgia\/","title":{"rendered":"X. Liturgy"},"content":{"rendered":"

#Values: <\/a><\/b><\/b>Values are definitions of what we hope will identify us. These articles are mainly intended for those who want to join us in this project\u2014whether to pray, donate, or collaborate.<\/p>\n

Our worship, beyond music, will include all practices that draw us closer to God\u2019s grace and power, in creative and relevant ways.<\/p>\n

Beta Values #10: Meaningful Worship<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

In worship, we will respond to His Word, the Sacraments, and the Spirit in obedience and love, learning from the different streams of Christian spirituality throughout history.<\/p>\n

Beta Values #12: Transformative Worship<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

We want to be a healthy biblical community, guided by His Word, and not distracted from the witness of Christ, spiritual growth, and mutual care. We aim to live by the principle that people and relationships are more important than programs, being a Christlike community.<\/p>\n

Beta Values #14: A Healthy Community<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

In worship, we gather to encounter God in ways that everyone can understand\u2014both those within and outside the community.<\/p>\n

Beta Values #11: Intelligible Worship<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

We want to be a place of love, joy, and peace that reflects God\u2019s character and His desire for all to return to Him: men and women, boys and girls, of all ages, social groups, and cultures.<\/p>\n

Beta Values #13: A Spiritual Home<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Alongside face-to-face relationships\u2014especially in small groups\u2014we will use technology to fulfill our mission.<\/p>\n

Beta Values #15: Digital Tools<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Worship is recognizing God and responding to Him with our hearts. That is why we usually express it through our prayers and songs, which can be understood as \u201camplified prayers,\u201d as Augustine of Hippo beautifully put it: \u201cThe one who sings prays twice.\u201d However, worship is not limited to our \u201clips\u201d; it extends to our entire lives. The Bible constantly reminds us: \u201cThese people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me\u201d (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8). This means our worship not only involves acknowledging God\u2019s character but also responding with our hearts and actions. For example, if we recognize that God is love, we express our love for Him and live accordingly, by loving our neighbor.<\/p>\n

This principle is reflected in the greatest commandment, which urges us to love God with our whole being (Mark 12:30\u201331). To better understand this, we can break it down into several parts. To love God \u201cwith all the heart\u201d means to love Him sincerely, from the depths of our being. Even today we use expressions like \u201cI say this from the heart\u201d to denote something genuine. The next three elements refer to different aspects of our lives: soul, mind, and strength.<\/p>\n

With all the soul:<\/b><\/span> This relates to our feelings and emotions. Loving God with our soul means expressing our love to Him, worshiping Him, and responding to His presence\u2014especially in communion with Him during our worship gatherings.<\/p>\n

With all the mind:<\/b><\/span> Loving God also means seeking to know Him more deeply. Just as in marriage love is strengthened by truly knowing the other, our relationship with God grows as we study His Word and learn who He is. A simple way to illustrate this would be to imagine a spouse who forgets their wedding anniversary. If we do not know God, our love will remain superficial.<\/p>\n

With all the strength:<\/b><\/span> Love is shown through actions. It\u2019s not enough to say we love God\u2014we must show it by obeying His commands, especially by loving our neighbor (1 John 4). As Jesus taught, our works must reflect His love and lead others to glorify God (Matthew 5:16).<\/p>\n

So, while music is an important and contextual expression of our worship, it is a mistake to reduce worship solely to singing. This is especially relevant when our worship does not reflect the love of Christ in our community. 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that love must be the foundation of our gatherings. In the following chapter, Paul explains that this love is evident when our meetings aim at spiritual growth\u2014not just for those already part of the community, but also for those who are not yet. This growth happens especially when everyone understands what is going on as we gather to worship God.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the focus of our public worship must be that God is at the center and that our lives are being conformed to His image. If the church is the body of Christ, we must be a community that reflects Christ. While this may seem obvious, it must be continually remembered, because like any human community, churches are also vulnerable to distortions caused by sin.<\/p>\n

Finally, we must remember that we live in a rapidly changing context where analog and digital realms coexist. As a community, we must learn to see the digital realm not only as a space for generating community or as a tool for spiritual growth, but also as a mission field\u2014without neglecting the importance of face-to-face relationships.<\/p>\n

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<\/b>Translation is the Church\u2019s birthmark and also its missionary reference point: the Church would be unrecognizable or unsustainable without it.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cThe New Testament reminds us that the visible church is not the ideal church, for the church is a divine-human society that participates not only in the divine love of its founder but also in the flaws of its human nature\u2014it is always in need of renewal. God takes the same risk with the church in redemption as He did when granting people freedom in creation. Just as God the Holy Spirit used Paul\u2019s hands for \u2018extraordinary miracles,\u2019 so He can use His church today. The results will be the same: the word of the Lord will grow mightily and prevail\u201d (Acts 19:11, 20).<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Book of Discipline<\/i>, Free Methodist Church, 2023<\/p>\n

New Wine and New Wineskins \u00b66860 Since we consider evangelistic effectiveness our highest priority, we affirm that apostolic activity in the harvest fields will give rise to many different forms and trajectories of new disciple groups. In submission to Jesus\u2019 teaching on the need for new wineskins for new wine, we choose to trust our apostolic leaders, allowing for innovation and organizational flexibility in the growing frontier of the Free Methodist Church, and avoiding rigid institutional boundaries that could hinder the rapid expansion of the Kingdom. We trust that, over time, godly disciple-makers and church planters will help many of the new disciples and groups to embrace the distinctive realities of the Free Methodist Church under God\u2019s direction. In accordance with \u00b66850, all parties involved will seek to establish and strengthen bonds of fellowship and connection, while also recognizing evangelistic effectiveness as the highest priority.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Book of Discipline<\/i>, Free Methodist Church, 2023<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we choose to incarnate, we find ourselves between our own world and someone else\u2019s. We are called to remain faithful to who we are without losing our essence, and at the same time, enter into the world of another. However, we can be confident that just as Jesus\u2019 incarnation and death brought great life, our decision to do the same will also result in resurrection life and much fruit\u2014in us and in others.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our worship, beyond the musical, will include all practices that draw us closer to God\u2019s grace and power in creative and relevant ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1153,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/1153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.church\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}