Worship and meeting together

It is interesting to compare the great post by Derek Thomas on worship, and Mark Horne's even better follow-up, when, like me, you have spent so much time in a segment of British Evangelicalism heavily influenced by Sydney Anglicans. The Presbyterians in America are more than happy to describe meeting together as worship (in a sense above the usual) and even talk of Sunday meetings as entering the presence of God. In contrast the Sydney Anglicans get all worked up about anything of that sort (Pentecostal songs about accending up Mount Zion being particularly disliked).

The wonderful thing about the web is how it can show you so many different points of view forcing you to go back to scripture. I can see the strengths of both perspectives, but will think about it a bit more.

If you want to read some examples of the Sydney Anglican view try either Tony Payne's article on the church, or his email discussion with Don Carson on worship.

PS you may have noticed, but probably have not, that Mark Horne has been promoted to my favourite blogs list, replacing the currently quite quiet Beginning with Moses Blog. The last few weeks he has been producing some very thought provoking stuff and is worth a look.

---------- update (9th Sept) ----------

Just to clarify: the two parties I mentioned above are obviously operating in totally different contexts and so should not be seen as propagating opposite sides of the one argument. Each is reacting to different issues to the other, and they would no doubt agree on more than they disagree.