If you’ve never read Harold M. Best’s Unceasing Worship, you’ve missed one of the seminal works on worship and the arts in the Church. I’m on my second read-through, a process which will likely take me quite a while since I’m reading it alongside other, newer books—and because it is such a deep read. The first time through took me a couple of months, and this time through will likely take even longer since I really want to completely absorb the book.
One of the “big ideas” in the book is that of mutual indwelling. Beyond the “Christ in us and we in Him” idea, it is a huge expansion that you’ll have to read about to even begin to completely understand. Essentially the idea is this: God mutually indwells Himself (the Trinity), God indwells us (personally) and we abide in Him, God indwells us (corporately) as the Church, and we indwell one another (via service, corporate worship, fellowship, etc.)
There are many rock-your-world statements throughout the book, but the one that really grabbed my attention today was this one from chapter 3, on page 50.
“There is only one worship war that can be properly described as such. It is the war between God and Satan, in which being in Christ or in Satan is the bedrock issue. Our petty skirmishes about worship, as ignoble, silly and demeaning as they can become, are nothing compared to the violence and tearing of the real and only war. This war is simply not ours at our dithering local level. It is the Lord’s, and if we were to better understand this one splendid fact, we would be placing far less emphasis on what we do, what style we do it in, what we keep and what we throw out, and what latest poll or societal ‘insight’ we choose to use as our template.”
~Unceasing Worship. Harold M. Best, 2003 InterVarsity Press, p. 50.
