Idols

Thought for the day, paraphrased from a daily meditation by Richard Rohr:

Idolatry happens when we make the means [of worship] into the end.

It's easy to see idolatry with money or material goods, with fame, with power, with relationships.

But this idolatry of worship can be tricky. It's happened to me in my current job (worship planning and design). You begin to get caught up in details until the details and flow become the end instead of the means.

It's easy to miss that you're doing it, however, until you're reminded in some way that the purpose of all of this is to engender an environment and experience to bring the congregation to a place where they might encounter God.

We can't create an encounter. We can't design it. We can't plan it. Only God can. And to lose sight of that becomes idolatry of the worship experience.