When I was appointed Dean of Augustana Chapel for this academic year, I thought it best to make the final push and get the book done. The manuscript was approved this week. Now it's on to copyediting and proof pages.
When God Speaks through Worship: Stories Congregations Live By is a collection of stories of congregational worship in which, upon reflection, God’s ongoing presence, speech, and activity are apparent. On the one hand, they are small, unassuming stories of God’s involvement in the weekly worship of congregations where I served as pastor. On the other hand, these are stories those congregations lived by, instances in which they experienced God giving them new life and gathering them to share God’s work of bringing new life to the world. The themes of the stories in this book are things Christians do when they worship—preach and pray, baptize and bless, light candles and sing songs, share Holy Communion, commend loved ones to God and the communion of saints. Yet, the stories are not about Christians; they are about God speaking and acting in worship when Christians do these things. The thread that holds these stories together is the connection between God’s saving activity in Scripture and God’s saving activity in worship. Their purpose is to celebrate the good news that worship is God’s work of saving and recreating the world, before it is an activity of the church or the Christian.
The book will be out in January.
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